Chicago Cubs Baseball

Jim Hendry said it. Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella agrees. And the highly intelligent readers who’ve taken my poll at Chicago Cubs Baseball believe as well.

The Cubs will be better in 2008.

It’s a good thought. One to thaw the heart of even the most cynical fan in Cubdom. Except mine.

Trust me. I want to believe. Boy, do I want to believe.

Something tells me gathering enough off-season arms to stage a third-world country coup isn’t enough.

Additional pitching is great, even if half the new arms are rookies. While they’re learning the major league ropes, the other half of the off-season acquisitions can compare surgical scars. It’s bullpen heaven.

Except you got to score to win. See the 2007 NLDS if you need an example. Offensively, the 2007 Chicago Cubs were more fizzle than sizzle, more funk than plunk.

Sure, Cubs management went out and landed Japanese star Kosuke Fukudome, while shedding some high-priced dead weight from its roster. But besides providing the best name in major league baseball, how much can Chicago Cubs baseball count on Fukudome in his transitional first year?

If that was the only question and gaining Fukudome’s left-handed bat was the solution. I could almost buy into the Cubs’ rhetoric. But it’s not.

The Chicago Cubs 2008 lineup, particularly up the middle, is open for scrutiny if not flat-out head scratching. Ryan Theriot and Mark DeRosa are adequate as a keystone tandem, their strengths are desire and determination, not speed nor production.

As for the catching position, Geovany Soto performed admirably during September call-up and a brief appearance in the NLDS. While most anything would be an improvement over 2007’s behind-the-plate disaster, Soto has yet to prove himself a full-time, big-league catcher.

Then there’s center field, where the Cubs expect Felix Pie and rookie Sam Fuld to compete for the job. After a red-hot start during June, Pie’s stats plummeted as possibly did his stock as the Chicago Cubs top prospect. Fuld, like Soto, is simply unproven at the major league level.

So Jim and Lou, you’ll have to do better than adding a few arms and a left-handed bat if you want to believe. Until you bring a Brian Roberts or a Marlon Byrd to Chicago I’ll just base my hope for the Cubs as I’ve always done: Miracles do happen.