What the Cubs lack is balance. They have a lot of talent but no true # 1 and # 2 hitters. A leadoff man is essential to winning. If Lou Pineilla has a brain he will put out this lineup for a week and if he doesn't go at least 4-2, he should just resign...
1) Theriot - 2B
2) Barrett - C
3) Lee - 1B
4) Soriano - CF
5) Ramirez - 3B
6) Derosa - SS
7) Jones - RF
8) Murton - LF
9) Pitcher - P
I'm not too sure how well Derosa can play SS but who cares? It's not like he'll standout because the rest of the field is secured by gold glovers. This team has no arm behind the plate, a horrible unbalanced OF, a dominantly right-handed lineup, and a lot of other problems.
And their bench? A joke!
Henry Blanco should be in single A.
Ronny Cedeno has shown he can hit once in a while, but not enough. He can stick around as he's usually a reliable fielder and solid base runner (except when he's overrunning 2nd).
Cliff Floyd = Daryle Ward except Ward can also play 1st. They both SUCK.
Felix Pie, needs more at-bats but from what we've seen, the kid can't hit. He makes one solid throw from MID-centerfield to throw a runner our (dumb baserunning mistake by the Padres) and Cub fans are busting nuts over this kid's potential. He has shown nothing else other than he's a solid fielder. I'd rather give up a run because of bad fielding rather than not score 2 runs because this good fielder strikes out with the bases loaded and 2 outs.
And oh yeh, that bullpen is WEAK!!!
The Cubs may have spent $5 trillion dollars this past offseason, but they spent too much to get barely anything. Jason Marquis will flame out soon. Ted Lilly is a # 3 at best. Soriano... he's the goods but they overpaid. They bought the guy at his peak, always a bad move. Good GMs sign guys that are about to flourish (i.e. Kenny Williams bringing in Jermaine Dye in 2005, he precedes to win the World Series MVP that season and finish in the top 5 for league MVP in 2006). Bad GMs overpay for players who have peaked and have nowhere to go but down.
If I was the Cubs GM, they right now would have Miguel Tejada at SS and Erik Bedard in the rotation rather than Mark Prior in AAA and Felix Pie. The O's wanted that trade to go down.
If I was the Cubs GM, they right now would have Jeff Suppan at $11 mill per instead of Jason Marquis at $7 mill per.
If I was the Cubs GM, they would be winning. Why? Because just with those two moves you have the following rotation; Zambrano, Bedard, Suppan, Hill, and Angel Guzman (who is a much better option than Prior, Wade Miller, or Kerry Wood). And you can have the following lineup...
Theriot, Soriano, Lee, Tejeda, Ramirez, Barrett, ?, ?, Pitcher. Sick.
But I'm not the Cubs GM nor do I care to be as I'm a huge Sox fan and love seeing them falling apart so early (as usual). But they do need to get Jim Hendry out ASAP.