NL Central - Cubbies

Finally, I squeeze my last preview in with 45 minutes to spare (when the season opens). The Cubs are the real wild-card in the division. They could win 90 games, or lose a lot. I feel lame for saying it, but the Cubs record hinges on the old adage "if Prior and Wood stay healthy..." They won't be back until late April/early May, and if the Cubs don't dig a deep hole for themselves they will put together quite a run.

This Cubs team is much more balanced (and speedy) than last year's team. Pierre is still somewhat of a question mark, but if he is even a ghost of the Juan Pierre of years past he will be a much better leadoff man than anyone we had last year, and create havoc on the basepaths. He should make Todd Walker (or whoever is batting 2nd) a much better bat too, since the pitchers will be throwing lots of fastballs in case Pierre tries to steal. Lee and Ramirez should be money in the 3 and 4 hole, and Jones should definitely improve on his performance from last year. Barrett is one of the best catchers in the NL, and I think Murton is the real deal. I'm not sure how Cedeno will do - he had a great winter but an awful spring, and Dusty loves to play washed-up veterans over struggling rookies. I still think Cedeno will get more at-bats than Perez though. The bench is looking quite good, with Hairston, Pagan, Mabry, and Bynum able to play 4 or more positions, and they should be quality pinch-hitters as well.

Once the pitching gets healthy, the Cubs will have a rotation consisting of 3 aces (Zambrano, Prior, Wood), 1 potential ace (Miller), and 1 300-game winner who still has something left in the tank (Maddux). The bullpen is also going to be great, and should add an additional 10 wins to our total from last year alone.

NL Central - Cardinals

For some reason, everyone expects the Cards to just roll over everyone else in the division. Let's look at what they have though.

On offense, Pujols is the best offensive player in the league, no argument. If Edmonds and Rolen stay healthy they should also form a great core for this offense. However, Edmonds is getting older and is always banged up, and Rolen still isn't 100% from his injury last year. Eckstein is a quality sparkplug-type leadoff guy and great defensively. Yadier Molina has a little pop but only really has value as a defensive catcher. But 2b, LF and to a lesser extent RF are holes in this lineup. Encarnacion is a above average outfielder...but that's all you can ever say about him. In left, we have the Taguchi/Bigbie/Rodriguez quasi-platoon. Which is a combination of veteran utility guy, average player, and emerging above-average player. Worst of all, Spivey had a terrible spring offensively and defensively and lost the 2b job to Aaron Miles, who could only post a 661 OPS in Coors field last year.

Pitching wise, the Cardinals have a quality rotation and bullpen. Carpenter is great, and Mulder is great when he isn't fighting nagging injuries. Marquis is their 3rd starter, and he feels like a guy who is prime to have a bad year (his 1.33 WHIP last year is a bad sign). Suppan is a quality back-end of the rotation kind of guy, and Ponson...well he should fall apart sometime in May leaving the door open for the emerging Reyes. Their bullpen is once again quite good, despite the loss of Taveras and King (who were two of their best last year). The only question mark is Isringhausen, who has not been 100% this spring. If he falters, Looper will be their closer and things will be more interesting at the back of the pen.

This team is still quite good, but from a preseason standpoint it's more vulnerable than it was the past few seasons.

NL Central - Brewers

The Brew Crew is seemingly everyone's pick to have a breakout season this year. Their pitching has been quietly great under the tenure of Mike Maddux and their young positional prospects are beginning to emerge. The success of the team depends on how well these youngsters play. On offense, they already have a good table-setter in Clark, 2 RBI guys in Lee and Jenkins, but they still have light-hitting Koskie and Miller at 3b and catcher. J. J. Hardy had an awful, awful first half of the season, but turned it around and put up decent numbers in the second half. Weeks has crazy amounts of speed but has a hard time getting on base. He still walks a fair amount of the time, so he seemingly has a good eye but he also is prone to the strikeout. If he improves his BA he should be pretty good offensively. Defensively he's been quite a liability however. Fielder likelwise needs to show the power that he had in the minor leagues to make him a quality 5th batter.

Pitching-wise, this team quietly has one of the 5 best rotations in the NL, despite not having a single ace. Mike Maddux really knows how to work these guys. Their bullpen is decent. Turnbow and Wise are quite good but the rest of the bullpen is a question mark.

NL Central - Astros

This team suffers from residual greatness. They are a team that relies heavily on starting pitching, and hence unless Clemens comes back, they are a much worse team than they were last year. In fact, they're pretty similar to the Cubs. Their only top-tier bats are their corner infielders (Ensberg and Berkman), they have a rising star and a mediocre veteran in the corner OF spots (Lane and Wilson), a light-hitting defensive shortstop (Everett). The Cubs do have an edge at 1b, 3b, CF (Taveras is also a decent leadoff man, but Pierre is top-shelf if he's on his game), C (Ausmus is only there for his defense) and 2b (Biggio is ancient and the cubs have 2 quality guys). Still, they should probably score as many runs as the Cubs.

On the pitching side, they have 2 top-notch guys in Oswalt and Pettite. I think Backe is incredibly overrated with his 1.46 WHIP and 4.50+ ERA. He's only even mentioned because he had that great stretch as a rookie in the postseason two years ago. Wandy Rodriguez and Buchholz are both fringe 5th starters - so you can see why this team desperately needs Clemens to get back. Again like the Cubs, their bullpen is quite good (though they have a better closer).

I think this team will finish behind the Cubs - both teams will probably reload on pitching in May, assuming Clemens comes back, though the Cubs will recieve a bigger impact by getting 3 aces.

NL Central - Pirates

Early in the offseason, this team was a popular pick to improve by a big margin. Things have died down since then, especially since Wells went down with an injury. Their pitching staff will be really good in 2 years or so, they just need to grow into it. They have 3 potential aces (or near-aces) in Perez, Duke, and Snell - they just need to develop some more. Santos was a vastly underrated pitcher in Milwaukee and should be a good 5th starter for them. Their bullpen should be decent as well. On offense, they picked up some decent veterans in Casey, Randa, and the erratic Burnitz, though it foolishly left them with their best offensive player, Craig Wilson without a position to play. They also have some emergin youngsters in Bay and Castillo.

If their pitching develops well this team will flirt with .500, if not they will be fighting the Reds for the division basement.

NL Central - Reds

This team has the rare combination of being terrible and dangerous. Many people forget that they played .500 ball for the second half of last year, and hence weren't the pushovers they were in the first half of the season. As always, their problem is their terrible, terrible pitching combined with their incredibly hitter-friendly ballpark. Their bats are pretty good (their ballpark helps). Their OF is one of the best in baseball - with Kearns (if he ever gets his crap together), Griffey (if he manages to stay healthy for the 2nd year in a row), and Dunn (no caveat here, he's good). Lopez and Valentin are pretty good, and Encarnacion is a promising player. But their newest acquisitions are a downgrade from last year. Womack has nothing left in the tank, and Hatteberg is running out of gas as well. If the Reds finally play Freel at 2b or LF (moving Dunn to First) and have him bat leadoff, they will be a much better team. He's an Eckstein-like sparkplug, except better.

I would also argue that their pitching hasn't gotten any better - in fact it may be even worse. Here's their opening day rotation - Harang, Arroyo, Williams, Claussen, Milton. Of those five, only Harang is going to be decent, though Claussen may improve this season. Milton is the worst possible pitcher for their ballpark, as we saw last year when he coughed up a major-league record 40 gopherballs. Their new guys, Arroyo and Williams, are no slouches with the gopherball themselves. Williams gave up 20 of them last season in only 120 innings - most of which were at pitcher-friendly PNC park too. Arroyo gave up 22 homers last year, though he did pitch a full 200 innings. He's a decent pitcher, but if you subtract the GAB from his projected stats he will probably be pretty sub-par, which is not what you want from your #2 starter.

Cubs Moves

Yesterday the Cubs made another trade and a few lineup related announcements, which I'm kind of on the fence about. First, Baker delcared Todd Walker to be our 'primary' second baseman for the season. It was a tough decision to make - all three of the candidates had great springs. I still feel Hairston was the best choice, now that he is healthy, due to his speed and defense, but Walker pretty much plays only second while Hairston plays 2nd and all of the OF positions. The Cubs also moved John Koronka, who recently had been converted as a reliever and was doing a pretty good job (I thought he would make our 25-man roster). He was moved to Texas in a similarly questionable move for them - they needed a 5th starter but Koronka has been practicing as a reliever for the past 6 months. In return, the Cubs received super-utility guy Freddie Bynum, who is speedy and can play 2b, SS, and any OF position. They picked him up to be another player off the bench. But my question is this - was it worth trading Koronka for what will amount to a month of this guy? When Prior and Wood come back it will squeeze 2 people off the roster - most likely Bynum and whoever is performing most poorly in the BP (Williams or Wuertz I'm betting), though Cedeno is also a possibility due to his recent poor performance and how well Neifi has been doing. Someone else will have to be squeezed out once Wade Miller is back too. I'll have my predictied 'regular' roster for the Cubs mapped out in a later post.

Here's the opening day lineup/roster
CF Pierre
2B Walker
1B Lee
3B Ramirez
RF Jones
C Barrett
LF Murton
SS Cedeno
B Blanco (C)
B Mabry (1B/3B/LF/RF)
B Perez (2B/SS/3B)
B Hairston {2B/LF/RF/CF)
B Pagan {LF/RF/CF)
B Bynum {2B/SS/LF/CF/RF)

1 Zambrano (R)
2 Rusch (L)
3 Maddux (R)
4 Marshall (L)
5 Williams (Long Reliever until needed in mid-april) (R)
C Dempster (R)
S Howry (R)
S Eyre (L)
BP Ohman (L)
BP Williamson (R)
BP Wuertz (R)