Much as been said about Carlos Silva so far this spring...and very little has been positive.
He is indeed up for one of the two starting pitcher spots (this is assuming Lilly-pad is on the shelf for a month).
Counter to rumors we heard shortly after the Bradley trade, Silva doesn't appear to have slimmed down much at all...in fact, he looks a bit larger than he did with the Mariners last year.
The video I've seen from spring training (thanks to Boys of Spring!) that has had him in it, revealed to me that he looked slow and sluggish during workouts. Now these aren't game situations and I haven't seen him throw at all...hell, I'm stuck up here in Wisconsin, so what the hell do I know?
But it could very well be that Silva is not among the top 12 pitchers on this team (assuming they have 12 pitchers on the roster at the end of spring training). In fact, Silva might not be among the top 18 pitchers on the 40 man roster.
So what are the Cubs to do? Silva is owed $25 million for the next two seasons. Luckily the Cubs only really own about $16 million of that because of the cash they received in the Bradley deal.
Would the Cubs be willing to release Silva and eat the $16 million?
What other options are there? Would he accept an assignment to the minor leagues (and if I were him and I still wanted to play baseball, I'd do that)? The Cubs could put him on the DL and make up some injury. (Does an eating disorder count?)
Would the Cubs actually be willing to sacrifice a roster spot for him if he is no good? It already scares the crap out of me that they seem to be trying to make space for Kevin Millar. I can't imagine the team would use up 2 roster spots on players the would contribute close to nothing this season.
Maybe this is all premature. Silva might come out and blow us away with his stuff this spring.
*pause*
Ok...you can stop laughing now.
Just how much time and effort would the Cubs be willing to spend on this guy...especially with all the time and effort the must currently spend on players who might actually contribute something now or in the future and have much higher potential, are more motivated, and/or are younger.
I apologized for the poor joke I made last week that included Carlos Silva in it, but I will continue to call him "The Orca". I just hope orcas have good fastballs.
