Winter Meetings end, Cubs sign Marquis

Props to Jim Hendry for finshing the Lilly deal while in the hospital. The Cubs also signed LH bench guy Daryle Ward, who seems to fit what we need. I do not think the Cubs will trade Jones at this point, it seems like they can only get pennies for him.

The big signing today however is the Cubs' signing of Jason Marquis.

Again, I'm not super-wild about this signing. In the plus column, he has a pretty good sinker, is an innings eater, can pinch hit, and did pretty well in the past few years (the second half of last season notwithstanding). On the other hand, he was AWFUL after the all-star break last year. Also, he's worked under both Leo Mazzone and Dave Duncan, widely regarded as being the best pitching coaches in the league, and even they weren't really able to turn him around. Anyway, this is what I see our rotation shaping up to be:

Zambrano
Lilly
Marquis
Hill
Miller/Prior

In terms of healthy-ness, if everyone was 100% and turns into their old selves. I would rank the three question marks in the order Prior, Miller, Marquis...but we need everyone to be totally healthy. I think Prior is more likely to turn things around than Miller, but Miller seems more likely to stay healthy. Once again...Prior is the wild card in our rotation.

Thus Roster/Lineup (12/9)

RF Soriano
SS Izturis (ugh)
1B Lee
3B Ramirez
CF Jones
LF Murton
C Barrett
2B DeRosa

B Blanco
B Theriot
B Ward
B Pagan
B Some FA bat (Floyd?)

1 Zambrano
2 Lilly
3 Marquis
4 Hill
5 Miller/Prior/Rookie

B Dempster
B Howry
B Wood
B Wuertz
B Eyre
B Cotts
B Ohman