TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Why I Picked the Cubs to Win

Sportswriters who rely on cliches and tired story lines may still breathe easy after the 'curse' of the Bambino has been buried, since Chicago already has the 'curse of the Billy Goat' and the 'curse of Shoeless Joe' and the 'curse of Mayor Daley's Ghost' to contend with. With one franchise working on an 88-year schneid and the other now in its 99th year without a crown, it's a wonder anybody bothered with Boston's series of near misses. I'm sure Cubbies and Pale Hosers everywhere would've liked to get as close as losing in Game 7 of the World Series sometime over the past century. Of course, the truly accursed live in Kansas City, where not even the glimmer of hope intrudes on the gloomy days of spring. October may have been unendsurable for the Wrigleytown faithful in 2003, and September collapses in 2004 a frustrating follow-up for both North and South siders, but at Kauffman Stadium April is the cruelest month.

All this to say, I'm not picking the Cubs to win it all this year out of any sentiment, or in hope of another great storyline for the post-season. The alpha and the omega of this prediction comes down to one simple factor: starting pitching. The Cubs came up short the last couple of years because their starters were hurt at inopportune times, perhaps not coincidental to their misuse by notorious pitcher-abuser Dusty Baker. While Dusty's still at the tiller, pushing back and forth with great shoves when a steady hand would do to keep the club on course, there's a theoretical limit to the damage he can do if his starters keep that steady wind of quality pitching filling the sails off Lake Michigan. Mark Prior is starting the year on the DL, but his woes do not seem to be of the rather more catastrophic nature of Kerry Wood's problems of a few years back. Throw in the fact that the best Cubs starter is neither Prior nor Wood but the firy Carlos Zambrano, and a gent named Greg Maddux is the fourth starter on this club, that's a lot of depth even for a club with injury questions. Move along to the "fifth" starter(s) and you find Glendon Rusch and Ryan Dempster, either of whom would probably be the No. 2 guy in the rotation for half the clubs in the majors (KC for one, at least), you've got plenty of coverage for eating up innings and helping the top of the rotation guys stretch their seasons out to October. In fact, I think the only real question here is whether Dusty can be convinced to yank his starters a little earlier a little more often during the season, to save those extra 20 innings the big dogs will need in October.

What's that you say, naysayers? Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou are gone, how can Jeromy Burnitz and Todd Hollandsworth possibly replace that offense? Ladies and germs, I present to you the Seattle Mariners. They dropped Ken Griffey Junior, they won more games. They dropped Alex Rodriguez, they won even more games. They even dropped Randy Johnson, which is no mean feat given how big the dude is, and went on to win a gazillion games in 2001 and over 90 in 2002 and 2003 before burning out last year, all with a pitching staff of relatively modest overall accomplishment. Those M's gelled as a team, perhaps more so in the absence of stars, and as such the subtraction of Sosa, at least, may be properly viewed as an addition. No longer will the Nine taking the field in Wrigleytown be Sammy and his supporting posse; it can take its own identity as a team (assuming Nomar Garciaparra doesn't assume the kind of quiet primadonna role he had in Boston, which seems unlikely given he's got only a one-year contract with the Cubs.) Losing Alou hurt the club, to be sure, but Alou was getting along and had limited range in the outfield, so how much he'd've helped in 2005 is debatable at present. I don't mean to rationalize the potential loss of over 90 homers in the lineup, but you only need enough runs to beat the other guys, and healthy starting pitching really fixes that equation for you quite snappily. And the club has certainly improved defensively; any ball team that can keep Jerry Hairston, Jr. in reserve has some depth.

The final question mark for the Cubs is the bullpen, which has had some issues in the past couple of years. This again should come as no surprise to Dusty-watchers, as he ran his "dominant" closer, Robb Nen, out of a career through overuse in San Francisco and barely bothered with bridge guys from his starters. This disturbing pattern may yet be repeated, but with no established "dominant" closer -- Joe Borowski's on the DL, LaTroy Hawkins seemed better-suited to an 8th-inning role despite having dominating stuff -- perhaps Dusty will be a little more flexible in his approach to the latter innings of the game. MIke Remlinger returns as the regular lefty set-up guy, and Chad Fox, who has always seemed to me to have closer-stuff, takes over the Kyle Farnsworth righty role. It's not a bad group, and while not the best in the league, it should be plenty.

Because -- did I mention it? -- the Cubs have great starting pitching. There's no comparable staff in the league. With three potential dominators for the post-season, that means if the Cubs can get there, they should be the nose-on favorites. And they'll almost certainly add a big bat in mid-season via trade -- they have plenty of depth in the minor leagues to use as trade bait.

The only close team, methinks, is likely to be the Florida Marlins, who have Josh Beckett and AJ Burnett in the Prior and Wood roles, Dontrelle Willis as a somewhat lesser version of Zambrano, and in the role of the Aged Maddux Like Veteran, Al Leiter. The Marlins do have a great lineup, lots of power and a little speed, reasonable defense, and a reasonable bullpen headed by the fastballing Guillermo Mota and backed up with a few veteran ex-closers. It's a good club, and I think they come close to the Cubs, but I'm giving the Cubs the edge on the theory that the worm turns even towards Chicago, eventually. Beckett and Burnett have not had extended success from year to year, and both have had as many injury problems as Wood and Prior, and Willis flagged a bit down the stretch last year. If the Cubs and Phish match-up in the NLCS, we could have a very good one.

So what might the Cubbies face in the World Series? Well, using my own logic, the Yankees have the dominators in the rotation to get them through the post-season, now that they've added Randy Johnson. They are certainly deep. But I do see a lot of question marks in the Yanks, particularly with age, and Johnson has been "gotten to" on may occasions in the last couple of years. The Cubs batters will have seen him if they face Johnson in the series, so I don't think the domination will be as strong as, say, Johnson's domination of the Yankees in the 2001 World Series. The man is, one must note, over 40, and superhuman powers only take you so far during a long season. The Red Sox, Angels, Twins, Cleveland's club, and perhaps the Mariners all have reasonable shots to make it through to the series as well, but while a lot of these clubs have aces at the top of their rotations, they bottom out fairly quickly relative to the Cubs' trio. The Angels of 2002 proved you don't need a dominating staff if you've got a good pen, an awesome offense, and are lucky in your matchups, but the Cards of 2004 replied that a good pen, an awesome offense, and unlucky matchups will sink you without that dominating pair of starters.

Well, I'm wrong all the time, and fortunately there's a lot of baseball to be played in the next six months, otherwise it would be no fun. The beauty of the baseball season is its many changing facets, like a tree that buds, blossoms, and then drops its leaves. So too might the Cubs very well drop a few acorns short of a championship. But if you're a prognosticator, you have to pick somebody, and this year it might as well be the Cubs' turn.

White Sox fans, dream on.

posted by The Crank 8:29 AM