New York Nine

It seemed like the perfect symmetry last season, a hundred years of losing, a few big acquisitions, a dominating regular season, the stars seemed to be finally lining up for cubs fans. However, we know that didn't happen, the lowly dodgers came into town, a team that barely was over .500 and flat out embarrassed them, sweeping the division series on the strength of Manny's ridiculous performance, hitting nearly .500 and some dominating performances by LA's pitching staff. Such sudden and profound disappointment made every self-respecting cub fan stand up and demand change, make this team better, more unbeatable so this doesn't happen again. GM Jim Hendry and Cubs's front office answered in kind with a flurry of trades and signings that gave them a lot of headlines this offseason, but I fear that the Cubs messed too much with a good thing.


Arguably the most intriguing move of the off-season was a non-move, letting the beloved Kerry Wood go. Coming off a pretty impressive campaign where Wood registered 34 saves striking out 84 in 66 innings with a 137ERA+ (or 3.26ERA for you laymen) Hendry decided to instead let the oft-injured closer go in favor of trading for the so-so closer Kevin Gregg and his 127ERA+. While its not a huge drop-off Gregg doesnt have the stuff or the pedigree of Wood. More importantly, Gregg will likely not be closing, and instead the fireballer Carlos Marmol will take over those duties. An absolutely fility pitcher who struck out 114 in 86 innings who can no doubt close out games, but I see him far more valuable as a set up man or relief ace. While not as high profile as the closer not getting the gold star known as a save, Marmol's ability to come in in the 7th and 8th innings and blow guys away when the game on the line is far more important more often than not than the 9th. I feel the Cubs will live to regret messing with one of the most dominating bullpens in the league.


The other big move was the signing of Milton Bradley. A talented and mercurial player, the guy has been an injury waiting to happen, playing only 100 games 3 times since 2000. Don't get me wrong the guy is ridiclously talented, he hit a pretty astonshing .321/.436/.536 last year, thats MVP caliber right there. The only thing is he played 141 games because he was DH for most of the year away from the field where he so often succombs to injury. Furthermore, while his numbers are sick his numbers away from Arlington are a little more pedestrian .290/.410/.462, still pretty good but not MVP. And yet for some strange reason, despite the fact the market is so bad and guys are getting shorter and more managable deals, the Cubs give the guy a 3 year deal! Who knows he could be real good, but without the benefit of playing DH I don't see him getting more durable now that he's on the wrong side of 30.


Finally one of the more underrated loses for the Cubs is the loss of Mark DeRosa via trade to the Indians. A guy who can play pretty much anywhere on the diamond 2B, 3B, and the outfield and still hit at a very respectable clip of .285/.376/.481, not bad for a super-utility guy. And even more than that he's one of those guys baseball writers love, a chemistry guy a "glue" guy who makes the team go, makes things happen, and yet they traded him for prospects, but why? Cub fans will point to Aaron Miles and say "hey he hit .317 we got a deal!" Well yeah sure that's nice but a closer look shows that its pretty damn fluky, hitting a pretty lucky .342 average for balls in play (BABIP is essentially the percentange of balls hit in the field that become hits, when you have that high of an average its just good luck and that usually isn't sustainable). He doesnt get on base or slug like DeRosa and I think they'll hurt in cruch time without him. The same goes for Ronny Cedeno who while not as talented has been one of those guys who came up big last year for them.


The Cubs made a host of other moves, including getting the Shea Favorite Aaron Heilman, Joey Gathright, and a few others but I see pretty much all of these moves as the Cubs going in the wrong direction. They'll still be pretty good as their core of guys are still there and in their prime and Bradley could possibly provide some desperately needed left handed power, but I just think they messed too much with a good thing. As the wild-card era in MLB has shown us, a five game series can be fluky, a team can get hot and win three games ina row and be done. Does that necessarily mean they're a better team? Not really, it means they were for a very small sample size. Just because the Cubs faltered in this very small sample size does not make them a bad team, but I fear with these moves they made themselves worse. I give them a C for their offseason, it still could be good and they are still the team to beat in the division, but I see a few chinks in the armor.