Rating Piniella

Let me just say this right off the top: I think Piniella is the best manager this franchise has seen in many many years. Why is that? Because when things aren't working out, he finds a solution, in-house, if necessary. I could make a long list of such moves just from 2007, moves that a different manager either never would have thought of or not dared to make.

Here's a list of such moves:

1) Move Carlos Marmol to the bullpen. He was awful as a starter in 2006, but Piniella knows a good bullpen arm when he sees it. That's why he has a great pen more often than not. (See Nasty Boys, 2001 Mariners)

2) Move Jacque Jones into CF. This one never occured to me... Jones had trouble throwing from right field, but center requires less arm. Replacing Pie, who was not hitting, with Jones required vision.

3) Get rid of Michael Barrett. His defense was dragging the Cubs down; he did not even understand the idea of framing pitches. This is basic catching. You'd expect even a high school catcher to know this.

4) Made Fontenot and Theriot the double-play combination. In the beginning, it was Izturis and DeRosa. Piniella also made use of DeRosa's willingness to do what's best for the team (not every player will!) and turn him in to a supersub to ride out some injuries, and then put him back at second when the league caught up to Fontenot.

5) There was also the umpire-bumping tirade, right around the beginning of the Cubs' revival, which was also shortly after the Barrett-Zambrano fight. Piniella was suspended for four games, but the team really responded. And when the spotlight left Soriano, which it did at that time, Soriano relaxed and started hitting. Speaking of Soriano,

6) Moved Soriano from center to left, because it didn't look good in center. I think that with Soriano's great arm, they should consider right field next year.