All day I’ve been battling some form of depressed, self-pitying malaise, and I’ve totally wondered why. Could it be my bracket’s regression into a mediocre NCAA tournament? (Lousy talking heads picking all four no. 1s and being right.) Nah, who cares? Could it be another week’s worth of corporate seminars staring me in the face? Nah, that’s status quo at this point. Wait, it’s late March – I’ve figured it out.
Tomorrow, all the narcissism, the whining, self-loathing, unease and anxiety accompanying any and all baseball seasons commences. And summarily, as you know, we’ll be gritting our teeth and informing you this isn’t a Cubs blog with each and every frustrated, whining post for the next six months. But that’s baseball – it’s cruel, it’s twisted, and aside from stupid colloquial poetry, it’s fucking perfect.
So far, we’ve done yeoman’s work keeping our mouths shut this offseason, even deigning not to wrap ourselves too far into the good developments (The Strap – gone; Jon Lieber - back; Reed Johnson – employed; K-Fuk – what a nickname, etc.) and the bad (Felix Pie‘s balls, Brian Roberts‘ watch, Mark Prior‘s exodus, and the impending departure – GRRR! – of Matt Murton). We’ve even resisted the temptation to throttle any stat geeks howling that Tim Raines belongs in the Hall of Fame.
But anyway, with tomorrow arrives all the angst, all the moping, all the sky-high celebrations, the legions of dipshit Cubs fans counterintuitively celebrating futility (dopes), all the exhalation after a night’s win; the pain gurgling after a daytime loss. 162 such separate occurrences, and hopefully more to follow. We’re somewhat positive about the Cubs, and we’ve narrowly avoided following all other baseball developments. Not to worry, however, our quick-hit Cub thoughts follow after the jump.
THE CUBS
- SS The Riot. Love the guy, but can he really lead off?
- LF Soriano. He’ll be batting leadoff within the month, and contrary to most other Cubs blogs, I’m OK with that.
- 3B Ramirez. Best Cub.
- 1B Lee. We hope Derrek has forestalled the downturn, and that his lackluster spring was simply a lackluster spring.
- RF. Fuk U. Please don’t strike out as much as your swing suggests.
- 2B DeRosa. What can we say? He looks like Dane Cook and is twice as funny.
- C Soto. My spring has likely been so pain-free because Mike Barrett is gone.
- CF. Pie. Yes, I expect a Johnson/Fukudome platoon in two months. I’m not sold on Felix, but he’s a great fielder.
- The Bench. Love Fat Daryle, like Reed Johnson, love Hank White, detest Ronny Cedeno, and have an unhealthy mancrush on Matt Murton. As for Fontenot, Fox, Hoffpauir, well, meh. We’ll see who’s still here tomorrow.
Starters:
- Z. The man.
- Lilly. Probably won’t have quite as good a year, but still solid.
- Rich Hill. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Rich?
- The Ryan Dempster Experiment, v. 3.0. This scares me.
- Jason Marquis. I expect Lieber in this spot by May 31.
Pen:
- Kerry. The people’s champ, and we hope that’s justified.
- Marmol. Fuck and yes.
- Howry. Worth every penny.
- Hart, Lieber, Marshall. Don’t lose familiarity with the spot starts, fellas.
- Wuertz. Say, he’s been around a while. With the descent of the Cardinals and the further irrelevance of Albert Pujols, Wuertz himself becomes further irrelevant.
What we think: 89-73, probable playoff spot, nearly a billion articles talking about a century since the Cubs won it all. Our stomachs churn already.
