Geovany Soto's ascension to National League Rookie of the Year on Monday was virtually uncontested, with the Cubs catcher garnering all but one of the 32 possible first-place votes. (The Reds' Joey Votto got the other one.) Not since Albert Pujols collected all 32 first-place votes in winning the '01 ROY award had a National League player come so close to running the table. Ironically, Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria, coronated Monday as A.L. Rookie of the Year, was also a unanimous first-place pick.

Soto's HR and RBI numbers—23 and 86, respectively—were the highest for a Cubs rookie since Billy Williams had 25 HR and 86 RBI in 1961, when Williams became the first Cub to win rookie honors. (The award didn't exist until 1947.)

As he has often done this season, Soto credited teammate Henry Blanco for aiding his maturation as a catcher and a big leaguer, saying that Blanco was...

"in my corner, like a big brother. I owe him a lot of my success. It was huge having him on my side."

The Cubs bought out Blanco's option for $300,000 at the end of October, though the team is expected to re-sign him. Gordon Wittenmyer of the Sun-Times has even alluded to the possibility that the Cubs and Blanco might already have had a "handshake agreement" in place regarding a new deal.

Speaking of new deals, former Cub Scott Eyre signed a one-year, $2MM contract extension with the World Series champion Phillies on Monday.

After being waived by the Cubs and hooking up with the Phils on August 7th, the 36-year-old Eyre pitched in 19 games, going 3-0, 1.88. He appeared in five post-season games for the Phillies this year, allowing one run and three hits in three innings.

Tuesday's 14-9 Cub win at Pittsburgh may go down as the game that cemented Geovany Soto's selection as 2008 National League Rookie of the Year. Geo had a pair of three-run doubles, a solo homer, and 7 RBI overall. Soto has now hit more home runs than any rookie catcher in Cub history and his batting line, which currently stands at .280 AVG/20 HR/78 RBI, will wind up as one of the best ever by a Cub catcher, rookie or otherwise.

Also positive—Kosuke Fukudome's throw from rightfield to nail rookie Brandon Moss on his way to third base; Carlos Zambrano continuing to hit like a sonofagun (eighth consecutive start in which he has driven in a run); Mike Fonenot, who entered the game in the bottom of the fifth, going 2-for-2 and also making a fine, diving play in the field.

On the negative side of Tuesday's fun, however, we have:

Zambrano pitching like hell: 8 hits, 6 ER in just 4 1/3 innings. Not the first time our supposed ace has turned in game like this. In fact, it's the third time in Zambrano's last four starts that he has pitched quite poorly.

Alfonso Soriano bunny-hopping his way to another embarrassing error on a routine fly ball. The only thing worse then giving the opposition an extra out and a free run, which Fonzie did with his flub in the sixth inning, is injuring yourself in the process, which, as we all know, Soriano has also done this season. For the love of God and Lou Piniella...NO...MORE...HOPPING!

Ben Sheets pitching like Ben Sheets. The Milwaukee righty helped the Brewers vanquish the Cardinals, 12-0, at Busch Stadium to stay within five games of the first-place Cubs. It's a tad frustrating that the Cubs have played as well as they have lately and still, the Brewers are within haling distance of first place. For their part, the Brewers have won 14 out of 18 and not gained a game or even a half game on the Cubs. There is some consolation for the Milwaukees, however:

By shutting out the Cards Tuesday, the Brewers now have a 4 1/2 game lead in the Wild Card race.

Geovany Soto has had a wonderful 2008 season, and it seems likely he will be rewarded for it with a starting berth on the National League All-Star team. In Wednesday night's game at San Francisco, he contributed a two-out, two-run hit in the seventh inning that gave the Cubs a three-run lead, which seemed to seal Ryan Dempster's first road victory of the season. (More on that in a moment.)

In addition to being heralded for his offensive prowess—a 128 OPS+, 13 HR, and 48 RBI coming into Wedneday's game—Soto has been applauded for his work behind the plate and for the maturity he has demonstrated in handling the Cubs' mostly veteran pitching staff.

The low point for the Cubs in Wednesday night's game, however, occurred when Soto got back behind the plate as the Giants batted immediately after Soto's two-run single. Carlos Marmol, who entered the contest with a 7.36 ERA since June 1st, fanned the first two hitters in the frame. He then fell behind pinch-hitter Travis Denker 2-0 on sliders and eventually walked him on an errant curveball. Leadoff man Freddie Lewis was next, and he rapped an 0-1 slider for a single to right field. Finally, veteran Ray Durham came up and Marmol threw him a fastball, but it was high and right over the plate and Durham buried it for the game-tying home run that left Dempster with a big, fat, disappointing ND.

On the Comcast broadcast of the game, Bob Brenly talked about how Marmol had "fallen in love with his slider," shaking off Soto when he called for one of Marmol's 90+ mph fastballs. (By the reckoning of mlb.com, nine of Marmol's 19 pitches were sliders, four were curveballs, and six were fastballs.)

Maybe as young Soto saw the inning starting to slip away, before Durham ever got to the plate, he should have called time, joined Marmol on the mound and said, "No, Carlos, don't shake me off anymore." (For his part, Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild didn't appear from the Cub dugout until after Durham had tied the game.)

The irony of all this, as you know if you watched the game, was that Mike Fontenot clubbed a long home run of his own in the visitors' half of the eighth inning, which gave the Cubs a 6-5 lead; a lead that Bob Howry and Kerry Wood protected, which in turn made a winning pitcher out of...Carlos Marmol.

In the top of the ninth inning Thursday night, with nobody out and Ryan Theriot, the potential lead run, at second base, Derrek Lee struck out on three pitches. It capped a game in which Lee went o-for-4 with two strikeouts and saw his batting average fall to .283. That's the lowest it has been since April 4th, when the season was just four games old.

A couple of hitters later, after Kosuke Fukudome had plated Theriot with a single to give the Cubs a 5-4 lead, Geovany Soto had a chance to bring home an insurance run. He, too, struck out, one of three times Soto fanned Thursday night as his season average also fell to .283, its lowest point since April 16th.

From the beginning of the just ended nine-game winning streak through Thursday's matchup with the Dodgers, Lee has batted .190 (8-for-42) with 12 strikeouts; Soto has hit .171 (6-for-35) with 11 whiffs.

The Cubs have won 10 of their last 11 games, including the 5-4 win over L.A., with virtually no offensive contributions from their first baseman or their catcher.

In its own way, that's pretty impressive.

Before Wednesday, Dodgers closer Takashi Saito had appeared in 20 games this season, throwing exactly one inning in 16 of them. In those 16 games, he threw a total of 257 pitches, or an average of around 16 pitches per outing.

In the ninth inning of tonight's game at Wrigley Field, however, Saito gave up two walks, a hit, and the game-tying run, and threw 37 pitches. Aside from obliterating that 16-pitch average, that's more tosses than Saito has thrown in any game this season, including a pair of two-inning appearances. In fact, it's more pitches than Saito had thrown in all but two of his 155 lifetime Major League appearances.

But the most compelling fact surrounding Saito's 37 pitches to me is what that pitch total says about the Cubs' approach to hitting this season. On a night when Cub batters looked mostly helpless against Derek Lowe and completely overmatched against Jonathan Broxton, they still retained sufficient patience to accept two walks and let Saito put them in a position to tie the game on Geovany Soto's sacrifice fly.

Nice win tonight. All praise to plate patience!

According to the Win Shares calculations by the good folks at The Hardball Times, Geovany Soto leads all Major League catchers in WS, placing just ahead of the Twins' marvelous Joe Mauer. Dave Studeman also points out that Soto has nailed 38% of the runners attempting to steal against him while making just one error.

As pointed out at cubs.com, Alfonso Soriano has hit safely in 12 of his last 13 games. True enough, but in the same 13 games, Fonsie is hitting .250 overall with a .298 OBP, a .423 slugging percentage, and 12 strikeouts in 52 AB.

If Soriano keeps a scrapbook, I'm thinking that none of these past 13 games are likely to find their way onto any of the pages.

— Cubs.com reports that "(Alfonso) Soriano appeared to pass all tests during a strenuous workout on Sunday." Soriano is eligible to come off the Disabled List on Thursday, in time for the conclusion of this week's three-game series against the Brewers at Wrigley.

The Cubs have played 13 games since Soriano went on the DL, winning nine and losing four.



— Former Cub manager Lee Elia is trying to capitalize on the 25th anniversary of his famous Wrigley Field lockerroom rant (see above) to the benefit of Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities. You can read about the commemorative autographed baseball and accompanying audio chip being offered by a Chicago sports memorabilia company here. You can also learn, as I did, that Elia had a longstanding animus for Chicago sportscaster Les Grobstein, who taped Elia's original rant, thus ensuring its place in baseball lore for time immemorial.

— Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times identifies ten Major League teams which "keep hiring the same sort of skipper again and again." Can you guess which franchise's inability to "find good, new managers" causes Jaffe to characterize it as a "compost heap"?

If you can't, you're reading the wrong blog.

— A Paul Reuschel sighting: In "The All-Time Best Whatever," (subscription required), Bill James lists the three best bullpens of the '70s, based on the James-invented statistic, Win Shares.

Tied for first with the 1970 Minnesota Twins trio of Ron Perranoski, Stan Williams, and Tom Hall is the '70 Cubs threesome of Bruce Sutter, Willie Hernandez and Reuschel the Lesser. The same article identifies the '70 and '71 Cubs starting staffs--Jenkins, Hands, Holtzman, Pappas, et al--as the two best overall rotations of the decade.

Reading this article, it's pretty easy to understand how the Cubs won all those championships in the 1970s.

— I haven't even mentioned yet that Geovany Soto will begin the week having whiffed in eight consecutive plate appearances. Having seen the likes of Chris Cannizzaro, George Mitterwald, Dave Rader, and Barry Foote hold down the catcher's position for the Cubs in my lifetime, I think Geo will have to strike out a whole bunch more before I even take serious notice.

Last week, I first encountered David Pinto's Lineup Analysis Tool. In a post today at Baseball Musings, Pinto feeds Tom Tango's "Marcel the Monkey predictions" for the 2008 Cubs into his run-scoring projection machine, and he reports the following results:

It looks like the Cubs get a nice offensive boost in 2008. Not only does (Kosuke) Fukudome help set the table, Geovany Soto may not last long in the number eight spot. That's a great prediction for the catcher, and if he lives up to that, the Cubs pitchers can count on much better run support in this season.

Pinto also reports that when examining the output of all the possible permutations of the Cubs lineup, he found a huge difference between the best case scenario (5.25 runs per game) and the offense produced by the likely Cubs lineup (4.92 rpg; I presume this would be the lineup Lou Piniella offered at the Cubs Convention).

Of the difference, Pinto says:

Mostly it comes from using two projected power hitters at the top (Alfonso Soriano) and bottom (Soto) of the lineup, when they should really be in the middle.

Pretty sound logic, I would say. I'm one of the millions of Cubs fans who believe it's managerial malpractice to plant Soriano and his lifetime .327 on-base percentage atop the Cub batting order, when his big bat could produce so much more thunder farther down in the lineup.

As for Soto, based on his Pacific Coast League numbers last season (.353 AVG/.424 OBP/.652 SLG) and how he performed for the big club after his call-up, I'm looking forward to seeing him as the everyday catcher in '08.

Still, there's a part of me--the serial pessimist part--that wonders if the real Soto isn't the one whose numbers before 2007 were these: .261 AVG/.343 OBP/.370 SLG.

Today cubs.com presented a 1,280-word interview with Cubs GM Jim Hendry as he looks back on the '07 season and looks forward to the team's organizational meetings in Arizona at the end of the month.

I know how busy you must be, with leaves to rake, storm windows to repair before the cold weather hits, etc., etc., so I have chopped the article down to a pithy 98 words.

Here are they are:

• The playoff loss to Arizona will not directly dictate Hendry's off-season roster moves.
• Hendry is not sure whether the Cubs will be more focused on signing free agents or promoting from within the system this winter.
• Cub fans suggest a lot of dumb trades.
• Geo Soto has a good chance to be the Cubs' Opening Day catcher.
• The pending Tribune sale won't hinder Hendry's ability to spend money.
• Hendry thought Lou Piniella's coaching staff did a good job this season.
• The quality of the Cubs' minor league system proved itself in '07.
• The Cubs scouting department is among the game's best.

There it is: all you need to know about what's on Jim Hendry's mind.

Now you can get to work. Those leaves aren't going to rake themselves, ya know?