Are You Ready Yet?

The Cubs made room for Reed Johnson on the 40-man by putting Angel Guzman on the 60-day DL. The roster was trimmed a little closer to 25, sending down five players.

Sam Fuld and Eric Patterson were sent to AAA, while Les Walrond, Casey McGehee and Micah Hoffpauir were assigned to the Minor League camp. According to TCR has one less pitcher than Cubs.com (which says nothing more than "17"), and I can't come up with another.

This leaves 31 players with the big team.

Catchers (2)
Geovany Soto, Henry Blanco

Infielders (8)
Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Theriot, Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot, Daryle Ward, Ronny Cedeno, Alex Cintron (NRI)

Outfielders (5)
Kosuke Fukudome, Matt Murton, Alfonso Soriano, Reed Johnson, Felix Pie

Pitchers (16)
Carlos Zambrano, Rich Hill, Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly, Jon Lieber, Sean Marshall, Jason Marquis, Bob Howry, Scott Eyre (DL soon), Carmen Pignatiello, Kerry Wood, Michael Wuertz, Carlos Marmol, Kevin Hart, Tim Lahey, Chad Fox (NRI)

Lahey, Fox, Eyre and Marshall should all be out of the way before Vegas (or Piggy instead of Marshall). The Cubs will still need to shed two position players - probably Fontenot and Cintron.

Murton could be traded, which would let the Cubs keep an extra infielder. As much as I like Murton, we just don't need him anymore, beyond depth. He may have more value to the club in a trade, however.

That said, the Cubs really don't need to do anything else with this team. I may not like the batting order, but this is a solid club with few weaknesses that are presently apparent. There is depth in the rotation and from both sides in the bullpen. Reed Johnson's signing just rounds out the roster to perfection. It is just five days to Opening Day, and I'm finally get that excited feeling in my stomach. Maybe it was the glimpse of Boston and Oakland this morning, too, since today is the first day of the season. But I'm ready.