Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs have already traded for starting pitcher Matt Garza and traded away starting pitcher Tom Gorzelanny this winter, and it seems very possible that that will be enough for GM Jim Hendry. There is relatively little else Chicago could do at this point, with the key free agents off the market and the team unlikely to leapfrog the Brewers and Reds into the top spot in a rational prognosticator's picture of the 2011 NL Central division.

While Joe Mauer and Brian McCann rate as the best-known offensive catchers in baseball, Geovany Soto was the best hitter in the league at that position in 2010.

Though he got only 387 plate appearances due to a mixture of injuries and managerial stupidity, Soto logged a career-best .890 OPS and socked 17 home runs.

We here at Baseball Professor think about our readers first and ourselves second—albeit a close second. That’s why we decided to reach out to other bloggers (who follow their respective teams more closely than we do) to give you a deeper look into the important issues every fantasy owner has to come to grips with this season.

After 103 years of failure and disappointment, there have to be some excuses as to why the Chicago Cubs cannot win a World Series, let alone make it to one. Cubs fans have suffered, but remained loyal for inexplicable circumstances, including injuries and blunders. It has been a highlight reel of misfortune. This will discuss the top five reasons as to why the Cubs cannot win.

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Someone’s name value can certainly cause many people to overvalue them.  You think that, based on the name alone, the player should be able to live up to the expectations we have attributed to them in the past.  It doesn’t matter what the player has done in recent years, the name holds value.  It’s engrained in our minds.

It’s a mistake you do not want to make.

Rise, bleacher bums. Rise, Ricketts family. Rise, all you North siders. This is your time. This is Cubs baseball time!

Sure, it’s been a little while since the Cubbies have won the NL Pennant, but I’m telling you, this is the year! The pieces are starting to come together, and it’s all happening with the pitching rotation. 

With so many of the big name free agents signed early on this off season, it has been a winter of trade rumors, and while most have proved to be nothing beyond just rumors, the Brewers managed to pull off two of the bigger trades of the off season.

However, the rest of the NL Central has been fairly busy as well, as the Cubs, Reds, Cardinals, and Brewers all look to be in the running for the division. Even the Astros and Pirates made a handful of moves that could make series' against them that much tougher.

Another way of asking this question is have the moves Jim Hendry made in the offseason improved the team and have the moves their division rivals made improved those teams more?

On the latter score, though the Brewers have improved their pitching, they have done so at the expense of their rather suspect defense. On balance, they remain a very flawed team. Let's remember they had CC Sabathia for the better part of a year and they lost.

San Francisco Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said a bunch of castoffs and misfits won the World Series in 2010. After enormously disappointing seasons in 2009 and 2010, the Cubs definitely fall in the category of misfits.