Rizzo To Chicago This Week

It has been calculated that Rizzo has passed the date when his service time gives the Cubs another year of control over his destiny. The Cubs can promote Rizzo this weekend in Arizona and have him end the season with 171 days of service time, one fewer than what he would need for a full season. That would mean he won't be a free agent until after 2018, not '17, and this apparently matters to Tom Ricketts.

With the experiment of placing LaHair in RF during the White Sox series and placing Catcher Steve Clevenger at 1B it is clear the Cubs are experimenting with an Outfield going forward of Soriano, DeJesus and LaHair. LaHair held his own in the troublesome Wrigley RF wind.

I would expect an announcement later tonight that Rizzo will be in Chicago for the Mets series, if not he will be in Wrigley for the Houston series by week’s end. With 23 home runs and a slash line of .364/.426/.745 at Iowa — bringing his career Triple-A totals to 49 homers and 160 RBIs in 156 games — it's safe to say Rizzo is ready for his National League re-joining party. His long swing was exposed by Petco Park's pitcher-friendly dimensions a year ago, but he has shortened the swing and become less pull-conscious, according to reports.

This morning Rizzo was only owned in 16% of leagues. I picked him up in one league just to block others from grabbing him. With the Cubs facing Left Hander Johan Santana on Monday look for a call-up as early as Tuesday against Dillon Gee. The Cubs do face 3 LHP this week so the call-up will give Rizzo a chance to flounder early. Long term he is a no brainer Dynasty play. In all deep leagues and NL leagues he is a must wire grab. In shallower leagues he will be  await and see. The loser in the Rizzo call up will be NL steals leader Tony Campana. His starts will be weekly instead of daily and his only contributing stat for the rest of the year will be SBs on pinch running opportunities.