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To: JRI who wrote (225566)	3/5/2003 10:33:20 AM
From: reaper	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

hey, i said i was TEMPTED to pick the Cubs. but they are a year away. the lineup has a LOT of young, undisciplined hitters (Corey Patterson in CF; Bobby Hill at 2B; Hee Sop Choi at 1B); these guys are all sub-25. Dusty Baker, after living w/ Barry Bonds and his ungodly plate discipline for the last several years, will have an effect on these guys. and the pitching staff is ridiculous. Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Matt Clement, and Carlos Zambrano are all just KIDS; Clement will turn 29 this year, Wood will turn 26 and Prior and Zambrano are babies. they all average a strikeout per inning (with Prior K-ing a ridiculous 147 in 117 innings; that's 11.31 per 9 which is the sort of address where Big Unit hangs out) although Wood's K-rate has been in decline which is worrisome. plus the bullpen should be MUCH better. they were just terrible last year (next to last in the league) and really just can't be worse; plus they over-hauled the pen with Mike Remlinger, Dave Veres and Mark Guthrie. plus they still have Juan Cruz (another kid) who is built like Pedro and had some trouble starting last year but really performed in the second half in the bullpen, again striking out a guy an inning. plus Kyle Farnsworth, who was ridiculous 2 years ago, can't possibly pitch worse than he did last year. the Cubs this year look sorta like the Angels or the Twins TWO years ago; VERY young team that just has to figure some stuff out, where you can pretty much expect almost EVERYBODY on the team to play better than they did a year ago. add Dusty Baker to the mix and it could get REALLLL interesting. again, they are likely a year away, 'cause in 2004 many of the good players on the teams in front of them (Bagwell; Biggio; Kent; Jim Edmonds; Tino Martinez) are going to be getting older and playing worse while the Cubs will be playing better. the Astros take the central this year, but i bet the Cubs are a legitimate wild-card candidate until the last 10-15 games of the season. Cheers