Odds and ends

I may have the Cubs Baseball America 11-20 prospects ready to go later on, but for now let’s just go with a few notes of interest. Mike Fontenot will be the starting 2nd baseman. I never really worried about this one. Lou may make a poor decision or two, but choosing Miles over Fontenot isn’t a poor decision; it’s one that should get him fired. It’s also one that is comparable to choosing Kevin Hart over the Opening Day starter, Carlos Zambrano. Nobody thought Lou would choose Hart over Zambrano in the rotation so I’ve never quite understood why so many thought Lou would choose Miles over Fontenot. Micah Hoffpauir is going to make the final 25-man roster. Lou said he’d like to have a 26-man roster, which is largely due to the fact that Hoffpauir cannot play any position other than 1st base. Lou didn’t say that. I did. Hoffpauir has shown he can hit the ball a little bit and while he’s probably no better than average fielder, he’s the best option the Cubs currently have to fill in at 1st base. It would be nice to have a right handed version of Hoffpauir since the bench doesn’t really feature any right handed power. Oh well. Despite a rather long 3rd inning yesterday, Rich Harden says he feels 100%. “I feel like I’m making some progress,” Harden said. “In spring, I don’t look too much at runs. I got a little wild that last inning, but it happens. I felt strong, and it’s probably the best I felt in a long time. I felt like I could throw 100 pitches today. I’m really happy about today.” Harden cruised through the first 2 innings on just 22 pitches. He needed 26 pitches to get 2 outs in the 2nd before being taken out. Harden says the conditioning of his shoulder has paid off. And last but not least, MGL wrote what I thought was an excellent comment on his blog yesterday. As Tango likes to say, and he is right, the less objective data and the corresponding metrics you have, the more you weight scouting-type data, of which the Fan Scouting Report is an excellent example. For example, one year UZR (or whatever) mixed with one part scouting seems about right. For 2 years of UZR, maybe one part scouting (2 parts UZR), etc. I don’t have anything to add to that comment. He also said another thing that I’m going to quote. Don