While the entire Cubs' spring training schedule has not yet been made public, today the Cubs announced that again in 2010, they and the White Sox will travel to Las Vegas during the spring campaign to play a pair of exhibition games. From the press release:

The Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox will play two exhibition games in Las Vegas next March for the 2010 Big League Weekend at Cashman Field, home of the Las Vegas 51s. The clubs will play on Friday, March 12, 2010 and Saturday, March 13, 2010. Games times are to be determined. The Cubs and White Sox will both feature split squads.

Ticket information is available by calling the Las Vegas 51s at 702-798-7825 or visiting www.lv51.com. The Cubs and White Sox will play a pair of spring training games in Las Vegas for the second year in a row.

by Nam Y. Huh - AP

Randy Wells had a fine rookie year and finished sixth in SBN rookie balloting.

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Count me as one of those surprised at the SBN Rookie of the Year balloting. Neither J.A. Happ nor Chris Coghlan, the two players named at the top of the BCB ballots, won. Tommy Hanson is a deserving recipient, no doubt, but I was sure that Happ was going to win. The third-place vote I gave Randy Wells is, admittely, a homer pick.

The AL balloting, for which BCB had no vote, was very close, with only two points separating the top two. If I did have a vote for the AL ROY, it would have gone to Gordon Beckham.

BCB ballots:

Me: 1) Happ 2) Hanson 3) Wells      
Mike: 1) Coghlan 2) Happ 3) Hanson 

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by David Zalubowski - AP

Rockies manager Jim Tracy shares a laugh with Lou Piniella. SBN voters named him the NL Manager of the Year.

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At the end of the regular season, all the SBN blogs cast their ballots for the same awards given out by the BBWAA. To make the vote comparable to the BBWAA vote, each site was given two votes, and NL blogs voted only for NL teams, AL blogs for AL teams. (And yes, I'm as puzzled as you will be to see a second-place vote for John Russell.) For Manager of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and Cy Young, we voted for the top three and points are given as 5-3-1. For MVP, we voted for the top 10 and points are awarded as follows, 1st through 10th: 14-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. Ballots were due the day after the regular season ended, so playoff performances and team results have no bearing on this voting.

As has been the case the last three years, I gave the second BCB ballot to Mike, who draws all the cartoons here. Today, I present the SBN Managers of the Year; after the jump you'll find the results for both the AL and NL balloting, and here are the two BCB ballots:

Al: 1) Jim Tracy 2) Tony LaRussa 3) Bruce Bochy
Mike: 1) Jim Tracy 2) Tony LaRussa 3) Charlie Manuel

The schedule for the rest of the week is:

Tuesday 11/10: Rookie of the Year
Wednesday 11/11: Cy Young Award
Thursday 11/12: MVP

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BCB photo by David Sameshima, Saturday, November 7, 2009

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Demolition barricades surround the former Yum Yum Donut Shop on Clark St. next to Wrigley Field. The building has been used for Cubs offices in recent years; it will soon be demolished, the first step toward clearing the site for construction of the Triangle Building.

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The 2009 baseball season has just ended, and in a way, you could say that tonight, the 2010 season begins.

While we are not going to see the most-hyped prospect, Stephen Strasburg -- he was scratched due to a strained neck muscle -- or Cubs prospect Josh Vitters, also scratched with a minor injury, there will be plenty of players in tonight's game who you'll see in the major leagues next season.

Among them are Giants prospect catcher Buster Posey, who played in two games against the Cubs last September; Hank Conger, who may be the Angels' next catcher; and, of course, the Cubs' own Starlin Castro, who we have been talking about here all throughout the AFL season. Castro enters tonight's game leading the AFL in batting average (.424). Castro probably isn't quite ready for the major leagues -- he won't turn 20 until March and has played only 31 games above A ball -- but he'll likely get into some spring training games next March and could get a September callup in 2010.

Andrew Cashner, also in the AFL, won't play tonight either, so the only other Cubs prospect who might participate will be Blake Parker, who had 22 saves for Iowa last year and who might have a shot at the major league bullpen in 2010.

There were a number of players from the 2008 AFL who made significant impacts on the 2009 major league season, including Tommy Hanson, Gordon Beckham, Matt Wieters, Bud Norris and Phil Hughes. I figure enough of you are interested in, and will be watching, this game, that it deserved its own game thread.

Broadcast and other detailed information after the jump.

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by Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

Like it or not, one of the keys to the Cubs' success in 2010 is a resurgence by Alfonso Soriano. Here, he launches his game-winning grand slam vs. the Astros last July 27.

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Last year about this time, I made this post discussing what I thought should be the makeup of the 2009 Cubs.

Brave, isn't it, of me to post that link when I'd just as soon forget about it. I was shouted down and laughed at (people are still giving me grief for the Kevin Millar thing, and they were absolutely correct), and had the Cubs put that 25-man roster on the field last April, they'd undoubtedly have had a much worse season than they did in real life (case in point: Alex Hinshaw, who I thought was an up-and-coming LOOGY, threw only six major league innings in 2009, posting a 12.00 ERA).

So let me go about this project this year in a different sort of way. A year ago (actually, October 20, 2008 was the date I wrote the post about my proposed 2009 roster) we were all still stunned and angry that the 97-win team that had dominated the National League all season went three-and-out in the playoffs. This was before Lou's "we've gotta get more lefthanded" mantra led us to the Milton Bradley disaster, before popular favorites Kerry Wood and Mark DeRosa were let go, and a lot of us were wondering, "How can we make a team that good into one that will win 11 games in October?"

Jim Hendry and Co. were asking themselves the same question, obviously, but came up with the wrong answer. Without rehashing what we've rehashed all summer long, clearly, it didn't work -- and not just because of Hendry's moves, but because players like Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto and Mike Fontenot seriously underperformed their 2008 numbers by considerable margins and for various reasons, and because Aramis Ramirez, who is the Cubs' best hitter, missed 50 games with a dislocated shoulder and wasn't at full strength the rest of the season, eventually playing in only 82 games.

I believe in what new owner Tom Ricketts said at his introductory press conference: that the Cubs already have the talent that can win the World Series, and only need a few tweaks to bring the club back to pennant-contending level. I'm also going to assume that what we've heard about player payroll is correct: that it will be increased, if only "slightly", from 2009, and thus will wind up at (approximately) $145 million. That will rank third in baseball, behind the Yankees and Red Sox.

Thus, instead of trying to build a roster simply by picking pieces from here and there, let's use that $145 million to put together a winning team.

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