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?