Too Soon For Cedeno

For the purpose of me playing devil's advocate, and the fact that we are talking about the Cubs, I'm wondering if I'm the only cub fan out there who's just a bit worried about ronny cedeno being handed the starting SS job?

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not one of the crazy Neifi fans who are on Dusty Baker's cool-aid mailing list. I want Cedeno to succeed, and the cubs need him to succeed, or at least not flop. But given their recent track record in regards to grooming young position players to be successful Major Leagurs, I'm not sure I trust the Cubs enough to think that they actually know what they're doing.

Let's look at the most recent example: K Man K Pat - need I say more. But before him, and again, my mind is a bit "spotty", I go back to Dwight Smith, Jerome Walton and then Mark Grace before I can think of young cubs position player, brought up through the organization, that has had any success at the Big League level. Now again, as it states at the top of my blog, I'm hardly ever right. I could be forgetting some huge name, and I don't keep a track record of all the A Ball players that got traded as players to be named later and then turned out to be superstars. (Cough... Dontrelle Willis) So someone PLEASE set me straight, send me a comment with a name that proves I'm not a complete burnout...

Okay, so back to Cedeno. The cubs have now had two off-seasons since the first nomar half-season ended with a thud. Since then, at least 4 quality, big name, short stops have switched teams, and been difference makers, (Cabrera, Eckstein, Renteria-who's been moved twice, and Furcal) and even more recently, Tejada was complaining about his situation, sort of, i guess, or whatever. I'm not really sure what was going on there, but it was fun to dream.
Side note- anyone remember that the cubs could have just as easily gotten Cabrera instead of Nomar in that '04 deal, and paid less for him- How DID the Red SOx do that year?

And I like Cedeno's bat, but I'm not a fan of his defense. (threw the ball into the dirt costing a run on wed.)And I dont' mind Murton as much because the outfield is a little less defense-crucial, and because of the Dusty/ Neifi Brokeback-esque love fest, Cedeno got about half as much playing time as Murton, (or Rex Grossman, or Tim Thomas, pick your sport)

So I pose just this one question: Which would you rather have. An untested rookie starting with Neifi as his backup.
Or Cedeno as the Back-up infield guy, learning from one of the best in the league in Tejada, and Neifi Reuniting with Kkorey and Sammy in Baltimore.

But Like I said, its February, what the hell else am I gonna do but think of this crap?
Here's to hoping I'm wrong, and the Cubs "brain-trust" knows exactly what its doing.