Young outfielder Tyler Colvin will make the Chicago Cubs' Opening Day roster if the team can find him sufficient playing time, according to manager Lou Piniella . Colvin, 24, would need to get somewhere in the neighborhood of two starts per week in order to justify keeping him on board, by Piniella's reckoning.
Colvin was the team's 2006 first-round pick, and the team is intent upon getting him regular playing time. Therefore, he may start the season in Triple-A Iowa, and be promoted if and when the Cubs need his bat either as an injury replacement or as a left-handed bat ...
With just two weeks to go until Opening Day, the Chicago Cubs spent the weekend crystallizing a number of hazily defined roles on their 2010 club.
To the established bullpen core of right-handers Carlos Marmol and Esmailin Caridad and lefty John Grabow, manager Lou Piniella added young right-handed fireballer Justin Berg. Berg, 25, allowed just 10 hits and one walk during his 12-inning audition at the end of last season. This spring, opponents have logged only one hit and two walks in six innings against him.
With Berg now a definite part of the mix, the team has only one open spot ...
On the pre-game radio show before the Chicago Cubs' Tuesday Cactus League match-up with the Texas Rangers, manager Lou Piniella set forth his projected lineup for Opening Day 2010.
It included few surprises, but certainly answered some questions about how Piniella intends to build his offense this season, and about who has managed to impress him most during Spring Training.
Here is the lineup as Piniella recited it, along with a brief take on the player's spot in the order (does it make sense, how does it affect their projected stats, etc.) and the logic of the move for the team.Begin Slideshow
Starlin Castro is not yet a 20-year-old. He stands six-feet tall, but weighs less than 165 pounds. Yet, he is the top prospect in the Chicago Cubs organization, and to this point, he is the Cactus League leader in on-base plus slugging (OPS). It is an exceptionally good time to be Starlin Castro.
Unfortunately, it may turn out to be an equally bad time to be a Chicago Cubs fan. If and when Castro reaches the Major Leagues in 2010, he will be a colossal disappointment and the team will be left holding a painfully familiar Shawon Dunston-shaped bag.
Instead, the Cubs ...
Derrek Lee enters 2010 as the Cubs' starting first baseman, the seventh season in which he has done so since being acquired from the Florida Marlins in November 2003.
During his impressive Cubs tenure, Lee boasts one batting title, a .304/.384/.539 batting line, and a pair of Gold Glove awards.
He also has made two All-Star teams, won one Silver Slugger, and clubbed 163 home runs.
Lee will turn 35 in September, however, and when his current contract expires after the season, the Cubs have a difficult decision to make: Should they hang on to their most consistent leader and contributor of the ...
When Chicago Cubs general manager Jim Hendry set out to trade suspended outfield pariah Milton Bradley this off-season, he must have known he had relatively little chance of obtaining much in return. Bradley was ready to depart his seventh team in ten big-league seasons, and all but one of the divorces had been messy affairs.
Considering his predicament, then, Hendry could have done worse than he did. Chicago acquired pitcher Carlos Silva, a contractual pariah with the Seattle Mariners, and saved money in doing so.
But what to expect of Silva in 2010? Not much, by most estimates. The hefty right-handed hurler ...
Seven-and-a-half million dollars is a lot of money to pay to a relief pitcher who walked a career-high 4.98 batters per nine innings in the previous season.
That is especially true if the reliever in question also struck out a career-low 7.09 strikeouts per nine innings in that season.
Yet general manager Jim Hendry and the Chicago Cubs made just such an investment this winter when they inked left-handed hurler John Grabow to a two-year pact.
It is easy to see what Hendry and his team see in Grabow: Indeed, Grabow's surface-level numbers are stellar. His 148.1 innings over the past two seasons ...
It's hard to know what happened, exactly, but Mike Fontenot's career fell right out from under him in 2009.
Fontenot, who will turn 30 in June this year, entered last season as the Cubs' starter at second base. While many players and fans missed the affable Mark DeRosa's clubhouse presence, Fontenot's 2008 season provided ample evidence that DeRosa's on-field skill set was expendable. In 284 plate appearances, Fontenot batted .305/.395/.514. Those are star-caliber numbers, and while it was apparent to all that another such performance was unlikely, his future as a late-blooming left-handed hitter looked bright.
Handed the starting job on a ...
Angel Guzman is a star-crossed young man.
Injuries have hampered the development of this talented right-handed Venezuelan hurler throughout his career.
Finally, in 2009, he overcame them, stepping brilliantly into the setup role in Chicago's bullpen.
He struck out 47 and walked just 23 in 61 innings, and he allowed the ninth-lowest line drive rate among Major League relievers, according to fangraphs.com.
Fate intervened again this winter, however, as Guzman's brother and best friend were gunned down by unknown shooters in their increasingly crime-ridden hometown of Caracas. To add to that enormous and inestimable loss, Guzman then found out (upon reporting to Cubs camp) that ...
Contrary to popular belief, right fielder Kosuke Fukudome of the Chicago Cubs is not a bad hitter. Though just a .258 career hitter, Fukudome's on-base percentage in two Major League seasons is a more than respectable .367.
Popular belief has a funny way of creeping into Chicago's front office, however, and so GM Jim Hendry went out this winter and procured reinforcements.
Xavier Nady, 31, played in just seven games last year before a serious elbow injury claimed his season.
He still received a World Series ring from the eventual champion New York Yankees, but there was barely a whisper of talk that the ...
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