{"id":1242,"date":"2012-04-05T05:39:38","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T11:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=1242"},"modified":"2012-04-04T19:16:05","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T01:16:05","slug":"the-dale-sveum-era-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/the-dale-sveum-era-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dale Sveum Era Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Cubs look to kick off a new era, featuring new manager Dale Sveum, new GM Jed Hoyer, and new team president Theo Epstein, with today’s season opening game against the Nationals.<\/p>\n

Starting Pitchers<\/h3>\n

Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza, Jeff\u00a0Samardzija, Chris Volstad, Paul Maholm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ryan Dempster, who gets the Opening Day nod again this year, and Matt Garza are the only holdovers from last year’s staff. \u00a0Samardzija had a strong spring and looks to maybe have finally put everything together. \u00a0Volstad and Maholm beat out Randy Wells and Travis Wood, among others, for the final two spots in the rotation.<\/p>\n

Relief Pitchers<\/h3>\n

Carlos Marmol, Kerry Wood, James Russell, Rafael Dolis, Lendy Castillo, Shawn Camp<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marmol, Wood, and Russell are the lone holdovers from last season. \u00a0The rest appear to be a crap shoot.<\/p>\n

Catchers<\/h3>\n

Geovany Soto, Steve Clevenger<\/strong><\/p>\n

Geovany Soto has been a bit of a disappointment the last few years. \u00a0Clevenger won a fierce competition to become this year’s Koyie Hill.<\/p>\n

Infielders<\/h3>\n

Jeff Baker, Darwin Barney, Starlin Castro, Bryan LaHair, Ian Stewart, Luis Valbuena, Blake DeWitt<\/strong><\/p>\n

Castro and Barney are the only holdovers from last year’s squad. \u00a0Bryan LaHair finally gets a shot after mashing his way through Triple A last year. \u00a0Former Rockie Ian Stewart takes over for the departed Aramis Ramirez at third base. \u00a0Valbuena was claimed off waivers yesterday after a horrific spring with the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n

Outfielders<\/h3>\n

Marlon Byrd, David DeJesus, Reed Johnson, Alfonso Soriano, Joe Mather<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soriano and Byrd are the unfortunate leftovers from the previous regime. \u00a0DeJesus was brought in to man right field. \u00a0Johnson returns as the backup. \u00a0Mather had a great spring and forced his way on to the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cubs look to kick off a new era, featuring new manager Dale Sveum, new GM Jed Hoyer, and new team president Theo Epstein, with today’s season opening game against the Nationals. Starting Pitchers Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza, Jeff\u00a0Samardzija, Chris Volstad, Paul Maholm Ryan Dempster, who gets the Opening Day nod again this year, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[130,131,620,119,2199,147,2194,120,2191,618,2201,143,2200,627,2192,129,626,2204,625,617,2197,2203,140,615,150,2195,624,146,2202,619,2198,2193],"class_list":["post-1242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baseball","tag-alfonso-soriano","tag-aramis-ramirez","tag-blake-dewitt","tag-blue-jays","tag-bryan-lahair","tag-carlos-marmol","tag-chris-volstad","tag-cubs","tag-dale-sveum","tag-darwin-barney","tag-david-dejesus","tag-geovany-soto","tag-ian-stewart","tag-james-russell","tag-jed-hoyer","tag-jeff-baker","tag-jeff-samardzija","tag-joe-mather","tag-kerry-wood","tag-koyie-hill","tag-lendy-castillo","tag-luis-valbuena","tag-marlon-byrd","tag-matt-garza","tag-paul-maholm","tag-rafael-dolis","tag-reed-johnson","tag-ryan-dempster","tag-shawn-camp","tag-starlin-castro","tag-steve-clevenger","tag-theo-epstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1242"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1602,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions\/1602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}