It is the dawn of a new era in Chicago with the arrival of new team president Theo Epstein, who was brought in to do for the Cubs what he did for Boston; win a World Series. <\/p>\n
MLB Team Betting Previews- Chicago Cubs If you think the turnaround will be dramatic and overnight, think again.<\/p>\n The plan is to go with a long-term rebuilding process that jettisons over-paid talent and allows blue-chip prospects to develop at a sensible pace.<\/p>\n What this all means for this 2012, is another fourth or fifth-place finish and possibly a slight improvement on last season\u2019s 71-win total. Chicago will be looking to players such as Starlin Castro, Ian Stewart, and Bryan LaHair to prove they belong in the Big Leagues with a break-out performance with their bats.<\/p>\n Right now, Chicago\u2019s overall batting order remains devoid of any true star power, but it still has the potential to be pretty good if everyone does their job.<\/p>\n The Cubs\u2019 lineup finished the 2011 season with a respectable team batting average of .256 and 654 runs scored, which placed them in the middle of the pack in the NL. The pitching staff as a whole, was ranked 14th in the NL with an ERA of 4.33, but was ranked sixth in total hits allowed with 1439. [dfads params=’groups=10&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]<\/p>\n One area that this staff drastically needs to improve upon is base-on-balls. Chicago\u2019s 580 walks were the most in the Majors in 2011.<\/p>\n The starting rotation will be anchored by the likes of Matt Garza and Ryan Dempster, but do not be surprised if they are dangled as trade-bait as the regular season progresses. The Cubs added Paul Maholm with a one-year deal and have Randy Wells and Chris Volstad to fill the back end of the rotation.<\/p>\n The bullpen took a hit with the departure of Sean Marshall, but the return of Travis Wood should help add some depth to the entire pitching staff.<\/p>\n The biggest thing in the Cubs\u2019 favor this season is that the distance between the top teams in the Central and the bottom-feeders just got that much shorter with the departure of Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder from the division.<\/p>\n That means that Chicago has a good chance to remain competitive right through the All-Star break which could do wonders for this young, but deceptively talented group of players.<\/p>\n Prediction: 76-86 and fourth in the NL Central<\/strong><\/p>\n 2012 MLB Handicapping: Chicago Cubs It is the dawn of a new era in Chicago with the arrival of new team president Theo Epstein, who was brought in to do for the Cubs what he did for Boston; win a World Series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":22305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[53815,53692,6878,12551,12552,45468,12553,26314,12554,12555,46166,66513,10729,66497,678,681,901,11260,11215],"class_list":["post-48586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb-baseball","tag-2012-cubs","tag-2012-mlb-team-preview","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicago-cubs-picks","tag-chicago-cubs-predictions","tag-chicago-world-series-futures","tag-cubs-futures","tag-cubs-mlb-picks","tag-cubs-odds","tag-cubs-predictions","tag-cubs-world-series-odds","tag-handicapping","tag-handicapping-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-betting","tag-mlb-gambling","tag-nl-central","tag-nl-central-predictions","tag-nl-central-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48586"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107900,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48586\/revisions\/107900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOdds to Win the NL Central: +1200
\nOdds to Win the National League Pennant: +1600
\nOdds to Win the World Series: +2800
\n2012 Projected Win Total: 73.5<\/strong><\/p>\nView The MLB Cappers Leaderboard For 2011 \u00a0– Picks Packages for 2012 On Sale! \u2014\u2013><\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"