MESA, Ariz. -- Lou Piniella gave Cubs fans a glimpse of the future Friday, assuming that future consists of home-grown products instead of expensive free-agent acquisitions.
Starlin Castro, Tyler Colvin, Josh Vitters and Brett Jackson were all in the starting lineup in Friday's game against Arizona, along with veteran Kevin Millar.
"I was the dad," Millar said. "Dad was in the lineup. Now I see how the Griffeys played together. If I had a 20-year-old son, Vitters would be my son."
Brad Snyder's two-run double in the ninth gave the Cubs an 8-7 comeback win, leaving them 2-0 in Cactus League play.
Piniella plans to rest his regulars early in spring, giving the kids a chance to play together at times.
"We're playing a nice young lineup today and we'll let 'em play," Piniella said. "Why not? I just talked to Tom (Ricketts) upstairs and told him we had a nice young lineup for him to watch."
Ricketts wants the Cubs to rely on their farm system more often in the future, which will keep the payroll down and prevent the team from getting old together. Colvin was 2-for-3 with 2 RBI and Jackson tripled.
None of the four prospects in the starting lineup are expected to make the Opening Day roster, though Castro may be in line to be called up during the season. Colvin, Vitters and Jackson are probably blocked for a while due to long-term deals for Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukudome and Marlon Byrd.
The Cubs did get two hitless innings from starter Carlos Zambrano, who looked and felt great after working out all winter. In their first two Cactus League games, Zambrano, Randy Wells and Sean Marshall have combined for six hitless innings.
"I'll tell you what, this is one of the best teams I've ever been on," Zambrano said. "Everybody came and did what they had to do, focusing on what we have to do. Everybody's working hard. It's good when you see a team like that, when you see everybody knows what their role is."
The shoulder injury to Angel Guzman, who may be out for an extended period pending the results of his MRI, has put pressure on the young Cubs pitching prospects to perform. Zambrano is not worried.
"I've never seen so many good arms in spring training," he said, pointing specifically to Rafael Dolis and Justin Berg. "You know what? How do you get experience? By playing. It's up to Lou. He's the manager. I know he can move the pieces, and he's going to do anything possible to get a lot of experience for these young guys."
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Hendry and Lou have proven their way doesn't work. signing, over paying old, slow, bad D players is not the right way to run a business. as for Rickettes, he's got the right idea, you make money, draft well, spend wisely. I think we'll have a young, good, better team/future starting in 2011 when Lou is gone.
you try to bring up a good young player about every 2 years. you trade an aging player a year early rather than a year too late.
if you wait till May to bring Castro up to keep him an extra year than you're not really trying to win, it's money and bad management. this year Rickettes is leaving the baseball side to Hendry and Lou. so this year is wasted.
no matter what Lou says, he quit last year. did you notice how he changed his attitude when the Rickettes finally took over. now it doesn't matter if our hitters are lefty or righty, yesterday he told the Rickettes to watch him play the young kids, he's a kiss ass.
Not that i wouldn't like to see the Cubs start to rely on their farm system more, but i find it a bit disconcerting that all i've read in regards to the Rickett's thus far, is about how they're wanting to cut expenses and raise revenues. I certainly understand them wanting to make a profit, and also realize that they're probably aware of Hendry's failures at free agency; however, they're spew at the beginning was in how they were intent on bringing a championship to Chicago for the long suffering Cub fans, and from what i've seen and read to this point, the only intentions i've seen from the new owners is profit issues before anything else.
I'll insult Zambrano for Mr. Sullivan. I love to see him fail because I hate to see good things happen to bad people.
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97th! Thats total B.S. I don't see it as 96 players better than me. Sun-Times, you are WAY off base (no pun intended).
Wow, Sullivan mentioned Zambrano w/o insulting him!
But if they just rely on their farm system, a lot of the guys will still get old together.
I wish there was a way to get rid of Soriano and his big contract. :(
At least the rest of the Cactus League had a chance to see the Cubs' trade bait.
Too bad we cant get rid of the old guys like Soriano,Fontenot,fuku and play guys that want to play and show the effort.. 6 months to rehab arthroscopic surgery(whne the doctors say it should heal in 6 weeks ) shows me Soriano DONT care and will start because of LOU and screw the whole nice young mix up..