Kuzul

I recently wrote an article comparing the Cubs’ two leadoff hitters, Ryan Theriot and Kosuke Fukudome, in which I ultimately came to the conclusion that Theriot was the better option to hit atop the batting order in large part because Fukudome might find himself on the bench before too long.

Shortly thereafter, Lou Piniella decided to replace Theriot at second base with Mike Fontenot and said the move might “be more than a one day thing.” Suffice it to say that I wasn’t feeling too smart when that news came across the wires.

I’m not against the move.

Fontenot is a good ballplayer and has played well enough to deserve a starting spot that isn’t dependent on Aramis Ramirez’s injury status. And since Fukudome hasn’t found himself mired in a complete slump yet, he should be able to hold down the leadoff spot.

I just think that Theriot is a much better ballplayer than his current statline would suggest, so I looked for a reason that he might be underperforming. The data that I was looking through led me to believe that he was being pitched differently and having a little bad luck.

It wasn’t until Tuesday’s game against Pittsburgh that a much more likely explanation finally surfaced for me, courtesy of Pirates broadcasters Tim Neverett and Bob Walk.

Maybe I’m the last horse to cross the finish line on this one, but Theriot’s slump appears to have begun the day he shifted to second base.

I know that correlation doesn’t imply causation (insert Statistics 101 reference to ice cream sales and drowning rates here), but it’s a very interesting correlation, to say the least.

Before Starlin Castro was called up on May 7, shifting Theriot to the keystone, the Cubs’ scrappy leadoff hitter had a slash line of .341/.374/.390 in 182 plate appearances.

More specifically, Theriot was on a tear in his last 15 games at short, boasting a slash line of .435/.458/.507 in 73 plate appearances. That’s an almost Pujols-esque OPS of .966 for a little over two weeks.

From May 7 until now, his slash line is a scary .205/.224/.205 in 86 plate appearances. Two times hit by a pitch, no walks, and no extra base hits.

He just stopped putting up any numbers whatsoever.

Now, with this in mind, I looked back at his swing rates for the season on FanGraphs. This time I focused on his swing rates relative to the strike zone instead of overall swing rate to take a closer look at his approach at the plate.

Sure enough, I overlooked something potentially important in my previous research.

Theriot’s overall swing rate is the highest of his career by less than one percent, which I noticed before. If I had taken a gander at a column just to the left of that information, though, I might have seen the larger problem.

This year, “The Riot” is swinging at 24.3 percent of pitches outside the strike zone. For his career, including this year’s higher-than-normal rate, that number sits at 20.8 percent.

Although it’s not a huge difference, it seems significant enough that it might signal that something’s wrong.

As far as I know, there is no resource that allows you to break down this information by date, so I don’t definitively know if there is a difference in swing rate rate before and after Castro’s call-up.

But it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the rate he’s posting right now is inflated by what he’s done in the interim.

Maybe he’s adjusting to the move back to his old position and carrying that adjustment over to batter’s box. Maybe he’s been pressing because playing time among the corps of middle infielders is being spread a little thinner. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

Or maybe I’m just an eternal optimist.

At the moment, I think that Theriot just needs to relax and be the player many Cubs fans have come to love.

Maybe that will finally happen with him out of the starting lineup.

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Three players have started a game atop the Cubs batting order this season: Ryan Theriot, Kosuke Fukudome, and Marlon Byrd.

Theriot has led off 38 times, Fukudome 10 times, and Byrd once heading into Saturday’s game against the Cardinals.

Among those who follow the Cubs, the choice between Theriot and Fukudome is a contentious one. Neither is the ideal choice for a leadoff hitter, but for a team without any better candidates, they have their own advantages.

Looking at this year’s numbers, Fukudome is clearly better at drawing walks. While Theriot walks in only 3.4 percent of his plate appearances, Fukudome boasts a 13.6 percent walk rate.

That ability presents itself in his .392 on-base percentage, 72 points higher than Theriot’s, and good for the 18th-best mark in the major leagues.

He’s also hitting for greater power, putting up an ISO of .215 that ranks 35th in the majors and is 184 points higher than Theriot’s major league-worst .031.

On the other hand, Theriot is the greater threat on the basepaths, stealing nine bases to Fukudome’s three with only one caught stealing apiece.

He’s also less likely to strikeout, boasting the 28th-best strikeout rate at 12.9 percent. Fukudome’s strikeout rate is 19.2 percent.

To truly understand these numbers, however, we need to understand each player’s approach and the way pitchers approach them.

Fukudome swings at only 39.2 percent (27th fewest) of pitches he’s thrown while Theriot swings at 45.8 percent (74th most) of his. But only 44.9 percent (39th fewest) of the pitches thrown to Fukudome are strikes, while Theriot sees strikes 54.6 percent (second most) of the time.

Getting more specific, 66.3 percent (ninth most) of the first pitches thrown to Theriot are strikes while only 59.1 percent (60th most) of Fukudome’s are in the strike zone.

In addition to swinging more often, Theriot also makes more contact. His 89.4 percent contact rate is the 19th highest in the big leagues while Fukudome’s 79.7 percent is the 62nd lowest.

Breaking that down further, Theriot makes contact on 94.1 percent (25th highest) of the strikes he swings at and 74.0 percent (47th highest) of the balls.

Fukudome, on the other hand, makes contact with 87.6 percent (65th lowest) of strikes and 60.6 percent (44th lowest) of balls.

Theriot is getting thrown more strikes than almost any hitter in the majors, is taking a very aggressive approach as a result, and is still making contact at a very high rate.

Meanwhile, Fukudome is seeing fewer strikes than most hitters, is taking a very patient approach as a result, and is making contact at a rate that’s below average.

Although he’s only seeing slightly more strikes than in past years, the huge increase in strikes thrown early in the count, coupled with a very impressive contact rate, is likely to blame for Theriot’s huge dip in walks from his 2007-09 rates of 8.2 percent, 11.0 percent, and 7.5 percent.

In contrast, Fukudome has been one of the stingiest swingers in baseball for three years and is seeing the highest rate of first-pitch strikes, but he is seeing a career low of strikes thrown overall despite his career-low contact rate.

For some reason, pitchers are feeling the need to pitch around him late in the count despite the fact that they would likely benefit from pounding the zone.

What does all this mean going forward?

Well, to answer that, I’m going to assume that the scouting reports on each player reflect the numbers I’ve gone over so far.

When it comes to Ryan Theriot, consider the fact that most of the players who see the lowest percentage of strikes either swing at a high rate or make contact at a high rate and that Theriot does both.

Pitchers will most likely adjust by throwing him fewer strikes and the walks should eventually come, although his batting average might take a dip.

For Kosuke Fukudome, it likely means that pitchers will throw more strikes to exploit his poor contact rate. His walk rate will dip and necessitate a change to a more aggressive approach that could cause a drop in his batting average and ISO.

At this point, the differences in the ability to draw walks is smaller and Theriot likely holds the edge in hitting for average.

This is when speed and power come into play.

Theriot is easily the bigger threat on the basepaths, stealing an average of 24 bases over the span of 2007-09 compared to Fukudome’s totals of 12 and six the past two seasons.

While Fukudome might still hold the advantage in getting on base, the fact that he isn’t much of a threat to steal takes away a lot of potential impact on the game.

Meanwhile, Theriot is enough of a threat to force pitchers to throw more fastballs to the hitters behind him and increase the likelihood that they get a hit.

Fukudome would also almost certainly hold the advantage in terms of power, but power from your leadoff hitter means nothing in the National League with the pitcher hitting ninth unless you’re hitting home runs at a much higher rate than the 10 and 11 that he hit the past two seasons.

Then, of course, there’s one last consideration: Fukudome’s annual regression that’s already started.

After the best April of his career (.344/.443/.641), he’s had the worst May of his career (.258/.338/.394) to date. The fact that his career slash-line for June through October is .232/.336/.366 doesn’t inspire much confidence going forward, either.

Considering that the Cubs have Marlon Byrd, Alfonso Soriano, and Tyler Colvin having very good seasons at the plate and that Xavier Nady is starting to heat up, there’s absolutely no guarantee that Fukudome will even be worthy of starting everyday.

Given the choice between two nearly even players, one who will remain a starter for the foreseeable future and one who will be riding the pine before too long, I will always take the former over the latter.

If nothing else, it allows the lineup to develop a sense of continuity that might help the team later in the season.

Perhaps Theriot’s detractors should just calm down and let “The Riot” do his thing.

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The Cubs have an interesting situation on their hands.

Carlos Marmol, Sean Marshall, James Russell, and now Jeff Stevens are all pitching well coming out of the bullpen. In the rotation, each of Ryan Dempster, Randy Wells, Carlos Silva, Tom Gorzelanny, and Ted Lilly’s seasons have been solid overall.

At the moment, Dempster and Lilly are coming off of really good outings while Gorzelanny and Wells are coming off pretty bad outings. Silva’s due to start on Saturday.

Carlos Zambrano hasn’t exactly been setting the world on fire as either a starter or reliever this year, but he’ll be returning to the rotation soon and one of the aforementioned starters will be moving out.

The remaining two members of the pitching staff are 31-year-old John Grabow and 36-year-old Bob Howry.

Howry was horrible with the Diamondbacks, although he hasn’t been quite that bad in limited action with the Cubs so far, and the fastball-first pitcher is struggling to hit 90 mph on the radar gun.

Grabow has been consistently bad this season, but is still holding down a spot in the Cubs bullpen.

In the meantime, Jay Jackson has done great in Triple-A this season, Andrew Cashner has been lights out in both Double-A and Triple-A, and now both players are making the transition to the bullpen to prepare for their call-ups.

If you’re making the decisions for the Cubs, what do you do in this situation?

With Dempster and Lilly being proven starters that are pitching well, I highly doubt that they’re going anywhere.

Silva’s record is largely boosted by the 6.98 average run support he’s gotten, but he’s been pitching pretty well and has potential injury issues that don’t make him a great option to move to the ‘pen.

Wells is coming off of a great 2009 season, he may be part of this rotation for years to come, and he doesn’t have much experience coming out of the bullpen.

Gorzelanny is coming off of two poor seasons, but he’s done fine for the most part this season and the last thing the Cubs need is another lefty in the bullpen.

Then, once it’s time for Jackson and/or Cashner to get the call, who do you demote?

Obviously the Cubs won’t send down Marmol or Marshall, but demoting Russell would be almost as dumb.

Gorzelanny’s out of options and there’s no way he’d make it through waivers with his $800,000 salary, so holding on to him in Triple-A isn’t going to happen.

The chances of Lilly or Dempster being designated for assignment are slim to none, and Slim just left town.

Zambrano would most likely clear waivers if DFA’d, but good luck trying to get Big Z to accept the assignment.

So who’s left?

A solid young reliever (Stevens), a good young starter (Wells), the guy you got for Milton Bradley (Silva), the left-handed reliever that you signed to a potentially over-market two-year contract the previous offseason (Grabow), and the veteran righty that you just signed (Howry).

If both Cashner and Jackson are called up, two of those five need to be cleared off of the 25-man roster.

Anything that could be interpreted as struggles for Stevens will likely prompt his demotion for the simple fact that it’s the easiest move to make. Whether or not he is deserving of that demotion is another matter altogether.

I’m pretty sure that Wells has at least one option remaining, so he would also be a fairly easy move, but I’m not sure that it would be good for his development. It would also be an interesting move to explain to the media.

Wells has had a few poor outings this year and, since I’m pretty sure he has at least one option remaining, it might do him some good to go back to the minors. But that’s still a big question: How would a demotion affect his development?

Despite his solid start to the season, Silva would also clear waivers in all likelihood because of the salary he’s due through the rest of this season and next season. Since he isn’t much of a bullpen option, it might work to have him starting in Triple-A and possibly build up his trade value.

Howry already cleared waivers with Arizona, so he might do so again, even though teams would only have to pick up his pro-rated Cubs contract instead of the 2.25 million dollar contract he had with the Diamondbacks.

The combination of his contract and performance means that Grabow would clear waivers, too.

For some reason, though, I just get the feeling that Howry and Grabow would be released before they’d be moved to the minor leagues.

Of course, this decision wouldn’t have to be made at all if Howry wasn’t signed by the Cubs last week. Since that move was quickly followed by Cashner’s move to the Triple-A bullpen, I have to believe that the team will be sticking by Howry for the foreseeable future.

I think that releasing Howry is the best overall option, but I just don’t see it happening.

Although Hendry was eventually willing to admit his mistake with Milton Bradley, it took most of the regular season for him to finally do so. In that light, I don’t think that Grabow will be going anywhere anytime soon, either.

And even if Hendry was willing to part with him, I’m not sure that any team would be willing to trade for him or that Hendry would be quite willing enough to release him and eat his contract.

Although I believe that getting rid of Grabow would be in both the short and long-term best interests of the team, I don’t know if it could realistically happen.

That leaves the demotion of Wells or Silva as the only option, depending on how they each do in their next start or two. Unless both pitchers put together a string of strong starts, whichever one is doing worse would be sent to Iowa.

Since that is the only option left, I’m stuck believing that only one of Jackson and Cashner is going to get the call-up. I just don’t see the Cubs making either of those moves unless they absolutely have to.

So that leaves me with one question that I don’t have an answer to: What the heck are they doing?

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I know that the Cubs’ bullpen has struggled.

Through 45 games, they have combined for an ERA of 4.81 and opponent average of .251 in 119.2 innings. In fact, those numbers give the bullpen a little too much credit.

Carlos Marmol, Sean Marshall, and James Russell have carried the group. They’ve combined for an ERA of 1.97 and an opponent average of .185 in their 59.1 innings of work, good for almost half of the bullpen’s total innings.

Without the aforementioned trio, the bullpen has combined for an ERA of 7.61 and an opponent average of .306 in 60.1 innings.

Moving Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen failed to settle the situation, and something needed to be done, so Jim Hendry signed veteran reliever and former Cub Bob Howry.

But I fail to see how this helps in any way.

If you add Bob Howry’s performance this season to that of the non-triumvirate relievers, the opponent average stays at .306 and the ERA rises to 8.16. In other words, he’s been slightly worse than the guys we’ve already been throwing out there.

Just look at his profile on FanGraphs .

He has a an xFIP (which replaces his 22.2% HR/FB rate with the league average of 10.6%) of 6.11, 44.9% Left on Base Percentage, and a 25.5% line drive rate while managing an incredibly low .259 BABIP.

That means that the pitching metric that’s most favorable to him still says that he deserves a horrible ERA, that he’s letting more runners score than not score, and that he’s getting hit pretty hard. And he’s been lucky all the while.

There are other red flags, too.

His strikeout rate has been steadily declining since 2006, when it was at 8.33 strikeouts per nine innings, and it has plummeted to 3.77 this season, the exact same rate that he has for both walks and home runs per nine innings on the year.

Also, his fastball has lost a few miles per hour, now sitting at an average of 89.8 instead of his 2006-2009 averages of 92.8, 92.3, 91.2, and 92.4. Considering that his slider isn’t anything special and he relies heavily on that fastball (throwing it almost 78% of the time in his career), it’s no wonder he’s struggling.

At 36 years old, there’s no reason to have confidence that he’ll bounce back.

Len Kasper and Bob Brenly mentioned in Sunday’s broadcast that Howry typically regains his velocity as the season wears on. FanGraph’s PitchFx velocity charts agree.

But when looking at those charts, you’ll also see that his velocity has steadily declined over the course of his appearances this season (contrary to his history) and that his velocity has fallen off as each of the last three seasons wound down.

That means that unless Howry turns it around quickly, there’s a chance that he’ll end up throwing at speeds reminiscent of Jamie Moyer by season’s end.

Meanwhile, Justin Berg has been sent down to the minors.

Although his 6.43 ERA and 6.80 xFIP are off-putting, to say the least, his numbers are skewed by his first and last outings this season.

In those two games, he had an opponent average of .500, an ERA of 36.00, and five walks against only one strikeout in two innings of work.

In the twelve innings that he’s pitched between those two outings, he’s had an opponent average of .195 and an ERA of 1.50, although he did walk five batters while only striking out two.

I’m not trying to say that Berg is the answer, but it seems that the Cubs have chosen the worse of two options.

Option One: A 26-year-old reliever who bookended a solid stretch of outings with very poor showings but might develop into a reliable arm.

Option Two: A 36-year-old reliever already on the decline that has been consistently bad this season and might not ever be reliable again.

For those who may argue that Berg hasn’t shown any improvement lately, remember the fact that Berg’s last outing was May 8, almost two weeks before he was optioned to Triple-A. He hasn’t had the opportunity to improve.

Maybe Berg will develop better in Triple-A than he would have in the big leagues, and that would be the blessing in disguise here, but it should have taken someone better than Bob Howry to push him off the 25-man roster.

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FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal wrote an article Monday in which he explained why he thinks the Chicago Cubs should let manager Lou Piniella go.

Bruce Miles of the Chicago Daily Herald wrote a blog later that day that included the following quote from Cubs general manager Jim Hendry:

“I’m absolutely completely confident in Lou Piniella,” he said. “I’ve never any thought about Lou not being the manager here this year. I have complete faith in the coaching staff, also. I have no intention of making any changes at all.”

Unless the firing of Piniella follows the precedent Starlin Castro’s call-up, where Hendry said the young shortstop wouldn’t be called up anytime soon about a week before his stellar big league debut, then Pinella shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

But considering the current troubles the team has had with finding the win column, should a change be made?

It worked for the Colorado Rockies.

The Rockies started 2009 off with an 18-28 record (a .391 winning percentage) under Clint Hurdle, and went 74-42 (.638) with Jim Tracy, who started the season as Hurdle’s bench coach, at the helm for the rest of the season.

Of course, they Rockies lost to the Phillies in the NLDS, but many believe that the Rockies wouldn’t have even been in that position if not for the managerial switch.

Would the Cubs receive similar benefits by showing the 66-year-old, 1,800-win skipper the door, and handing the keys over to, as Rosenthal suggested, bench coach Alan Trammell?

I’m not so sure.

Trammell was the manager for three years with the Detroit Tigers, posting a record of 186-300 (.383) that consisted of 119 , 90 , and 91-loss seasons.

The first year under Trammell’s successor, Jim Leyland, saw that same Tigers team winning the AL pennant. Since then, the team has only finished below second in the division once.

Granted, players such as Todd Jones , Joel Zumaya , Justin Verlander , Magglio Ordonez , and Curtis Granderson either saw an increase in playing time, or had just joined the team with their new manager, but were they really the difference between 71 and 95 wins?

Using Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Jones was worth 1.1 wins, Ordonez 1.7, Zumaya 1.9, Verlander 3.1, and Granderson was 3.7 during the 2006 season.

When you subtract the WAR values that Verlander (0.1), Granderson (1.2), and Ordonez (1.4) contributed to the 2005 team, you end up with an 8.8-game improvement.

It’s by no means a perfect way to analyze the situation, but it does give an idea of the difference between the two iterations of Tiger teams.

One of the main reason’s that Trammell is under consideration, though, is that he’s supposedly the polar opposite of Piniella in terms of personality. They say that Trammell’s mild-mannered disposition provides the perfect contrast to Piniella’s much more fiery one.

But I thought that one of the biggest knocks against Piniella both this year, and last, was that he’d lost his fire, and wasn’t nearly the hot-head that he’s known for being?

Yes, he’s had his spats with members of the media recently, and had quite the run-in with Milton Bradley last year, but he just hasn’t been the guy who argues with umpires every chance he gets, occasionally kicking dirt and throwing bases.

Beyond that, the Cubs don’t think that Trammell is mild-mannered at all.

Even if you want to say that switching to Trammell would simply provide a new voice, I don’t see where you’re coming from.

He has been the Cubs’ bench coach for the same amount of time that Piniella has been their manager. He’s involved in practices and games from spring training through the playoffs.

Are we supposed to believe that he’s been silent all this time? Or is he supposed to change what he’s been saying to the players after he becomes the team’s manager?

Extending that further, the players have expressed their confidence in Piniella, suggesting that they probably don’t want a change to be made.

Other detractors say that Ryne Sandberg , the manager of the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate, and heir apparent to the major league position, should take the reins mid-season.

I see the sentimental value of naming the former Cubs second baseman and 2005 Hall of Fame inductee the manager, but I don’t see the team making that move, either.

He’s in his fourth season of managing at any level, and is likely coaching many members of future Cubs teams at this very moment.

Do you really want to take a fairly inexperienced manager that may be taking over as the major league manager in the next few years, away from a situation in which he’s familiarizing himself with his potential future stars? This, and the fact he will have to take over a tumultuous situation with a big league team that he didn’t even have a hand in starting.

I would personally prefer that he start with a clean slate, and (potentially) the players that he’s already coached, such as Andrew Cashner, Jay Jackson, Casey Coleman, Starlin Castro, and Tyler Colvin.

With Piniella in the final year of his contract, I say that you stick with him for better or for worse.

Unless he commits some atrocious act, replacing him as manager is just being trigger happy.

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On Wednesday, Carrie Muskat wrote an article in which she said that “There are no deals pending, no scouts scouring other rosters to find help.”

It wasn’t a quote from Jim Hendry. It was just a line added into the article between quotes from the Cubs’ general manager.

More specifically, it came immediately before the following quote from Hendry:

“There really isn’t anywhere to look,” Hendry said. “I would think our position players are not a weakness at all. We’re just in one of these funks where we can’t get over the hump and get runs in. It’s not for lack of talent or lack of these guys working.”

Obviously, Hendry is simply saying that there’s no reason to look for offensive help in the trade market. At no point does he say anything about trading for pitching, most notably bullpen help.

Unless Carrie was holding back other comments from Hendry which did state that the team isn’t currently looking for bullpen help, her addition to the article is a bit misleading.

Most people seem to be under the impression that Carlos Zambrano’s move to a setup role is temporary, including “Big Z” himself.

After Friday’s game, I’m sure many people are hoping that his time in the bullpen is drawing near an end, including Zambrano once again.

If they aren’t looking for trade partners, then they aren’t doing their jobs. For the sake of my own sanity, I’m just going to assume that they are.

In that light, they obviously need to have in mind which players they are willing to trade away. I’m not going to claim to know who the Cubs have on their provisional list of potential trade chips, but I do have my own ideas.

Those ideas do not include Aramis Ramirez or Alfonso Soriano.

While others were writing why Soriano should get traded, ESPN’s Jayson Stark was doing a poll of who MLB executives thought had the most untradable contracts. The Cubs’ outfielder was first on the list .

And after Aramis Ramirez’s name started to emerge in hypothetical trades, I jumped in with why such a trade is highly unlikely.

Although he wasn’t listed in Stark’s aforementioned article, Zambrano’s critics should realize that he’s probably in a similar boat to Soriano.

So who does that leave?

The Veterans

Because of their expiring contracts, Derrek Lee and Ted Lilly could eventually be available as late-season rentals for a contending team. That, of course, would require that the Cubs were out of contention early enough for a deal to be made.

It also means neither player would be involved in a trade for immediate bullpen help unless Hendry’s search continues deep into the season. It’s much more likely that a trade of either player would resemble Hendry’s trade of Mark DeRosa before last season that yielded three prospects from the Indians.

Another possible trade chip with an expiring contract is Xavier Nady, who I believe is available as soon as another team mentions his name in negotiations.

With Soriano, Marlon Byrd, and Kosuke Fukudome all producing, the offensively struggling Nady is just taking away playing time from Tyler Colvin and being a defensive liability with his still-recovering throwing arm. He’s still a promising hitter, but he would be much more valuable with an American League team that he could DH for.

Sam Fuld is a very good defensive outfielder and hitting well in limited action at Triple-A Iowa, so he could potentially be the perfect fifth outfielder for the Cubs after moving Nady.

Back in early April, Fukudome’s name was actually being thrown around in trade talks with the Nationals.

I’ll admit that it’s a possibility, but I’d say that it’s 50-50 at best.

With his well-known trend of early-season success and late-season slumping, the numbers that he’s put up so far probably won’t increase his value very much. The Cubs would most likely have to eat part of the remaining salary for this season and part of the 13.5 million he’s due in 2011, but might still be able to get something of value in return from a team that values defense.

The Backup Infielders

Then there’s Mike Fontenot and Jeff Baker. One of them will most likely be in different uniform by season’s end.

Fontenot might fetch more in return since he has been better offensively this season and can play shortstop in a pinch, but Baker might be the one that the Cubs are more willing to part with for the very same reasons.

With Chad Tracy tearing up Triple-A, it wouldn’t surprise me if either of the second basemen were traded by the time I woke up in the morning. If Starlin Castro starts smoothing out his game in the big leagues or Darwin Barney picks up at the plate in Iowa, the clock on that trade will be accelerated.

On the other hand, Chad Tracy might end up on the trading block himself.

His being the odd man out when Castro was called up might be indicative of his status with the team and could offer other teams an alternative to Hank Blalock, who might or might not be moved by the Tampa Bay Rays in the coming days.

Trading Tracy would also slow down any trade talks involving Baker or Fontenot, but by no means indicates that both players are staying.

The Pitchers

Now we’re only left with three players: Tom Gorzelanny, Carlos Silva, and John Grabow.

Honestly, I will be shocked if both Gorzelanny and Silva are with the Cubs on August 1 for the simple fact that Zambrano needs a spot in the rotation to return to. Also, as shown by Zambrano’s move to a setup role, neither pitcher is much of a candidate for a spot in the bullpen.

In fact, going one step further, I’ll be a little surprised if either pitcher is a Cub on August 1.

Both Andrew Cashner and Jay Jackson are doing very well in the minor leagues and should be pushing for some starts with the big league club before too long. Casey Coleman might even get a look if he pitches well for the next few months, although I think it’s much more likely that he will stay in Triple-A for the duration of the season.

Gorzelanny offers the most upside of the two players and, in my mind, is the piece that is most likely to land the Cubs a setup man.

Silva would need to stay healthy and productive, but he could get moved as soon as the Cubs decide to call up Cashner.

Grabow, the Cubs veteran left-hander in the bullpen, is much less likely to go than the other two to be moved during the season. There aren’t too many teams that have three lefties in the ‘pen and the Cubs could use every advantage that they have.

Still, if the Cubs have enough confidence in Sean Marshall and James Russell going forward, Grabow could end up on the trading block. Jim Hendry just has to decide if he’s wants to free up the $3.75 million that the former Pirate is due next season.

No matter who the Cubs feel willing to move that’s currently on the roster, I can guarantee you one thing: they are going to make a trade at some point.

I don’t know if it will be sooner or later, but the faces of this team will be at least a little bit different by season’s end.

Hopefully a key difference in those faces will be the exuberance of victory and not the sagging look of disappointment.

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