"First baseman's Carlos Pena's lefthanded bat adds to the offensive balance, but this team still has enough holes to prevent it from winning. I expect the Cubs to be far more competitive than last season, but they don't have a particularly strong rotation and they have a big offensive hole at second base. This team may go as afar as Carlos Zambrano takes it. That's a little unsettling base on Big Z's injury problems early last season. He's also capable of becoming a distraction.
"(Marlon) Byrd, (Alfonso) Soriano, (Tyler) Colvin and (Kosuke) Fukudome offer depth in the outfield. Starlin Castro is going to be an outstanding player, I believe. Is Blake DeWitt the answer at second? I don't know. And the Cubs probably don't, either.
"The Cubs used to roll out a dominant rotation. They can't say that anymore. You don't know what you're going to get out of many of these guys. ... To me, the Cubs are missing another anchor for the rotation."
This guy is absolutely right on a few things, and a little out of date on some others. But I couldn't agree more with his point about the offensive hole at second base, which will be manned by a platoon between Blake DeWitt, Jeff Baker, and even a bit of Darwin Barney. The future of second base for the Cubs is Barney. He's a career .286 hitter in the minors and a terrific contact hitter. And although he isn't ready for the starting job to break camp this season, I think he will steal the job by the end of summer or Spring Training next year. Not only is that a compliment to his talents, it speaks towards the Cubs' lack of quality players there. DeWitt is a career .259 hitter with no speed and little power, although he too is a decent contact hitter. Baker can only hit lefties, and even then he isn't anything special. How a guy with his talent level plays in the Majors I don't understand. So while Barney might hit for a good average, the Cubs will have to go through a season of DeWitt and Baker.
Just a note about this report is that it was written before the Cubs acquired Matt Garza. That acquisition probably would have drastically changed this report. The part where the scout says, "the Cubs used to roll out a dominant rotation. They can't say that anymore," is no longer valid. First of all, the Cubs haven't rolled out a dominant rotation since 2008. Second of all, the current rotation isn't quite dominant, but is the second best in the division behind on Milwaukee's. When he says, "[about Zambrano] he's also capable of being a distraction," he's making a serious understatement. For the last few years, Zambrano has been a ticking time bomb that goes off at some point in summer. But the powers of anger management will be put to the test this summer, and we could see a sane Carlos for once.
Overall, the scout pegs them somewhat accurately. He thinks "this team still has enough holes to prevent it from winning," but that's probably a pessimistic look at this team. With bad defense, no speed, a decent bullpen, average offense and an above average rotation, I see the Cubs finishing no worse than .500 and giving Milwaukee and Cincinnati a run for their money in this weak division.
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