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Friday Morning Headlines

Ok, I'm sure there's a lot of other things you people care about, but I have to do this. I have to. Novoa has been optioned to Triple-A.

The year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his Heaven -

All's right with the world!

Ok, now we can talk about Mark Prior, who thinks he's ready to start the season in the rotation. Meanwhile, nobody can agree on his velocity -- CSN reported 93, scouts say he topped out at 89.

To be honest? First of all, it was one start in spring training. It's better than his other starts so far. And it may even indicate that he's able to pitch better than Wade Miller as we get into April, although I'm not exactly convinced of that. And maybe he can somehow get enough innings in the next week to get ready for the season. Ok then. But... but even then, people -- the whole idea of "the Cubs are a much better team with a healthy Mark Prior" is predicated on him being... something special. He seems healthy, he's becoming more effective -- that doesn't make it 2003 all over again for him. Just having a Mark Prior that can put up a, say, 5.02 ERA isn't something to brag about. If he's going to be average at best, then let him work on his stuff so that he can be above-average.

And... do you hear yourselves, people? You're all extremely excited about him striking out Khalil Greene. Career .255 batting average and 21% strikeout rate Khalil Greene. I think Roberto Novoa is the only pitcher the Cubs brought to camp this year that couldn't hit a hot streak and strike out Khalil Greene.

Rocky Cherry will close at Iowa. And somehow Guzman and Wood are fighting over the last roster spot, even though one is a setup man and the other a "long reliever."

Gordon Wittenmyer backs up Sullivan's story about Cedeno yesterday.

Oh, and apparently the team is going to look at how Daryle Ward handles the outfield. Uh... badly. He will handle it badly. Since you now know this, do we really need to go through the embarassment?

I can no longer be disappointed by Steve Rosenbloom, because I no longer have expectations for him. Still, this is the sort of thing that makes you go 'huh-what?': "Kind of funny that all the angst over the Soxís fifth starter traces back to Danny Wright, who is viewed as a failure, and yet his 14-win season in 2002 is as good as any year that Kerry Wood ever had."

Oh yeah, Steve? Well, I'll tell you what -- Wright went 14-12 in '02, while Wood went 14-11 in 2003. (Oh, and as a bonus, this was in the comments: "This brings me to my point where Rosen-butt consistantly brings up ERA and wins and losses in Spring training, the last time I checked the games don't count when the regular season starts, remember in 2005 the White Sox staff looked terrible in Spring Training, what happened in the rest of that year?" Apparently, Hector from Naperville, you think that win-loss records for pitchers DO matter in the regular season. Interesting.)

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