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Bringing Up the Cubs' Starlin Castro Fine As Long As Lou Is Patient

This is not simply a reaction to the post by Bruce Levine, who is wrong more often than he is right. There seems to be legitimate buzz around the Cubs organization about bringing up young stud Starlin Castro.

But it doesn't necessarily mean the end of Ryan Theriot as a Cub, for they may simply move The Riot to second base and play Castro at short.

Regardless of what they do with Theriot, one thing for sure is that they won't bring up Castro to sit on the bench. He will not come up until manager Lou Piniella can guarantee him regular playing time.

This could be interesting and potentially disastrous for the Cubs top prospect.

The reason I say this is that Lou has to be torn between his desire to improve the offense and his urgency to win at all costs. This is Lou's last rodeo and he probably isn't interested in building for the future.

So what happens when Castro, like all young players not named Pujols, struggles with the glove and/or the bat?

A team building for the future would let the kid play through it but a grizzled manager like Lou on the last year of his contract will want to sit him down and play someone else.

And let's face it, the kid will struggle. He has a rifle for an arm, but as we saw with the last Cubs shortstop who had such a rocket, that doesn't always equal accuracy.

Look, as bright as Castro's star may be shining now, you have to remember he's only 20 years old.

Meanwhile, which backup infielder gets moved off the roster to make room for Castro?

Among Chad Tracy, Mike Fontenot and Jeff Baker, the obvious choice would seem to be the seldom-used Tracy.

But not so fast. In an effort to prolong arbitration, the Cubs may decide to keep Castro in the minors awhile longer.

Still, it does seem that Castro will get called up sooner rather than later. Oh, and by the way, he is the goods.

Sure, it's easy to point to overly hyped failures like Felix Pie, Hee Seop Choi and Corey Patterson and assume the old "here we go again" routine.

But none other than the not-so-easily impressed Keith Law of ESPN believes that Castro has star written all over him.

"Starlin Castro is a future star," writes Law.

"He was one of the best and most impressive hitters I saw in Arizona. He has excellent hand-eye coordination and can keep his hands inside the ball even when pitchers try to work him inside. At shortstop, he has good lateral range, especially to his right, and a 65-70 arm on the 20-80 scale."

But again, even future stars often struggle early on, so it will be interesting to see what Lou will do.

After all, patience has never been one of his virtues.

 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

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