Spring Training Battlewatch: Lou Spills Some Beans

Today, instead of looking at box scores, let’s just look at some things manager Lou Piniella said yesterday.

“There are two jobs open in that bullpen as far as I’m concerned,” Piniella said. “We’ve got probably about six candidates, and we’ll let them compete here the last two weeks and see who wants to grab it.” Daily Herald.

With a seven man pen, that means Lou has five spots locked up in his mind: Carlos Marmol, Kevin Gregg, Neil Cotts, Aaron Heilman, and… Luis Vizcaino? Chad Gaudin? or maybe Jeff Samardzija, whom Piniella has recently indicated is a strong candidate to make the pen.

With two open spots, that means guys like Rule V pick David Patton, who looked dead in the water two weeks ago, have a legitimate shot of making the team. Angel Guzman, on the other hand, is probably blowing a golden opportunity.

“We’re still sorting [the backup catcher role] out, but I will say this: Hill’s had a real nice spring,” Lou Piniella said.

When Lou says something like that, he’s usually being pretty transparent. It means that if the season started today, Koyie Hill would win the job over Paul Bako. Remember, the Cubs are only on the hook for Bako’s ridiculous $750k salary if he actually makes the team.

And Corey Koskie is looking unlikely to make the team.

“He told us he wasn’t feeling well … and we took him out of the ballgame,” Lou Piniella said. “We have more for you tomorrow. I think when he dove for (a groundball), it caused him some problems. He mentioned he wasn’t feeling well, so we took him out of the ballgame.”

I love the effort and feel bad for the guy, but you can’t carry a player on a major league roster if he can become unable to play at any moment (insert Milton Bradley joke here).