The rotation is set. For now.

So the big announcement came today, and it was a little bit of a surprise, at least to me. The rotation will look like so:

1. Zambrano
2. Lilly
3. Dempster
4. Hill
5. Marquis

Not that order of rotation matters so much, but I was a little surprised Dempster was named the third starter, although I assume it's because he breaks up Hill and Lilly, the two lefties in the rotation. My question would be, why exactly did Dempster make it over Lieber? Your spring stats:

Dempster: 5.23 ERA, 11 BB (plus 2 HBP), 18 K, 2 HR allowed
Lieber: 2.50 ERA, 3 BB, 15 K, 1 HR allowed

By all reasonable standards, Lieber was better. I assume the thinking runs mostly along the lines that Dempster gave up the closer job to compete for the rotation, and now the closer job is no longer available. And Dempster's been a Cub longer than Lieber (kinda), and anyway Lieber will still fill a valuable role as the Glendon Rusch-like spot starter/long man out of the pen (hopefully in a way that resembles 2004 Glendon Rusch and not 2005 or - ugh - 2006 Glendon Rusch). At any rate, should Dempster bomb out of the gate, I don't doubt Lou will be ready with Lieber. Eyre's elbow injury also gives Marshall a chance to make the team, and he's another guy who could potentially make a spot start or go three innings in one day.

Going back to the lineup for a minute, I have a question. Why does everyone seem to be talking about Felix Pie in a "He can't do it, we know he can't do it, we'd better find another OF for the exact moment he can't do it" kind of way? I don't know if you've looked at the spring numbers, but Pie has been one of the best hitters on the team, with a .340 average and an OPS of .952. Small sample size? Absolutely. But only two at-bats smaller than that of Micah Hoffpauir, who's being talked about like the next Mickey Mantle after hitting .382 with an OPS of 1.004 so far in camp. And yeah, that's really good. But if we take those numbers at face value from a career minor leaguer (please note that Hoffpauir is more than two years older than I am and has a career minors OPS of a mere .790), why not assume that Pie, who only just turned 23, is likely to be figuring things out when he hits .340 in spring? Maybe it's because Hoffpauir is blocked by Lee, and so we don't really have to worry about being wrong - he's almost certainly starting the season at Iowa no matter what. Pie, on the other hand, is the starting CF. We've got more to lose if we're wrong about him.

I've heard talk that Reed Johnson might be picked up as a backup CF option to Pie, if he clears waivers. For those of you who have no idea who he is - and rightly so - here's the book, briefly:

Johnson: 31 years old; can play all three OF slots at least serviceably; had an OBP of .390 for Toronto in 2006. Then sucked (and was injured) in 2007.

This could possibly continue the Cubs trend of signing outfielders a year or two after they've stopped being good, hoping they'll go back to being good, only they get even worse (see: Pierre, Juan; Monroe, Craig). It also, according to ESPN.com, "could free them to trade Matt Murton in the next few days."

ARRRRGH NO NO NO

God. Okay, fine, Murton can't play center. But why would you trade away 40-50 points of OBP for a backup plan? I've said it before and I'll say it again - if Pie can't hack it, move Fukudome to center and put Murton in right. That's probably well over 700 points of OBP in two-thirds of the outfield. And if Pie works out just fine, Murton can hit against lefties off the bench. He kills lefties. You do not just trade a guy who kills lefties because you want a slightly stouter defensive backup center fielder. Jesus Christ. Is this really that hard?