Come To Think Of It...Carlos Marmol's Unfortunate Decision To Pitch In WBC

I have nothing against the World Baseball Classic, per se. The timing of it, however, should be a concern to all teams with pitchers who are planning to throw in this event.

In an effort to market major league baseball throughout the world and sell its MLB.TV package, Bud Selig and his henchmen have decided that it's a good idea to have pitchers throw at maximum effort without the benefit of spring training.

And Carlos Marmol, who earlier had indicated he may skip the exhibition, has apparently decided to go ahead and participate after all.

He will be pitching for the Dominican Republic.

And that is scary news for Cubs fans.

Meanwhile, it's a questionable move for a guy who is supposed to be battling Kevin Gregg for the closer's job this spring.

How can Lou make an educated decision without being able to watch Marmol in spring training games?

First of all, Lou doesn't really like pitchers. He understands their importance to winning baseball, of course, but otherwise doesn't have much use for them.

So one might imagine that this could negatively influence his decision and hurt Marmol's chances at opening the season as the team's closer.

For the record, Lou said he’s fine with Marmol’s decision and that it won’t affect the competition.

But what is he supposed to say?

For the Cubs organization has already publicly announced that they would not try and influence any player's decision whether to play in the event or not.

So Lou would look like he was not in sync with Jim Hendry if he complained. 

But I think there is cause for some real concern here.

In addition to possibly getting hurt pitching in the WBC, Carlos has already pitched in the Dominican this winter before the Cubs told him to shut it down.

And he is coming off a season of heavy use.

Marmol appeared in 82 games last year, slightly more than half of the team's games.

I understand the young man's desire to pitch for his home country. But I'll be holding my breath, come to think of it.