Questions Answered, Fears Realized

For those of you not recovering from the worst flu imaginable followed by four straight days of hardcore drinking and college basketball, you are probably already aware that Lou answered a bunch of lineup-related questions yesterday.

I don't know if I should be excited, relieved or worried. I'm gonna go with worried.

Read More...

Question #1: Who is going to be the Cub's closer?

This one really wasn't in doubt other than the brief back scare a few weeks back. Howry stunk up the joint all spring. Marmol was Marmol. And "The Artist Formerly Known as Kid K" managed to pitch enough consecutive innings to become the sexy choice. EVERYONE wants this to work out for Kerry. Fans, players, management...pretty much everyone not a White Sox or Cardinals fan (ie people with their souls still intact) are hoping he can really make it this time. The problem is, with that many folks collectively pulling for him AND the fact that this is the friggin' Chicago Cubs we are talking about here, all signs point to big trouble. I don't want to be a "Debbie Downer" here, but the chances of this story having a happy ending are about a trillion to one. I hope I'm wrong. I'm praying I'm wrong, actually. And therein lies the rub.

Crap.

Question #2: Who is going to be in the 5-man rotation?

This one was a tad less obvious. After the three sure things (Lilly, Z and Hill) there were 3-4 guys competing for 2 spots...a young guy with a smoking hot wife, an angry veteran who had already pissed off the manager two days into Spring Training by demanding a trade, a seasoned veteran coming off major off-season surgery and a starter/closer/starter. Exciting, no?

Dempster looked good enough to lock down one spot this spring. His velocity wasn't great and neither was his control, so this is obviously a solid move. There is still a chance he could be back in the pen by mid-season, but I bet he gets a ton of chances to make it (or blow it depending on your overall outlook) before that terrible idea is even considered.

That left three more.


So, Lieber had more wins, a better ERA and more K's in basically the same number of innings as Marquis. So he's the big winner, right? Not quite.

Marquis gets the nod and Lieber is now long relief (aka stuck in Purgatory). Everything I read says this is only because the Cubs are still trying to find a sucker to take Marquis off our hands and not listing him as a starter drives down his value. Whatever.

All I see is a pitcher who did everything asked of him this spring AND didn't bitch being rewarded with the always fun duty of eating up innings when someone (Read: Marquis) poops the bed. My excitement is almost palpable.

Question #3: Who wins the center field job?

This one came down to Pie's one healthy testicle versus Fuld's two. It's gotta suck when you get beat by a guy with less healthy balls. Enjoy AAA, Sammy.

Question #4: Brian Roberts or no Brian Roberts?

Still up in the air last I checked, although we did sign Ex-Blue Jay Reed Johnson today. So we've got that going for us, which is nice. Right?

Sigh.

Go Cubs.

UPDATE: Here is quite possibly the funniest thing that will ever be written about Reed Johnson. Kudos to Hire Jim Essian!

Johnson is basically what you’d get if you took away a chunk of Matt Murton’s power, added a bunch of strikeouts, marginally improved his defense, and then slugged him in the lower back with a baseball bat.

I don't care who you are...that's funny.

Go Cubs.

UPDATE #2: Just went back and reread this. Yikes. After some serious edits, the post is now available for your reading pleasure in actual English. My bad.

Go Cubs.