Why the Cubs?
I’ve been seeing a lot of pithy commentary lately about the Cubs and their World Series hopes, mainly along the lines of "yeah, but last year’s Cubs were supposed to Win It All too, and they got swept out of the LDS by a team that got swept out of the LCS by a team that got swept out of the World Series, so they’re probably still bad."
That ain’t so, Charlie. This year’s Cubs are much better than last year’s. The 2007 Cubs were a one-trick team that counted on Soriano, Lee, and Ramirez hitting so many home runs that lack of pitching and defense would just be irrelevant. That didn’t work out so good. The 2008 Cubs have much better offensive production behind those three guys, much much muchmuchmuch improved defense, and two additional legitimate aces to shore up the rotation behind Carlos Zambrano: Rich Harden, who came from the 2008 Oakland Athletics Official Fire Sale, and Ryan Dempster, who came from space in a pod and replaced the old, lousy Ryan Dempster. The 2008 Cubs also aren’t relying on their starters to go nine innings, since there’s an actual bullpen now with actual relievers. Kerry Wood’s done a bangup job as closer and even stayed healthy for… much of the season. Carlos Marmol is unhittable about seven games out of eight. Jeff Samzasmfjahiaismsaihia is pretty good at football, so he must rule at pitching.
So there.
