Harden to DL

[homer]

The Cubs window to win a World Series with their current core group of players is rapidly closing. If they don't win it all by 2010 they won't be winning anything for quite a while. Zambrano, Lee, Ramirez, Soriano are getting old in a hurry and there's no one down on the farm to replace them. It wouldn't surprise me if the new owners had a mini firesale by next mid season.

 

As an aside, at least it's not Harden's shoulder. I doubt this is going to impact him much when he gets back.

[crewcrazy]

I'll agree with those who say it might end up helping the Cubs in the long run...Harden probably wouldn't have been able to be as effective down the stretch if he pitched a full season, so at the very least this keeps his arm fresh for a little while longer. Wells is still pitching pretty well for them in his absence, and once Harden gets back they'll have a hard time keeping Wells out of the rotation...he may end up bumping Sean Marshall to the pen.

 

As for the bats, they haven't been able to develop hitting prospects for awhile now, and it'll continue until Vitters gets up to the higher levels. The good news from their perspective is that they'll be able to go out and buy veterans whenever their current players need to be replaced. That's in limbo right now as the ownership situation is up in the air, but once the sale is completed (anytime between July and Christmas, from what I've heard), they'll be able to go back to their big-spending ways. I think everyone realizes that Derrek Lee's on his way out already, it's just matter of Hendry and Piniella realizing this and giving more time to Hoffpauier and maybe bringing up Jake Fox until they can get someone else to fill that void.

[TooLiveBrew]

just wanted to say that what's preventing the Cubs from getting Peavy is lack of prospects. The ownership situation could get resolved tomorrow & they still wouldn't have the firepower to land him.

[Fear The Chorizo]

The Cubs had an entire offseason to land Peavy and didn't, because the Padres didn't want what the Cubs were offering. I don't see how a trade's any more likely now, especially with the Padres flirting with contending.

The Cub team as a whole is having all sorts of problems right now - Pitchers with injury histories/alarms are going on the DL, veteran position players are getting hurt and appearing to regress (as the downside of careers typically do), their bullpen is a total mess and their roster looks nothing like a team with a 140 million dollar payroll should. Their farm system, aside from Vitters and an extremely blocked Fox, is nothing to be excited about, either. IMO, they are a team that's still good enough to win the division and could be scary in the postseason, but their roster is constructed much worse than last year - they're going to have a much more difficult time making the playoffs.

It will be difficult for the Cubs to have any sort of good firesale, since many of the contracts Hendry signed people to are backloaded, include no trade clauses, and are extremely overpriced.

[Thurston Fluff]

Man that 5 1/3 innings every 5th day is going to really be hard to replace. It's not that easy to find a pitcher who can go 5 plus innings in games and still hold a respectable 4.70ish ERA. It will be even harder to find someone who can do that and hold up for 30 starts a year.

I think his reputation is far better than his actual ability at this stage of his career.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

As we anticipated when the contracts were given out, it could be the start of the fall of the Cubs empire. Possibly similar to the fall of Rome? Wait, the Cubs never won a World Series.

[TooLiveBrew]

Well we do have DiFelice & Catalanotto... maybe the Cubs are the Gauls?

[Thurston Fluff]

Well we do have DiFelice & Catalanotto... maybe the Cubs are the Gauls?

 

Can't be. The Gauls managed to sack Rome roughly 500 years after Rome defeated them. It'll take the Cubs longer than that to win a WS.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

The Cubs starting pitching has really gotten messy. If Harden just has back problems, that may actually save his arm for later. I could see him coming back strong, but as mentioned he never really goes deep into a game. With that bullpen in such bad shape, he really loses his effectiveness versus last year with the strong pen.

 

That still doesn't help the problems with Zambrano & Dempster. It seems all those innings have piled up on Big Z. Maybe someone has the stats on this, but I seem to remember him and Sheets up there in Pitcher Abuse Points for a few years running. Dempster seems to be showing last year was more of the aberration than this year.

 

So that leaves Ted Lilly & Sean Marshall as their front line starters...that maybe compares to Bush & Parra, although I'd take our guys.