With all of the good feelings flying around the North Side, the biggest Cubs related news should not be focused on Alfonso Soriano, but with the way things are being run on Clark and Addision, it is difficult to find anything in which Alfonso Soriano is not it's epicenter. The Cubs are off to a superb, if not almost unprecedented start to the season, owners of the top spot in the central and tied with the Diamondbacks with the third best record in all of baseball. Gone under the radar are Aramis Ramirez's superb start, Carlos Zambrano's unbelievable start and Derrek Lee's return to stardom. Ryan Theriot's hot start and Mark Derosa's excellent play have also not been given proper attention. Why? Because Alfonso Soriano and his extreme highs and lows have not just grabbed the headlines, but have surely given Lou Piniella many sleepless nights and have now necessitated stadium ejections for excessive jeering in the left field bleachers.

This morning, on ESPN 1000, an old interview with baseball insider Buster Olney was replayed in  which he "revealed" that a ninth inning replacement of Alfonso Soriano might put him down for the next two weeks. It's not that Soriano's over the top sensitivity is a secret or anything, it's just that it is strange to actually hear those sentiments from any baseball insider with knowledge of the situation. Judging from what Cubs players and management have said about Soriano, it seems like Soriano is as sensitive as Lou Piniella is subtle, which needless to say is not in the least bit. What makes all of this tough to stomach is that Soriano is no spring chicken. He is a veteran and is completely set in his ways. He will never be consistent, will not learn how to work the count and wait for his pitch and to top it all off, has already peaked, and that peak most likely was reached before he came to the Cubs. From the looks of things, the Cubs are now stick with five and a half more injury riddled seasons from a player who in a year or two will most likely have worn out his welcome.
So all this begs the question: Is Alfonso Soriano and all of the accompanying baggage worth it?

Alfonso Soriano thus far has been perhaps the biggest free agent bust of this past offseason. That is saying a lot, considering he was signed in the same offseason as guys like Barry Zito and Jason Schmidt. Among all major league outfielders, he is ninth in runs scored, sixth in doubles, sixteenth in triples, nineteenth in home runs, fifty-fifth RBI, seventieth in walks, eighth in strikeouts, and fifteenth in stolen bases.

For a player with one of the five richest contracts in baseball history he has severely underperformed. Not only are his numbers way off pace with his career numbers, but he has often dogged it on the field and seems overly interested in his own numbers. For a player with his prodigious speed and talent, he too often fails to cut off balls in the gap and only seems to be on top of his game when he has an oppurtunity to add an outfield assist on to his stst sheet. I have yet to see him lay down a bunt. With speed like Soriano has he should be able to have a minimum of 10 infield hits every season. He swings at anything and everything in his zip code and when he doesnt hit a home run he hits lazy fly balls to. He cant hit in the clutch and for all of the talk about his power he only has 18 home runs, of which only 3 have come since June 25th. For some reason he cant hit at Wrigley Field and it is no excuse that the wind often blows in. He crushed the ball at RFK last season, a park that is known as one of the toughest hitters park in all of baseball. Even when he does crush home runs, they are largely innefective. Fourteen if his eighteen knocks have been solo shots.

With Soriano out for the next 2-4 weeks, it appears the Cubs will hand over the title of leadoff man to Ryan Theriot, a more prototypical leadoff man. Theriot fits the bill for the Cubs. He is a passionate little infielder that lays it all out on the field night in and night out. He wont offer you the power that Soriano does, but he drives in runs in runs at the same rate as Soriano does and he scores run at the same rate. So even with his lack of power, he scores and drives in runs just as well as Soriano does. He is a better base stealer than Soriano. He is just a hair slower than Soriano but he has better technique and reads pitchers better. He has one more SB than Soriano but one less CS. The numbers would tilt in Theriot's favor even more if he didnt have 105 less AB's. Theriot has a more favorable groundball:fly-ball ratio and is a vastly superior bunter. Theriot has put down 8 sac bunts, Soriano 0.

Soriano can possibly attribute his early Chicago struggles to the day games and a new stadium and hopefully with more time he can come around, but at this point Soriano has not done enough to deserve the leadoff spot.

P.S. Just a little Nugget of Cubs Wisdom, or lack thereof: Last June, Carlops Zambrano's agents approached the Cubs about a 4 year, 38 million dollar extension. With the early reports stating that Zambrano will make around 20 million dollars a season over a minimum of 4-5 years, it looks like the Cubs really blew a huge oppurtunity. Considering they gave Marquis 7 million per over 3 years and Lilly 10 million per over four, their decision on Zambrano really makes you think what the hell are the guys running your favorite team thinking?