Living near Chicago and being an avid sports talk radio connoisseur, I'm getting the sense that the Cubs' winning the National League Central Division title is a foregone conclusion.  This idea is loosely based on the simple observations that A) they won 97 games last season and, on paper, improved the team over the winter, and B) the rest of the NL Central division fails to provide any semblance of a formidable opponent.  I can't by any means disagree with these two observations.

But...

I can't help but keep an open mind about this team's chances.  I'm positive that hundreds of Cubs fans (and fans of other teams alike) will take one glance at my profile, read that I don't like the Cubs, and immediately discredit any opinion I have about this team.  It happens every single time I write about the Cubs, even if I have something nice to say.  So, at the risk of humiliating myself, I'm going to make what some may consider to be a bold statement:  The NL Central Division is a wide open race in 2009.

On MLB Network's 2009 preview show the night of Opening Day, all nine of the baseball experts picked the Cubs to run away with the division championship.  The consensus opinion on sports talk radio is that the Cubs will win their division "comfortably."  ESPN.com, Foxsports.com, and all the mainstream sports media outlets overwhelmingly believe the Cubs are the runaway favorites.  According to at least one Vegas sports book, the Chicago Cubs are no worse than a 3-to-1 favorite... to win the Pennant!

It's a gut feeling I have that the Cubs won't fare well in 2009.  But it does have a foundation based on observations and statistics.  Go ahead and call me crazy, but here are several reasons I believe all 6 teams in the NL Central have almost as good of a chance as any other to win the Division Crown.

1) Their starting pitching is full of questions
Carlos Zambrano can go in spurts where he looks like a top five pitcher in baseball, but when you average out his stats over the course of any season he's pitched, he's usually a #2 starter on any team.  Ryan Dempster came of a career season last year, and nary a person with a brain for baseball expects him to repeat it, perhaps not ever.  Rich Harden will spend time on the DL this year, and even if he doesn't, the Cubs don't plan on letting him go much further than 5 or so innings per outing, which will tax the bullpen over the course of 15-25 starts.  Ted Lily at his best is #3 starter.  It's not completely out of the question that Zambrano could lead the team with 16 wins and nobody else wins more than 13.


Zambrano only pitches like an Ace in a little more than
half his starts.

2) They rely heavily on injury prone players
In addition to Harden, the Cubs will rely too heavily on oft-injured outfielders Alfonso Soriano and Milton Bradley.  Bradley was brought in to provide balance from the left side of the plate, but he can't do that from the disabled list.  The 9-year veteran has only once in his career played more than 101 games.  The Cubs loss of Mark DeRosa means that they don't have a viable backup at either position, in addition to third base in the event Aramis Ramirez needs some time off.

3) Bradley's 2008 numbers are misleading
Bradley, if healthy, cannot be counted on for much in 2009 anyway.  In 2008, he batted .358 with a .466 OBP/.679 SLG/1.145 OPS at hitter friendly Rangers Ballpark.  On the road, the numbers tell a different story.  At .290/.410/.462/.872, his numbers are no slouch, but they are hardly worth the kind of money and hope the Cubs were willing to give him, especially considering his health history.

4) I don't trust Kevin Gregg
Let's face it.  Kerry Wood had a very good season last year and he bailed the Cubs out of several big games.  Now that he's gone, manager Lou Piniella rightly named Kevin Gregg the new closer-I say "rightly named" because I agree he should close as opposed to Carlos Marmol, but I would still rather have Wood if I were rooting for the Cubs-and I smell trouble.  Gregg closed out games for a Marlins team averaging less than 10,000 fans per game.  Make that 10,000 fans who don't give a hoot.  How will he fare when 44,000 screaming Cubs fans are roaring in August and September?  I don't think he'll be very good, especially since he's a flyball pitcher who doesn't strike out many batters.

5) Marmol won't be as good as last year either
As talented as this beast is, I don't think he can post numbers again like he did last year.  On top of that, he pitched 87.1 innings over 82 appearances in '08, insane numbers for a setup man, and he pitched in the 2009 World Baseball Classic and a Winter Ball league.  His arm figures to be extremely tired by July.

6) Lou Piniella is stubborn; and ignorant
There's no good reason why Piniella's opening day lineup should feature Kosuke Fukudome playing CF and batting second, but that's exactly what Sweet Lou has done.  Fukudome was maybe the 5th best outfielder on Japan's WBC team, and couldn't hit his way out of a wet paper bag in September last year.  By all eye witness accounts, nothing has changed in his swing or approach from then until now.  Alfonso Soriano is not a leadoff hitter, but guess who Lou's leadoff man is for all of 2009?  And Derek Lee's production has fallen off over recent years, yet Piniella insists that Lee bat third even though he barely had 20 homers and 90 RBIs last year for a tem that led the National League in runs scored.  Arguably the two best candidates for the 1 and 2 spots in the batting order, Ryan Theriot and Aaron Miles, will bat 7th and 8th.  That's inexcusable.


Cubs brass would love to buy him a one way
ticket to Japan.

7)  If Marmol and/or Gregg do fail, they are thin in relief depth
The Cubs' bullpen, other than Marmol, won't strike fear into many offenses, and their opening day roster does not contain a lefty reliever.

8) It's tough to win a division three years in a row
I've been trying desperately to find statistics on this, but I'm not having much luck.  Just based on my memory, I can't remember any recent history of any MLB team winning their division three years in a row.  The Braves and Yankees had their dynasties in the 90's, but it's been quite uncommon since then.  If teams get too cocky with their postseason chances, another team like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays will emerge and put them in their place.

9) The Cubs have the most undesirable contracts of any MLB team's outfield
The often injured, statistically misleading Bradley is owed $30 million over the next three seasons.  There's a really good reason Bradley has played on six teams in only nine seasons.  So why did GM Jim Hendry give him a 3-year contract?  It's beyond explanation.  Fukudome is owed $40.5 million over the next three seasons.  No team in MLB would take him.  None!  Soriano is due to make $93 million over the next five seasons.  He's 33 years old and his numbers have slipped considerably in his first two seasons with the Cubs already.  After belting 46 homers with 41 stolen bases in 2006 with Washington, he's only had 33 and 29 homers the last two seasons to go with 19 stolen bases in both seasons.  Yikes.


Thanks to Ryan Braun, the Brewers believe they have a chance.

So who do I predict will win the NL Central Division in 2009?  It's hard to tell.  I can't pick any one team with any degree of confidence whatsoever.  I do think the Cubs have as good of a shot as others.  I just don't think they are overwhelmingly the favorites.  All I can say is that the Cubs will not win nearly as many games as they did last year, and it might be a win-win for me as a baseball prognosticator.  If they win running away, I already told you at the beginning of this post that I might be crazy.  But if somebody else like the Cardinals (or Pirates?) surprises us, I'll point to April 6 and tell you "I told you so."