All Rise and Hail Lord Hendry, for he has finally tipped the balance in our favour by his coup de grace that has Sports Illustrated calling, nay, clamoring for a Cubs Pennant. I speak, of course, of the waiver wire signing of Reed Johnson.

Mr. Johnson, 31, formerly of the Toronto Blue Jays, has been signed for $1.3 million, will platoon in CF with Felix Pie, will wear the lucky number 13 made famous by Turk Wendell, Neifi Perez, Will Ohman and the black manager with the Italian name in "Rookie of the Year".

He was in the top 10 in AL batting average in 2006. He also required back surgery in 2007, and was cut loose by Toronto in 2008. He is not young, has ugly chin pubes, and has primarily played corner outfield positions during his big league career. He is not to be confused with Torii Hunter or even Felix Pie in the field.

He is, in my opinion, no better or worse than Coco Crisp or Marlon Byrd, and it cost us nothing. So I guess that is a positive.

He is also not going to get 500 plate appearences, nor can he bat leadoff. He is not really going to give us much more flexibility than having Matt Murton as our 4th outfielder. Once again, he isn't REALLY a Center Fielder. He may be slightly better than Murton with the leather. Ok, a bit better. Plus we won't have to move Soriano or Fooky around.

What's more, even though YOU may see our possession of Marquis AND Lieber, Murton, Cedeno, Marshall, Gallagher, Fontenot and Hofpauir as Plusses, I do not. The notion of having up-and-coming prospects chomping at the bit for playing time is a good thing. But out of the names mentioned above, only Gallagher can honestly be mentioned as a prospect. Hofpauir is stuck with a glass ceiling in the Cubs' plans, as is Murton. The rest are actual big-league veterans who are not going to deal constructively to reduced playing time or other under-utilization.

In the case of Lieber, he has done everything asked of him this spring, only to basically be the Long Man. This cannot be any more than a very short-term band-aid to the logjam problem in the rotation. If he is still sitting in that same place on May 1st, and if the Cubs aren't, like, 23-3, then I would think we have a major problem.

Sure, we got a little something for nothing today, but as a result, we got more ripe fruit rotting on the vine than ever before. Hendry should throw the book at McFail and Angelos today, offer them whatever they want out of the names I mentioned above, plus whatever Jose Cedas or any other prospects we have. Make it a one-sided trade - who gives an eff...none of those guys are gonna help us anyway.

If they won't bite, then tell the Orioles to suck ass, and go on to plan B - making sure these guys don't die on the vine, waiting to be used or traded.