Cubs Convention Induced Optimistic Post Of The Year

So, the Cubs are going to be crap this year. We all know it despite what wonders Garza will do for our rotation. As Lou preached for 4 years - "If you can't score runs, you can't win."

But wait.

Fukudome is going to be introduced to the fine American tradition known as "the contract year" and he's going to be raking all year long, trying to finally justify earning half the money he's made.

Byrd, Pena, Soriano and A-Ram will power this offense fueled by the hard pounding Castro and the slap hitting and plucky DeWitt into a formidable force. Soto will provide his usual combination of light power and solid consistency to round out this font of offense. Here's the lineup-

Fuke, Castro, Byrd, A-Ram, Pena, Sori, Soto, DeWitt, Pitcher

And SPEAKING of pitching. O. M. G.

Zambrano's anger management will morph into knitting and Parcheesi and he'll turn in a 22 win season because of it. Garza will feast on the crap that is NL Hitting and come in second in Cy Young contention. Dempster will break his arm celebrating an almost win (foiled by an inconceivable double play) but he will STILL turn in 30 solid starts (it was his left arm after all) and win a Gold Cast award - the first of it's kind.

Wells and Gorzelanny will both continue to mature and fill out the back end of the rotation, with Silva having been traded to the Cardinals and Yankees for Puljos, Jeter, and a PTBNL (They'll both be assigned to Iowa, so they can routinely bitch-slap the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.)

The bullpen, with the 7th, 8th, and 9th being in the capable hands of Marshall, Woody, and Marmol will surely get the blood pumping, but all will fall in defeat to the 3 Kings of K's.

In the end, the Cubs will coast through the playoffs and into their first World Series in a dozen Presidents and win it in 5, having lost game 2 to Carlo Silva's left butt cheek in a 1-0 thriller.

Can I get just one more WTF?

Cubs trade 5 prospects for Matt Garza.

WTF? Ok, don't get me wrong, I don't hate this trade, like so many vocal others. I'll explain why in a bit, but this DOES seemingly run contrary to any reason expectation for 2011, which is total loss. To say otherwise is foolish. So, trading away 5 prospects for a solid starting pitcher seems foolhardy. Garza joins the ranks of Zambrano, Dempster, Wells, Cashner, and a gaggle of other good-very good pitchers in a rotation that's lacking a sense of elbow room. Which heads will fall next?

Having said that, I don't hate this trade for two reasons -

1. Garza coming to the NL, and especially the NL Central can be a force to be reckoned with a 15-10 record in the AL East is pretty hefty and nothing to shake a stick at. When Dempster and Zambrano depart, Garza could be 1/3 of a solid rotation with Wells and a PTBNL.

2. When you look at who we traded away -
Sam Fuld - going nowhere, but plucky.
Chris Archer - as naysayers have touted often and loudly, the Cubs have plenty of pitching. The Cubs would probably just F*ck him up anyway.
Brandon Guyer - Utility outfielder a.k.a. Tyler Colvin beta.
Robinson Chirinos - Power hitting catcher a.k.a. Geo Soto beta
Hak-Ju Lee - Sweet hitting and fielding shortstop a.k.a. Starlin Castro beta.

So we basically gave away 3 guys we already had and one guy who will be in several years the guy we just got. So what did we lose? 4 years of downtime waiting for Archer to cook all the way through - if he ever does.

Take a proven commodity over one who may or may not pan out. He won't be the savior of 2011, but he may do some good things in 12 or 13. Meantime, we can let the other guys go eat at the kids table.