My boss just emailed me and said that Bruce Levine is on ESPN 1000 reporting the following:

RH Pitcher Rich Harden of A's going to Cubs per ESPN.

ERA is 2.34. Record is 5-1 I think.

Cubs giving up 4-5 players/prospects. Not sure who.

You can thank my boss for the scoop.

Update 5:33 pm: Matt Murton and Eric Patterson are involved.

Update 5:34 pm: Sean Ghallager, too.

Geez, this is going to be an expensive trade.

Update: 5:48 pm: The Hendry Press conference just ended. Here's the trade: Cubs get Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin (a RHP currently in the A's pen.) The Cubs give up: Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, Matt Murton, and a minor league guy whose name was not familiar to me (Josh Donaldson).

Hendry basically said they've been discussing the deal for two weeks, trading names back and forth. The player that Billy Beane absolutely wanted and that Hendry did not want to give up was Sean Gallagher. Hendry spoke highly of both Murton and Gallagher's character but didn't take the opportunity to extend those remarks to Eric Patterson.

Lou's on, update to follow.

Update 6:08 pm Lou just finished up. He had some great quotes as usual but didn't add too much. Apparently Gaudin played for him in Tampa, but Lou didn't actively lobby for him as Lou didn't find out about the deal until today at 3:00.

When quizzed by one of the beat reporters (Hendry has been working on this for two weeks.) Lou laughed it off, "without me. Ha ha ha." Lou then went on to say that Hendry and he had talked on Friday and that Hendry knew they weren't going to be able to get Sabathia, but Hendry said there might be someone else.

The Quotable Lou Piniella

"Yesterday, Milwaukee made a deal for a real good left handed starter and today Jim went out and got himself a real good righty. It just shows how competitive he is." – Lou Piniella

"We gave up some kids for the present. As a manager you love to see an organization go out and help you." – Lou Piniella

"The Cubs are going to do everything in their power to help us win." – Lou Piniella

"This makes us better and we're very very pleased." – Lou Piniella

Via Gordon Wittenmyer's Twitter account. Aramis Ramirez is back with the team and will be batting cleanup; Reed Johnson was activated off the disabled list, with Eric Patterson being optioned to AAA Iowa to make room. Johnson will start tonight in left field.

I want you to imagine it - it's the day before opening day, 2008. I – mystically, I guess, from the future - tell you that, halfway through the season:

1. Alfonso Soriano is on the DL for a second time, this time with a fracture in the hand.
2. Carlos Zambrano is on the DL too, with shoulder problems.
3. Oh, and Daryle Ward is on the DL as well.
4. Rich Hill comes down with Steve Blass Disease, and is finally shipped to Mesa to try and find himself again as a pitcher.
5. Ted Lilly tacks on almost a whole run to his ERA.
6. The Cubs abandon the Pie experiment, and replace him after they pick up Jim Edmonds, released by the Padres for hitting .178.
7. The Cubs have been horrible on the road, going 16-20.
8. Meanwhile, the Cardinals come from nowhere and put up a 44-33 record, second-best in the NL.

How would you react?

I’m not trying to harsh anyone’s mellow here or anything. But I just want everyone to reflect on the fact that the Cubs haven’t coasted to get to this point, despite what other fanbases may say. I think this is a stronger team than a lot of people give them credit for.

Carlos Marmol is getting a mechanical tune-up. Please tell me this doesn't involve an oil change.

Meanwhile, Reed Johnson looks primed to join the team’s expanding disabled list when Marshall is officially called up to take Zambrano’s start tomorrow. Johnson claims to be feeling better, although the final decision is up to the team’s medical staff. That would save Murton, Hoffpauir and Patterson from a return to Iowa until at least Friday, when one of them is expected to be sent down to make room for Daryle Ward. I can only hope that the plan is not to carry around two backup first basemen who both hit left handed.

Meanwhile, Patterson seems to be providing the sort of top-of-the-order presence Lou has been searching for. And I’ll just pass this on without comment:

Theriot is hitting .310 with 28 multiple-hit games. But he's also third in the league in ground balls hit and has grounded into nine double plays despite having decent speed. Piniella prefers speed at the top of his lineup, and obviously Patterson trumps Theriot, who leads the team in steals with 13 but has been thrown out eight times.

It’s probably a bit early to coronate Patterson, and it’s hard to see him displacing Mark DeRosa from second base, his natural position. Phil Rodgers sees him as trade bait. And speaking of trade bait:

Micah Hoffpauir's left-handed bat is a valuable asset with Daryle Ward out, but, like Ward, the rookie is not good enough defensively to play left or right field on a regular basis. Hoffpauir looked tentative on a few balls that landed in front of him on the artificial turf at Tropicana Field, and he didn't start over the weekend against the Sox.

… Since Derrek Lee is set at first, Hoffpauir's main value may be as trade bait to an American League team looking for a first baseman/DH. If the Cubs make a move for Oakland's Rich Harden, Hoffpauir might be included in the package.

I consider that… unlikely.

Speaking of trades, more news is coming out about the Brian Roberts Hostage Crisis. Purportedly Hendry offered Veal, Cedeno and Gallagher. Thankfully nothing came of it – can you figure where the Cubs would be right now without Gallagher?

I love all the winning, but sometimes I find myself baffled by this organization. To wit:

Matt Murton will get another chance to prove he's a major-league player this week when the Cubs recall him from Triple-A Iowa before Tuesday's game at Tampa Bay.

Manager Lou Piniella said Saturday the Cubs have lacked a corner outfielder and another right-handed hitter since Alfonso Soriano went on the disabled list last week. Murton fills the bill, and major-league sources said he received word on Sunday he'd be called up.

…

Murton's arrival means the Cubs are likely to send down infielder-outfielder Eric Patterson, who is 2-for-8 since being called up on Friday.

Really? You mean to tell me that a team where one of the two corner outfielders is hurt needs another corner outfielder? And our bench consists of three lefties who don’t hit very well, a backup catcher and Ronny Cedeno? (Note: when you’re willing to pinch hit for a guy with Ronny Cedeno, and that guy’s a first baseman – that’s not a good sign.)

Meanwhile, Eric Patterson was given all of eight at-bats to prove that he was, oh, I don’t know, better than Mike Fontenot. And Mike Fontenot is not a very high bar to get over. Here’s how I picture Mike Fontenot:

The guy’s what I like to call a hamster. I mean, seriously, look at him and tell me you don’t see it.

I know Eric Patterson is a guy folks like to hate – and no small amount of it has to do with his brother, Corey – but he’s got some plus attributes to him, which is more than Fontenot has going for him. Patterson can play the outfield and he’s a great baserunner. But he’s not a left fielder, and he’s certainly not ready to be a major league leadoff man.

So the Cubs made this decision based upon information readily available when they made the Hoffpauir/Patterson callup. (Okay, to be fair – the Cubs aren’t going to just come out and SAY “There’s no way in hell that we’re going to let Edmonds bat against Kazmir, so we needed Murton so we can move Reed to center.)

The question is, will Murton play? The Cubs have apparently decided that one good game makes Johnson our new leadoff hitter despite pretty obvious evidence that he’s a platoon player at this point.

OK, I’m watching the game and I feel compelled to make a comment as Eric Patterson just struck out swinging at a ball in the dirt…

WHY DOES THIS GUY PLAY?

Seriously, can someone tell me why Lou keeps putting this guy in the lineup? I know he only has 12 at-bats (of which he has one hit and 4 K’s) with the 2008 Cubs and it’s hard to judge him based on so few attempts at the plate, but here’s a newsflash for you Walter Cronkite: E.P. can’t hit.

Notice how Kurt’s post-Soriano-injury alternate lineups don’t even mention Patterson once? Is this because we are giving Patterson a free pass or do we simply not notice his amount of suckitude?

I tried to think of a good reason to play Patterson but I just can’t find one (especially since we have Thunder Matt tearing shizzy up with his boomstick in Iowa). Can someone enlighten me about this?

Sometimes I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

…of course now that I wrote this post, Patterson will probably hit a grand slam tonight. Such is life.

Well, here it is. Hoffpauir and Patterson are up. Kevin Hart is shipped out. And Patterson is playing left and leading off today. You could push me over with a feather after hearing that last one.

I’ll hopefully update this post in a little while, but in the meantime, here’s a table showing our options at second base, should DeRosa see playing time in left:

Mark DeRosa	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
MLB	208	40	65	13	0	8	35	29	46	3	0	.313	.398	.490	.888
Projected	263	40	76	15	1	7	40	30	54	2	1	.289	.362	.433	.795
Eric Patterson	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
AAA	181	27	59	13	3	5	26	10	41	10	0	.326	.361	.514	.875
Translated	184	20	50	9	2	4	19	7	44	8	0	.273	.301	.408	.709
MLB	6	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	3	1	0	.000	.000	.000	.000
Total	190	20	50	9	2	4	20	7	47	9	0	.263	.289	.395	.684
Projected	325	40	85	15	3	8	37	22	64	13	6	.262	.308	.400	.708
Mike Fontenot	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
MLB	88	16	21	7	0	2	12	12	16	2	0	.239	.337	.386	.723
Projected	229	34	60	15	2	5	26	23	43	4	2	.262	.329	.410	.740
Ronny Cedeno	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
MLB	95	19	28	7	0	1	19	10	16	3	1	.295	.368	.400	.768
Projected	234	30	65	12	1	5	30	15	43	5	3	.278	.321	.402	.723

Patterson can run the bases, no question. Projections for defense: DeRosa +4, Cedeno +2, Fontenot -3. DeRosa's played worse than that so far this season, while Cedeno and Fontenot have played better. I don't have projections for Patterson. I’ll leave Patterson at a zero, then, and I’ll leave the other numbers unadjusted for now.

	wOBA	Defense	Offense/112	Defense/112	Runs/112
DeRosa	0.352	4	1.36	0.69	2.05
Cedeno	0.318	2	-1.95	0.34	-1.60
Fontenot	0.326	-3	-1.17	-0.52	-1.69
Patterson	0.311	0	-2.63	0.00	-2.63

This isn't giving Patterson any credit for his baserunning, which is a plus. And I’m not entirely behind those defensive estimates. Cedeno looks like the best option of the three, although I think Murton is probably a better left fielder than any of them are second basemen. (These, unlike my full WAR numbers, are not adjusted by position.)

Soriano is going to to the DL for six weeks with a broken hand.

The return of Micah Hoffpauir a day early won’t be the end of the roster moves:

Infielder-outfielder Micah Hoffpauir will come up today from Class AAA Iowa to take Soriano's place on the roster. The Cubs need another hitter for the American League parks coming up.

It's possible they could recall either outfielder Matt Murton or infielder-outfielder Eric Patterson from Iowa by Friday. Currently, the Cubs are carrying 13 pitchers.

Mark DeRosa moved from second base to left field Wednesday. Expect DeRosa to see significant time in left during Soriano's absence, which will be about six weeks or even longer.

So, I’m operating under the assumption that two of Patterson, Hoffpauir and Murton will be called up. Hoffpauir has the least baseball talent of the group, so of course he’s the only one that’s guaranteed a callup.

What I’ve done is taken a player’s minor league numbers and figured out their Major League Equivalency – essentially an estimate of how they would have performed in the majors. Then, I combined those numbers with their MLB numbers. All of those numbers were then fed into the ZiPS projection tool, which uses those figures (in combination with their career numbers) to come up with a projection. (I also did a projection on Soriano for the rest of the season, based upon his numbers to date. Here’s an explanation of how projection systems work.) Here’s the table:

Eric Patterson	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
AAA	181	27	59	13	3	5	26	10	41	10	0	.326	.361	.514	.875
Translated	184	20	50	9	2	4	19	7	44	8	0	.273	.301	.408	.709
MLB	6	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	3	1	0	.000	.000	.000	.000
Total	190	20	50	9	2	4	20	7	47	9	0	.263	.289	.395	.684
Projected	325	40	85	15	3	8	37	22	64	13	6	.262	.308	.400	.708
Micah Hoffpauir	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
AAA	62	12	19	4	0	3	15	1	12	0	0	.306	.308	.516	.824
Translated	62	9	16	3	0	2	11	0	13	0	0	.259	.268	.417	.685
MLB	14	4	8	3	0	0	1	1	6	0	0	.421	.450	.579	1.029
Total	76	13	24	6	0	2	12	1	19	0	0	.316	.325	.474	.798
Projected	191	21	52	12	0	8	33	13	36	1	0	.272	.319	.461	.779
Matt Murton	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
AAA	177	25	55	10	1	1	14	28	16	3	2	.311	.411	.395	.807
Translated	184	18	47	8	0	0	10	21	17	2	2	.254	.330	.316	.646
MLB	14	2	3	0	0	0	4	1	2	0	0	.214	.267	.214	.481
Total	198	20	50	8	0	0	14	22	19	2	2	.253	.327	.293	.620
Projected	286	39	79	15	0	8	35	31	37	2	1	.276	.347	.413	.760
Alfonso Soriano	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
MLB	211	36	60	11	0	15	40	15	46	7	1	.284	.330	.550	.880
Projected	341	57	97	21	1	21	63	23	76	13	5	.284	.330	.537	.866

All three of them represent a sizable falloff. Hoffpauir is the one most capable of replacing Soriano’s power in the lineup, but that’s really damning with faint praise here. Murton is probably the best hitter of the group, given his superior on-base percentage. (Although his projected advantage over Hoffpauir is mighty slim.)

Of course they still have to play defense. So let’s look at some defensive projections, measured in runs saved/allowed versus the positional average. Murton projects as a +3 corner outfielder over the course of a season, Patterson as a +8. (Soriano projects as a +6; the projections don’t know about his leg injuries this year.)

Hoffpauir’s defense is an absolute cypher. We can look at minor league defensive numbers – Hoffpauir played 13 games in the outfield last season at AAA and was just off the charts bad. But he only played in 13 equivalent games in the outfield, hardly enough to pass judgement on.

What we do know is this. Hoffpauir has been a first baseman pretty much since his days in college. That tells me that, up until Lou Piniella saw him hitting this spring, nobody involved in talent evaluation saw much of a future for him in the outfield. Based on a charitable set of assumptions – that he’s an average defensive first baseman, and that he has the tools necessary to play the outfield – you’re looking at a –5 fielder. Again, that’s the charitable view.

Let’s assume that Soriano misses 36 games, and let’s assume that whoever fills in for him will average 3.1 plate appearances per game. That’s 112 plate appearances. We can figure out runs above average on offense and defense over that period in time. So, put it together and what have you got?

	wOBA	Defense	Offense/112	Defense/112	Runs/112
Soriano	.367	6	2.82	1.03	3.86
Murton	.337	3	-0.10	0.52	0.42
Hoffpauir	.336	-5	-0.19	-.086	-1.06
Patterson	.311	8	-2.63	1.38	-1.25

Again: I'm making some charitable assumptions on defense for Hoffpauir. Even still, he lags significantly behind Murton, even while they're basically tied as hitters. The problem is that a lot of Murton’s value is wrapped up in his walks, while Hoffpauir’s value comes more from his low-wattage power.

That’s assuming that any of them were to be filling in for him in left field. There are two other players on the Cubs who could be filling in in left: Reed Johnson and Mark DeRosa. That requires a bit more chaining to figure out, because then you have to also look at who’s playing center or second while those two are playing fill-in. I’ll take a look at that later.