Your 2006 Chicago Cubs

Well, our full squad is pretty much in attendance at Spring Training, and I am very excited to see the boys get back to work. We have some issues with the World Baseball Classic, where we're sending several key players, but everyone else is in Arizona ready to prepare for the 2006 campaign. With that, let's get to the Public Offering's 2006 Preview:

Preseason Award Picks and projected stats for 2006:
MVP: Derrek Lee (.317, 41 HR, 114 RBI)
MIP: Matt Murton (.293, 11 HR, 68 RBI, 19 SB)
Most Valuable Pitcher: Carlos Zambrano (20-6, 3.42 ERA)
Most Valuable Defensive Player: Jacque Jones
Most Valuable Newcomer: Juan Pierre (.298 Avg., .376 OBP, 42 SB, 104 runs)

And here is how your 2006 Cubs grade out by off-season moves and potential:

Starting Pitching: This is the biggest question mark on the team. Right now, we're looking at starting Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, Greg Maddux, Glendon Rusch, and Jerome Williams. That's obviously going to change, as Kerry Wood gets healthy and off-season acquisition Wade Miller gets finished with his rehab. This could be the most dominant starting unit in the league, or it could struggle with injury and consistency issues. If we get 60 starts from Prior and Wood, we'll have no problems at all from the starters.
Off-season improvement: Marginal (Wade Miller)
Pre-season Grade: B/B+

Bullpen: The Cubs addressed a young, inconsistent bullpen first in the off-season by spending about $25 million on veteran relievers Scott Eyre and Bobby Howry. These two pitchers should add stability to the middle relief corps. With Ryan Dempster closing out games and the rest of the bullpen likely including Michael Wuertz, Will Ohman, Roberto Novoa, and Scott Williamson (With Rich Hill, Jon Koronka, and Todd Wellemeyer waiting in the wings), we should have a much stronger bullpen than last year. It also remains to be seen whether Kerry Wood helps out in relief as well. If Woody stays in the pen, he'll give us some great short relief innings. If he starts, you can count on Rusch or Williams coming from the rotation to help out this bullpen even more. I think we finally have the personnel that we need to protect late leads. In fact, our pen is probably more stable than the rotation right now.
Off-season improvement: Substantial (Eyre, Howry, and maturing of younger pitchers)
Pre-season Grade: A-

Outfield: Our outfield looks completely different than a year ago. We went out and signed Jacque Jones from Minnesota and Juan Pierre from Florida to replace the outgoing Corey Patterson and Jeromy Burnitz in center and right field, and farmhand Matt Murton will get a chance to start the year as an every day player in left. I like Murton a lot; he is still young but has shown the ability to hit to all fields, likes to run the bases, and does the little things. As for Pierre and Jones, I think we got one of the most hard-working leadoff men in the game (Pierre) and a great all-around player who is underrated because of a bad year in 2005 (Jones). I'm concerned that we don't have a good throwing arm in the outfield and we don't have a lot of power either, but our infielders hit a lot of home runs and we certainly gained a lot of ground in speed, defensive skill, baserunning ability, contact hitting, and character. All three outfielders are superb in the clubhouse and should really help team chemistry. The top of our lineup is going to give some teams problems, especially teams that have pitchers who don't like throwing from the stretch, and it should give our big bats a lot of opportunities. I'm very excited to see how this outfield gels and covers the smallish outfield at the Friendly Confines.
Off-season Improvement: Substantial, borderline outstanding
Pre-season Offensive Grade: B+
Pre-season Defensive Grade: A-

Infield: This is where the front office failed to make any substantial moves in the off-season. After letting Nomar Garciaparra go, the Cubs re-signed Neifi Perez and Jerry Hairston, picked up Todd Walker's option, and penciled in farmhand Ronny Cedeno as the everyday shortstop. The Cubs made a run at Rafael Furcal and couldn't pay him what the Dodgers offered, so we pretty much left our infield alone. I like Todd Walker at second base (especially for a paltry $2.5 million), and I think that Ronny Cedeno is a bit of a risk because he is so young and inexperenced, but I liked what I saw last year and he had a great off-season playing in South America. Jerry Hairston will probably play some outfield as well as infield, and Neifi Perez will be Cedeno's primary backup at shortstop. At the corners, we have our two big bats: Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. I expect both to have 30+ home run and 100+ RBI seasons, especially with our newfound speedsters batting ahead of them in the order. Both are slated to play in the WBC, which I suppose is okay, but I am worried about Aramis and his continued struggles with leg injuries. Aramis has improved immensely over the last season on defense, and Derrek Lee remains arguably the best defensive first baseman in the game. Our catchers are also both playing in the WBC, and that hurts our ability to really get a good relationship going with the new pitchers during Spring Training, which is the most critical time to cement pitcher-catcher communication and teamwork. In any case, I like Michael Barrett's bat but am concerned that our superstar pitchers have increasingly requested that backup Henry Blanco catch them...let's hope that Barrett is developing his ability to call games so that we don't have to trade offense for defense. Blanco is one of the best minds in the game, so I hope that Barrett can learn from him over the course of the year.
Off-Season Improvement: Marginal to none (Cedeno's improvement in winter ball)
Pre-season Offensive Grade: A-
Pre-season Defensive Grade: B+

Bench: Our reserves have quietly improved a lot over the off-season. We signed utilityman John Mabry from St. Louis, and extended a non-roster Spring Training invitation to Marquis Grissom, who is highly likely to make the team coming out of camp. Our five regular bench players will probably be Blanco, Mabry, Hairston, Perez, and Grissom, with star farmhand Felix Pie possibly entering the mix sometime into the season. That means that every one of our regulars are major league veterans and most can play more than one position. We should be experienced and versatile on the bench, and Dusty likes to use all of his players, so he should have a lot of options. Look for Perez to start at shortstop once a week, and don't be surprised to see Hairston in left, right, or second and Grissom starting against some left-handed pitchers. I think this bench could really contribute a lot.
Off-season Improvement: Substantial (Grissom and Mabry)
Pre-season Defensive Grade: A-
Pre-season Offensive Grade: B/B-


OVERALL: This is a very, very different Cubs team than the last two years for three principal reasons: 1) we have a chance to have a stable, healthy rotation. Woody is supposed to be ready to go in mid-April, and everyone else is on pace to start the year; 2) we're no longer going to be a home run dependant, feast-or-famine offense. We are going to hit fewer home runs this year, but will have much better totals in batting average, stolen bases, hit-and-run opportunities, successful sacrifices, and probably runs scored. I really like our small ball lineup, and I think it will allow Dusty to take more calculated risks as opposed to standing around hoping for a big home run; and 3) we finally have a deep, experienced bullpen that is full of players who know their roles. We aren't converting anyone to a position they've never played this year, we aren't using three or four guys who just got brought up from AAA, and we paid for top-flight relievers who fill a specific need.

That being said, we absolutely have to improve on the base paths, fielding the ball, and hitting for contact this year to have any chance at a division title or a playoff berth. We are fortunate that our divisional rivals (Houston and St. Louis) did not make great strides in the off-seaon, but with Milwaukee and Pittsburgh getting better, few games will be handed to the Cubs. We have lost more games in the last two seasons than I can count because we fail to do the little things- hit the cutoff man, mental mistakes on the base paths, not legging out extra base hits, pitchers failing to cover first base, throwing errors, etc, etc, etc. We have to become a more fundamentally sound team if we are going to contend this year.

We also need to be healthy, especially in the pitching staff, but that's something that doesn't warrant much further analysis. Prior and Wood have to keep their arms healthy, Rusch can't break down if we need him to start for the whole season, our aging bullpen guys have to be able to give us 70 or so appearances, and Maddux can't show his age. It's that simple.

I like this team. I like the clubhouse dynamic, I like that the players love playing for Dusty, and I like our potential. If we stay healthy, I'm thinking we win about 94-96 games, which likely will be enough for the division title.

Tentative first game at Wrigley Field this year for the Offering is either April 8 or 9th, the weekend of the home-opening series against the hated Redbirds. Target number of games to be attended, as usual, is 25 games- an ambitious yet realistic goal. I've been within a couple of that number each of the last two years.

Hope to see you at Wrigley.
Go Cubs.