By national consensus, the Cubs are streaking to an overwhelming favorite to win the 2016 World Series. The time has come. This is the year. No doubt about it.
But we have been there before. A lot of times. Can this one be different? Perhaps.
But in all the joyful expectations, there needs to be some rational thought. The Cubs have a fine young core of players who should get better with experience, but the club still has many weak spots.
WEAKNESS NO. 1: Starting Pitching
The Cubs were extremely lucky last year that there were not many serious injuries to its starting rotation. On the other hand, the rotation started to break down at the end of the season when Maddon could only count on Arrieta and Lester. That is why the Cubs went out and signed John Lackey to be the veteran No. 3 starter. But Lackey is at the end of his career, and pitching more in hitter friendly Wrigley may not suit him. Plus, Maddon has lost confidence in Hammel, and Hendricks needs to make a major stride in 2016. The back end of the rotation lacks solid starters and depth.
The glaring indictment in the Epstein-Hoyer era is that they have yet to draft and develop a starting pitcher. Most of the prospect pitchers have come in early trades (Ramirez, Edwards, Hendricks, Arrieta, Grimm, etc.) Realizing that failure, the mantra has been "draft hitters and buy pitchers." But most teams do not want to give up their young starter prospects because they are hard to find. So Plan B is to load the bullpen with former starters as long relievers (Cahill, Richard, T. Wood, Grimm) in case of rotation implosion. It was so bad that Maddon had to use "a bullpen start" for several games late in the season.
WEAKNESS NO. 2: Lead Off Hitter
Dexter Fowler did a competent job as the Cubs CF-lead off hitter, even though he was not the prototypical candidate (he did steal 20 bases). He was playing for a new contract so his power numbers were up. In fact, he is still waiting for a new contact.
The current Cubs roster contains no real lead off hitter, a high OBP guy with speed to put pressure on the opponent's defense. Names tossed around for lead off now include Heyward, Zobrist and even Bryant. Heyward is a contact hitter but with a weird swing so the pressure to get on base may hurt his game. Zobrist is old. Bryant's power potential is better suited batting next to Rizzo. The "second" lead off hitter, Russell, has not hit consistently enough to make the move to lead off. So this is a glaring weakness in the current lineup.
WEAKNESS NO. 3: Outfield Defense
Heyward is a major upgrade on defense. However, his best and most comfortable position in RF. The Cubs plan to play him exclusively in CF. And that move may continue to weaken a shaky outfield defense. An outfield of Schwarber-Heyward-Soler is very weak in the corners. Heyward has to cover much more ground in center to cover up for the corner's lack of range. Many players have problems adjusting to a new position at the major league level. A pet peeve is manager's who constantly play players out of their natural position like it was a video game. If Heyward is unhappy or uncomfortable in center, that can affect his hitting as well.
One solution is to let Schwarber catch more games. Montero is not a long term answer at catcher, but the Cubs are stuck with his contract for the next two years. Ross is Lester's personal catcher for one final year. That leaves maybe Schwarber catching one game a week. The rest of the time is LF or bust. But moving Schwarber behind the plate opens the door for Heyward to move back to RF, slide Soler to LF and put Coghlan or Szczur in CF which improves the overall outfield defense.
WEAKNESS NO. 4: Depth
For all the young hitters, the bench is still a soft spot. Maddon may want to keep 13 pitchers on the staff, which puts more pressure on the four bench players to be both versatile and good. Baez, who can play SS, 3B and 2B, is a lock for one spot but he has not been a part time player in his career. As a free swinger he needs a lot of at-bats to get into a groove. Many suspect Maddon will use him as a super-utility player like he did with Zobrist in Tampa; play him at various positions during the week to rest his starters. Ross takes up one spot but his hitting is worse than most of the pitchers on the staff. That leaves two open spots: Coghlan, who can play all outfield spots and who is willing to stick his glove at any other position, has to be on the team. Then the final spot goes to either light hitting glove outfielder Szczur or to another out-of-options candidate like 3B Villaneuva or utility infielder LaStella.
None of these bench candidates could start on any major league team except for Baez. There is no one on the AAA roster pushing for a major league position. One would suspect the 25th man is still not on the Cubs roster today; a late spring training pick up off the waiver wire is a real possibility.
