By Phil RogersTalking baseball while feeling for the Illini and everyone else in life on the bubble:
1. When Lou Piniella's first Cubs team went to the playoffs, it featured a bullpen that included $15.3 million in relief talent -- a figure that easily could have been $20 million if Kerry Wood hadn't been a post-surgery bargain that season. The steady drain of experience since then has been telling, hurting the Cubs a year ago and this season making it hard to take them seriously in their attempt to catch the Cardinals.
Since the end of 2007, the Cubs have shifted Ryan Dempster from the bullpen to the rotation, lost Wood, Bob Howry and Kevin Gregg to free agency ad traded away Scott Eyre, Michael Wuertz and Aaron Heilman. The only experienced reliever they've added in that time who is still around is lefty John Grabow.
Somehow, none of these pitching trades nor the Mark DeRosa deal has brought any pitching help (although lefty John Gaub has the arm to develop into a long-term big-leaguer). The Cubs came to camp thin and have had that situation exposed by Angel Guzman's shoulder injury.
General manager Jim Hendry has been known to pull rabbits out of hats, but March isn't the best time to stock your shelves. The choices available include signing an out-of-work veteran like John Smoltz or trading for one of the few available arms on the market. You'd have to pay heavily in terms of talent for the likes of Jason Frasor, Heath Bell, Brad Ziegler or Wood or take a financial risk for somebody like the White Sox's Scott Linebrink.
2. The Joe Nathan injury could hurt the Cubs' ongoing bullpen efforts as they are believed to also have an interest in Frasor, the 32-year-old product of Oak Forest High School with the Blue Jays. A source indicates that the Blue Jays had scouts watching the Twins on Tuesday. They reportedly are targeting outfielders in their talks about Frasor. That would put prospects like Sam Fuld and Tyler Colvin potentially in play in the Cubs' talks with Toronto.
3. Man, wish I had been in Viera, Fla., Tuesday to watch Stephen Strasburg. From the highlights he was just as impressive in his first outing for the Nationals as Aroldis Chapman had been on Monday for the Reds. One thing the two phenoms have in common is the ability to blow hitters away with either fastballs or ridiculously hard breaking pitches. The last pitch Strasburg threw in his two-inning outing against Detroit should be a crime in 50 states. It was, I think, his so-called changeup -- a 90-mph pitch that dives. Check it out on this video.
General manager Jim Hendry has been known to pull rabbits out of hats, but March isn't the best time to stock your shelves. The choices available include signing an out-of-work veteran like John Smoltz or trading for one of the few available arms on the market. You'd have to pay heavily in terms of talent for the likes of Jason Frasor, Heath Bell, Brad Ziegler or Wood or take a financial risk for somebody like the White Sox's Scott Linebrink.
2. The Joe Nathan injury could hurt the Cubs' ongoing bullpen efforts as they are believed to also have an interest in Frasor, the 32-year-old product of Oak Forest High School with the Blue Jays. A source indicates that the Blue Jays had scouts watching the Twins on Tuesday. They reportedly are targeting outfielders in their talks about Frasor. That would put prospects like Sam Fuld and Tyler Colvin potentially in play in the Cubs' talks with Toronto.
3. Man, wish I had been in Viera, Fla., Tuesday to watch Stephen Strasburg. From the highlights he was just as impressive in his first outing for the Nationals as Aroldis Chapman had been on Monday for the Reds. One thing the two phenoms have in common is the ability to blow hitters away with either fastballs or ridiculously hard breaking pitches. The last pitch Strasburg threw in his two-inning outing against Detroit should be a crime in 50 states. It was, I think, his so-called changeup -- a 90-mph pitch that dives. Check it out on this video.
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The last pitch Strasburg threw was a breaking ball, not a changeup. And I don't know why Phil's so excited. He's covered two pitchers with similar stuff, particularly Wood.
Grabow is better than all of the pitchers you mentioned x10....wtf are talking about???.....I could not go on reading the garbage you wrote after that gem. I will probably never read your stuff again either.
Napper Tandy, who are you reading??? The papers have been full of stories telling us all about Cub problems and how bad they could bein 2010. It seems to be a bandwagon thing this spring to jump on them for just about everything. Whether or not this is deserved, you are wrong if you
think that the papers are not being critical
Before I would get too excited for the Strasburg kid, I remind all to think about the NUMEROUS prospects that have been "can't miss" especially in spring training. I will reserve judgment until he at least pitches in a MINOR league game.
Oh my! Did a Trib reporter actually pen disparaging words about Jim Hendry? Mentioning the DeRosa and Wuertz debacles in the same article! Hallelujiah!! Maybe someone told Rogers that the Trib no longer owns the Cubs and he can speak freely now.
Quick! Phil, run over to Sullivan's office and tell him too! On Monday, Sullivan was still writing stories about how the DeRosa trade is producing good pitching prospects and that the trade isn't really impacting the team that much.