Just wanted to quickly comment on the 2008 NL Central race. It’s never too soon, right?

Most of the Cubs’ offseason decisions will be the responsibility of new ownership, so it’s difficult to predict whether the team will improve. What we do know is that the team’s core of Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, and Carlos Zambrano are in place.

The team also has a lot more potentially going for them in Rich Hill and Geovany Soto. Hill already displayed his talent over the course of a full season, but Soto’s production as a catcher should be big.

I hope the Cubs give Felix Pie the starting job in center next year, but given that it’s the Cubs, they’ll probably look elsewhere. If they do decide to do this, they have to trade Pie. Keeping him around and turning him into Matt Murton would be devastating.

The team will have many more decisions, too, regarding the futures of Cliff Floyd, Jacque Jones, Daryle Ward, and others.

Overall, I certainly don’t think the Cubs will be any worse, but we’ll have to wait and see — the Cubs have proven me wrong before.

Not being worse may not be enough to win anymore, because the Brewers are certainly not getting worse.

Just, out.

The Cubs have left nine runners on base in each game of the NLDS, and eight of them were in scoring position with two outs.

You can’t win a series with that lack of production.

Last night the Cubs did half of what I said they’d need to do in this series: They knocked Arizona starter Doug Davis out after 5.2 innings and scored four runs off him. Except this time the pitching wasn’t their to support them.

In Game 1 the problem was the opposite: good pitching but nobody home on offense.

Look, the Arizona bullpen doesn’t surrender leads. The Cubs will have another chance to beat up on a weakly pitcher Saturday night when Livan Hernandez takes the mound.

I don’t want to take anything away from what Arizona has done, but the Cubs are just the better team. It’d be nice if they could at least make it fun to watch.

More to come tomorrow.

Just, out.

Disregarding the controversy over the Lou Piniella decision to give Big Z the hook, let’s take a look at what we can expect in Game 2.

A sweep is now out of the question, but I expect the Cubs to win the net two games. The matchup of Ted Lilly vs. Doug Davis is not nearly as close as the Carlos Zambrano/Brandon Webb face-off of Game 1.

Lilly walked only 55 batters while striking out 174 this year. Davis walked 95 and struck out 144. Already we can begin to see the disparity between the two No. 2s.

I think it’s safe to say that if the Cubs can pitch anywhere near as well as Zambrano did last night, they’ll be in good shape to nab some wins against the non-ace Snakes pitchers.

Davis’ WHIP is the 5th worst in the National League. Sitting 4th worst in the NL in WHIP is Livan Hernandez — Arizona’s likely starter in Game 3.

The Cubs need to get these two wins to avoid seeing Webb in a potentially decisive Game 4.

Just, out.

Sorry, forgot to re-copy my Cubs column from our special section. I’ve added some links for your enjoyment as well:

The Chicago Cubs have history working for and against them as they prepare for their postseason run.

Of course, we are all too familiar with the forces working against them: Nary a day goes by that we aren’t reminded of the Curse of the Billy Goat wreaking havoc on Leon Durham in 1984, or Steve Bartman preventing Moises Alou from making a catch with one out in the eighth inning of the 2003 NLCS.

What so many people don’t know, though, is how much the Cubs have going for them. And history, for better or for worse, might just smile upon the North Siders this year.

Let’s flash back to 2006 for a quick minute. The Cardinals are 80-70 on Sept. 20 and lose their next six games. They back into the playoffs with just 83 victories, smoke the Padres in the NLDS, squeeze by the Mets 4-3 in the NLCS, and swiftly tame the Tigers in the World Series. Only the 63-victory Dodgers of the strike-shortened 1981 season won
fewer regular season games and went on to win the title.

The 2005 White Sox limped into the playoffs without much momentum and went on to an 11-1 postseason. Perhaps Billy Beane was on to something when he said the playoffs are almost entirely luck.

Only once since the introduction of the wild card has the winningest team gone on to win the World Series, and that was the 1998 Yankees — arguably the best team in baseball history.

OK, now let’s slowly bring ourselves back to the present. As of Sunday, only two teams in the National League playoff picture have a better run differential than the Cubs, and that’s the Padres and Rockies. The Rockies won, so the Cubs won’t have to deal with them until the NLCS, or at all.

The Cubs will be facing the Diamondbacks in the NLDS, and as far as I can tell, Chicago stacks up best against Arizona.

The D-backs have had a penchant for winning very close games and being blown out regularly. This is due, in large part, because the Snakes have such awful starting pitching. Brandon Webb is their only weapon in the rotation, and he’ll almost certainly start games one and four. The rest of the rotation (Doug Davis, 4.25 ERA; Livan Hernandez, 4.93; Micah Owings, 4.30; and Yusmeiro Petit, 5.02) includes, as the ERAs indicate, less than stellar options.

The Cubs will need to jump on Arizona’s starters to prevent the league’s best bullpen from shutting them down in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. Some more Alfonso Soriano leadoff home runs would go a long way to help that cause.

But if there’s one thing, above all else, that the Cubs absolutely have to do if they want to have any chance of winning this thing, it’s to make good decisions. That starts with Lou Piniella.

I’ve watched with great admiration the way Piniella has handled the bullpen, and I hope he doesn’t change a thing. Carlos Marmol has been working the seventh and eighth innings instead of serving as the team’s closer, even though he’s the best reliever in the bullpen. This is a significant step for a manager nowadays, as most tend to designate the best reliever specifically for “saves.”

I respect Piniella for making that choice — it’s far more important to have the team’s best reliever preserving close games and small leads before the final three outs.

On the other hand, Piniella has made several personnel decisions that the most casual of baseball fans would call questionable.

The Cubs’ skipper may have felt some pressure to start Jason Kendall and Steve Trachsel during the regular season because they were specifically acquired to help down the stretch, but to start them now would be catastrophic. Neither player carries the numbers necessary to justify being in the major leagues, let alone starting (or playing) during the playoffs. Geovany Soto has certainly already deemed himself worthy enough of full-time starting duties behind the plate.

The other area of concern is the use of Craig Monroe, another midseason acquisition. Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry brought the Tigers outfielder to the Cubs to address the team’s need for a right-handed hitter with power. Given his splits against right- and left-handed pitching, Monroe has no business ever facing a righty. He has a very specific skill set, and Piniella needs to limit him to it.

History won’t be working against the Cubs when the playoffs begin on Wednesday. They control their own destiny.
Chicago has a great chance to bring another World Series title home, and if Piniella manages properly, the Cubs will enjoy a lengthy postseason.

If not, well, we can always blame a curse.

Just, out.

Probably not. Maybe. Probably not. In that order.

Of course, the Yankees have already punched their ticket to the postseason regardless of whether they catch the Red Sox or not. And, let me tell you, I am so excited about seeing the Yankees play the Red Sox in the postseason. Forget about the 18 times they’ve faced each other this season. This is playoff time! Sigh.

In Queens, however, the Mets are holding on to their division lead by 2.5 games as of Thursday morning. On September 12 the Mets were 7 games up on the Phillies. If the Phillies somehow manage to pull this off it would be the greatest story of the year (sorry, Rick Ankiel).

And then there’s the NL Central. The Brewers probably won’t get any more starts from Ben Sheets, which, considering his recent performance (probably still injury-induced) wasn’t all that good anyway. His ERA went from a quality 3.30 the day after he returned to a dreadfully pedestrian 3.82. At least he’ll be on the cheap in next year’s fantasy auctions/drafts.

The Cubs are the better team when not starting Steve Trachsel or Jason Kendall, and the 84-85 wins they’re on pace for ought to be enough to take the division.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the races. I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to post because 1) I’ll be immersed in watching the games and 2) I have a very busy work week ahead.

I did want to talk about Howie Kendrick still batting 7th or 8th in the Angels lineup, though. We’ll get to that another time. Maybe.

Just, out.

August 1st. Do you remember August 1, 2007? It wasn’t that long ago. At the time, the Chicago Cubs were an indestructible entity. At 57-49, they sat tied with the Brewers for first place in the NL Central. They had scored 63 more runs than they had allowed. Carlos Zambrano had pitched 7.1 innings of shutout baseball two days prior to improve to 14-7 on the season. In fact, that was his 11th “quality start” in a row.

Now it’s September 10th. The Cubs have gone a pitiable 15-21 since August 1st.

Despite seeing Alfonso Soriano’s slugging percentage increase 22 points in September, the Cubs have gone 4-5, losing three of the four games in which he homered.

I often recollect on the days before August 1st. Before Jason Kendall had become a regular everyday player. Before Steve Trachsel was making starts.

Those were the days.

Zambrano allowed 31 runs — earned runs — in his next six starts. The Cubs lost every one of them, dropping Zambrano to 14-12.

The team’s run differential has fallen to just 30 more runs scored than allowed, ranking them 13th in all of baseball in expected winning percentage.

They’re even losing in spite of Kendall’s August surge which saw his slugging percentage rise to a season-high .320 (shiver). Hooray 11 extra base hits since the All-Star break! Seriously, I want to vomit every time Cubs fans sing his praises.

Then there’s Trachsel. I’m going to let Baseball Prospectus writer Joe Sheehan handle this one. Joe?

The Cubs might just want to stop shooting themselves in the foot. Trading for Steve Trachsel and using him to replace Sean Marshall in the rotation is a move out of the Rachel Phelps playbook. Marshall had been an above-average starter for three months, with an ERA below 4.00, a 2-1 K/BB ratio, and a strong groundball rate. Steve Trachsel has walked 70 men and struck out 48 in 146 2/3 innings, and I submit that no pitcher in the history of baseball has ever been good while putting up numbers like that. Every time Trachsel pitches, he nicks away at the Cubs’ chances of winning the division.

Thanks, Joe. And I love the Major League reference.

And I think Mr. Sheehan hit on my point even more than I intended him to. The Cubs’ problems aren’t limited to the field. Jim Hendry has created a monster he can no longer control — signing players past their prime to lengthy contracts and securing a financial disaster for the ages.

James Holzhauer over at Results Disoriented wrote this beautiful little number on Hendry and ex-Pirates GM Dave Littlefield.

Hmm. Hendry’s job appears safe. Why? I’m not trying to defend Littlefield, but if he had the authorization to spend $400 million, I don’t think he could have done a worse job with it than Hendry did. As it is, the bargain-basement Pirates enter today’s action less than 10 games behind the Cubs, who would be out of contention in any other division in organized sports.

…

Frankly, the big difference I see between these two is that one of their teams has a large built-in fan base, giving their GM the resources to overpay for a .500 ballclub. It’s too bad that ownership doesn’t see it that way, because if they did the Cubs would have a better front office and a brighter team outlook.

If the Cubs don’t make the playoffs there’s absolutely no excuse Hendry can make. If they finish below .500, it would be even more of an outrage.

Why, oh why, aren’t more people (fans, especially) making any noise about this? I’m still hearing praise for Hendry and the Cubs in some circles.

Ok, Cubs fans, let me hear ya. A one, a two, a three…

Just, out.

Nate Silver over at Baseball Prospectus wonderfully analyzed the starting rotations of the teams in the playoff hunt.

I wanted to discuss it because a) it introduced me to a new metric I knew little about and b) the article was interesting to me. So it should be interesting to you, too.

Essentially, Silver took the 16 teams with a shot at making the playoffs and evaluated them based on QERA, which judges pitchers solely on strikeout rate, walk rate and groundball-to-flyball ratio — numbers Silver says “stabilize relatively quickly and are largely unaffected by park and league effects.”

There’s a lot more data flying around that you’ll need to become a BP subscriber to see, because I don’t want to get into it.

The two best staffs, according to Silver and QERA, are the Red Sox and Padres, not surprisingly. Interestingly enough, though, Chris R. Young’s QERA is a 4.20, which seems high considering his 2.38 season ERA. But, as Silver points out, QERA is punishing him for having high flyball rates which haven’t hurt him while pitching in Petco.

Before I get into the teams I really wanted to talk about, I do want to mention the Indians, which Silver has ranked No. 3. C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona give the team two leaders while Paul Byrd and Jake Westbrook are just good enough to at least give the offense a chance.

But enough of that, I only mentioned those teams because, like I said, I thought it was interesting. Let’s talk about the reason I’m here right now — the Cubs and Brewers.

The Cubs have truly hurt their rotation by adding Steve Trachsel to the mix, and I have a feeling if Silver knew he’d be getting starts down the stretch, the Cubs wouldn’t have been ranked No. 10 on his list.

It’ll be interesting to see what the Cubs do. In the playoffs, they’ll probably shuffle Carlos Zambrano, Rich Hill and Ted Lilly into a solid three-man rotation, which would give them a good enough 1-2-3 to get the job done.

The Brewers, who Silver ranked 7th, are a wild card — and I’m hesitant to say their rotation is good enough to survive the playoffs. This coming from a guy who has had a Ben Sheets man-crush for years.

But Sheets may not be able to survive a three-man rotation, and Yovani Gallardo and Dave Bush give me even greater pause.

Silver says the rotation just needs to be handled appropriately:

The principal question is whether Ned Yost can manage to deploy his pitching assets correctly. Jeff Suppan is the guy who should be missing starts when the schedule affords it, but instead the Brewers have soured on Chris Capuano, whose problems have been caused almost entirely by his .335 BABIP (the only reason Capuano gets listed at all is because Claudio Vargas just hit the DL). Ben Sheets is the other variable, since he could be anywhere from a 3.00 to a 4.50 ERA pitcher depending on how healthy his arm is. Handled properly, the rotation ought to be an asset for the Brewers.

I agree and disagree. Sure, Cappy’s numbers look worse than they truly are, but how much better is he, truly?

Even QERA labels all four of the non-Sheets pitchers at or around 4.00, which means they’re not much better than the Cubs.

And I happen to think, given the Trachsel news and the fact that the Cubs may give Jason Marquis priority for October starts over Hill, that the Cubs are likely to mismanage the rotation much more than the Brew Crew, despite Ned Yost’s desire to make as many senseless decisions as possible.

In the end, it just might come down to which manager makes the fewest bad decisions, and if that is the case, Lou Piniella better screw his head on straight.

At least Jason Kendall is hurt, eliminating the opportunity for Lou to start him. I will stand by my my contention that this is the best thing that could have happened.

Just, out.

The Cubs and Brewers have led the NL Central all season, and for the first time since their series at the beginning of July, the NL Central powerhouses (who are truly anything but), will meet up to set the course for the rest of the season.

The Cubs appear to be the better team from all statistical angles, and now have their All-Star outfielder, Alfonso Soriano, back on the field.

The possibility exists that the team that loses this series will sit behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the division, depending on their series with Houston.

The division race hasn’t shaped up to be nearly as exciting as I anticipated it would be, but it is still sort of exciting for the wrong reasons. Essentially, which team stinks the least?

Come playoff time, though, the Central winner could still make a splash, as these guys proved.

So enjoy the battle of the titans tonight between Jeff Suppan (8-11, 4.85 ERA) and Rich Hill (7-7, 3.67 ERA).

Just, out.

Is it so far-fetched to say the Reds are in contention for the NL Central title?

Well, probably.

How sad is it that a team that currently sits 10 games under .500 is 6.5 games out of first? One team in the division is over .500 — the Cubs — at a meager 66-63.

If the Cubs were to go .500 the rest of the way and win the division (honestly, isn’t that all it takes in this division?), they’d have 82-83 wins, which as history told us last year, is enough to not only win the division, but the World Series as well.

Pittsburgh and Houston are tied for last in the division with records of 57-72 and 58-73, respectively. They’re nine games out of first. Nine!

Every other last place team is out of first by at least 15 games, so it seems reasonable to leave Cincinnati in the playoff picture. A six-game win streak has propelled them to a 60-70 record. They’ve also won eight of their last 10.

Now, I don’t think the Reds should, can, or will win the division, but their place in the division certainly points out this comedy of errors. Literally.

Just, out.

Does Craig Monroe help the Cubs…at all? (AP Photo)

The Cubs did a little — and I stress a little — to bolster their playoff roster today by acquiring outfielder Craig Monroe from the Tigers.

The Cubs sent cash and a player to be named in exchange for the slumping Tiger outfielder.

Monroe had been designated for assignment last Friday.

Cubs manager Lou Piniella has been saying for weeks how desperately he wants an extra right-handed hitter off the bench, and they may have found just that.

Against lefties, Monroe is hitting .302 this season with a considerable .542 slugging percentage. Considering his season batting average is .222, it doesn’t take much to realize how awful he’s hitting against righties. I’ll just say that the Mendoza-line waved bye-bye to him a while ago.

I was never convinced Piniella “really” needed the extra bat. I mean, he’s already misusing Felix Pie on the left side, so I don’t expect much from Monroe.

Jim Hendry, though, sees plenty of upside:

I think it gives us a good balance. It was just one of those situations where you couldn’t pass up a guy who has already been there and helped lead a club to the postseason. We’ve had our ups and downs against lefties. It gives Lou some options here that we didn’t have before by just adding one good batter against left-handed pitching.

Rob Neyer mentioned this week that the Cubs would be better off promoting right-handed catcher Geovany Soto to give the Cubs a player off the bench and one actually worthy of being the team’s backup and future starter.

But the Cubs just keep doing what they always do: Why bring in talent from within when 29 other teams have it?

I’m not even going to touch that one.

Just, out.