Recently, there have been several interesting Cubs-related posts on blogs that are worth commenting on here.

From Camden Chat :

"Well just who in the hell is Jon Garland? He is pitching like a man possessed. Please believe it."

Comments:

The ill-fated trade the Cubs made for reliever Matt Karchner that sent recent 1st round draft pick Garland to the White Sox was also the subject of a stupid article in yesterdays Tribune. Basically, the article said that this trade was not a really bad deal of Brock for Broglio dimensions until this year now that Garland was 6-0 and that the trade would look even worse if he went 7-0. Actually, the Garland/Karchner trade was a disaster for the Cubs from the moment that Karchner's MLB career ended in 2000. A warm body, even one who was a mostly .500 level pitcher, is better than no pitcher at all. Had the Cubs had Garland instead of such mediocrities as Juan Cruz and Shawn Estes and possibly even Matt Clement (although judging from his performance in Boston this year, it appears that Clement has greatly improved), their record would likely have been significantly better that what it really was. A Garland-enhanced Cubs almost certainly would have made the playoffs last year.

From the Transaction Guy :

Pirates-Rockies Trade
by The Transaction Guy

Pittsburgh Pirates acquire OF Michael Restovich from the Colorado Rockies for a PTBNL.

Not a bad pickup for Pittsburgh. If it gets Tike Redman back out of the lineup (a Restovich-Bay-Lawton outfield, for instance), it’ll be a great pickup.

Comments:

Contrary to the optimistic belief of many Cubs fans, the 2005 Pittsburgh Pirates are for real. Before they went on a 10-game road trip, they were dead last in the NL Central with one of the worst records in all of MLB. They went 7-3 on that trip and are now tied for 3rd in the division with the Cubs. According to the mlb.com writer for the Pirates, that was the team's "best road trip in 15 years." That's the kind of success that leads to momentum and further success. If they can keep that performance up, attendance should swell with the result that the team will have that much more revenue to work with come next year and perhaps even to make a trade for this year's stretch run. In any event, the possiblity of the Cubs being able to trade for Pirates closer Jose Mesa are pretty much dead.

From
Baseball Diamond News :

Dempster- What are the Cubs thinking?

Well I still don't understand putting Dempster in the pen. My philosophy is that if your starters can't keep you in the game why do you need a closer? What really gets me is that Dempster was suppose to start on Monday and it wasn't until Sunday that the Cubs decided to drop him from the start and put him in pen. This would be ok, but they had no one to start for them and in the minors the only guy ready to start was Leceister. Wouldn't it have been smarter to let Dempster start Monday and then with the day off on Wednesday he might have been ready on Thursday as long as Baker kept the pitch count down on Monday (but that would make too much sense). Well we know the results of what happened in that game, he gave up some early runs and the Cubs never got back into it. Then in mop-up duty Dempster got hid hard. Then the next day Dempster goes in for the save opportunity and blows it. I have a feeling we will see a lot more of that from Dempster also. I know teams would love to find the next Eckersley or Gagne, but Ryan Dempster will become neither of them.
Now I don't know who to blame for this decision, Dusty Baker or the wonderful (sarcastic) GM Hendry. I am thinking that Hendry had some say in the matter, but I also have the feeling Dusty had no objections.

Comments:

This is the best piece of writing that I've seen on the decision to try Dempster out as Cubs closer. Only bad thing about it is that I wish that I came up with some of his points.