Bald don't lie

The Cubs have been making cuts over the past few days and yesterday's took the roster down to 35. They will be allowed to take 31 players to Japan, 26 of whom will be on the active roster for the two games against the Dodgers and five will be on a taxi squad. The plan appears to be to have Jameson Taillon and Matthew (Bat) Boyd pitch in the two exhibition games against Nippon Professional Baseball teams and then be on the taxi squad for the games with the Dodgers. So they will have the ability to have two "extra" bullpen arms if they want. But they don't have to carry 13 pitchers for those two games, so they may opt to carry an extra bench player.

I joked on Saturday that seeing them give Nicky Lopez the "in-game interview" treatment meant he surely was about to get whacked, and he did. Lopez can opt out of his minor league assignment and try to find another big league team (or, the White Sox) to sign with, and that's apparently what he's going to do.

The big "news" seemed to be that Gage Workman and Vidal Brujan had both "made" the team, but that's not correct, yet. They are both going to Japan, and there's room for both on the active roster for those games, but there might not be for the second Opening Day on March 27 against the D'Bags.

One move the Cubs apparently won't make is to put Nico Hoerner on the injured list. He won't be going to Japan but will be working out (and presumably playing in minor league and B games) in Arizona. He will count as one of the 31 players on the Japanese travel roster.

So that appears to leave one position player spot on the Japanese roster and that's either Matt Shaw or Kevin Alcantara. It seems an easy decision. Do you take your presumed every day third baseman or a fifth outfielder? But the Cubs insist this isn't a simple decision because due to a strained oblique early in camp, Shaw has only been playing games for about a week and has just 12 at bats. Alcantara has had twice that many.

Whatever.

You hope that the reason for the Cubs dragging their feet on Shaw is that he's not on the 40 man roster and if something happens to him in the final two days before they fly to Tokyo they don't have to add him. Say he reaggravates his oblique in a game today or tomorrow, or he just topples over from his overly exaggerated leg kick in the batter's box, you don't have to do anything with him roster-wise. But once you decide he's going to play in the real games in Japan he has to be on the 40-man roster. Alcantara's already on it.

So it seems logical that you'd do it this way. You have decided that Shaw's your opening day third baseman, but wait until the last minute to pull the trigger on rostering him just in case. It's smart.

But these are the Cubs, and sometimes they just do dumb shit because they're dumb shits.

Could the Cubs get away with playing Justin Turner at third base for two games in mid-March? Sure they could. But there doesn't seem to be any logical reason to actually do that.

The last time the Cubs opened a season in Japan they started Shane Andrews at third base in the opener, despite the presence of a plucky young third baseman. I really hope what happened to Cole Liniak doesn't happen to Shaw.