It\u2019s hard to find a fan base that stays upbeat better than the Cubs fans, but last year\u2019s Cubs team didn\u2019t give them anything to cheer about. Chicago went 66-96 on the year, and the Cubs were a brutal 31-50 at Wrigley Field. <\/p>\n
Will there be anything to cheer about on the north side of Chicago this year?<\/p>\n
NL Central: +7,000<\/b>
\nNL Pennant: +5,500<\/b>
\nWorld Series: +12,500<\/b>
\nWin Total: 69.5<\/b><\/p>\nTeam Strengths:<\/h3>\n
The Cubs have found a couple strong hitters to put at the top and the middle of their order in Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro. Castro wasn\u2019t consistent last year, but he\u2019s still a very good player. He\u2019ll likely be better this year. Rizzo is a budding star who can hit for both average and power. This team hasn\u2019t had guys to build around for a while, but I believe they do now.<\/p>\n
The Cubs rotation is improving. Jeff Samardzija is better than his numbers looked last year, and it won\u2019t surprise me if he puts together a good season in 2014. Travis Wood was excellent last year, and he is a good number two starter. Edwin Jackson is an innings eater who will help the team. Jason Hammel and Jake Arrieta both have some potential at the back of the rotation as well.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of weaknesses on this team. While they do have a couple of strong hitters to build around, the rest of the lineup is very weak. Nate Schierholtz is going to bat fourth in this lineup, and when Schierholtz is your cleanup hitter you know you don\u2019t have a very good lineup. With Wellington Castillo, Darwin Barney, and Luis Valbuena at the bottom of the order, the bottom of this lineup is way below the league average.
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\nThe bullpen has been a problem for a long time in Chicago, and it doesn\u2019t look much better this year. This bullpen has question marks all over. Nearly everyone in this bullpen has some serious control issues, and that can lead to some massive innings for the opposition. Remember that when betting on or against the Cubs this year.<\/p>\n
Chicago lacks depth almost everywhere, and that starts to show up when people go down with injuries. Injuries are bound to happen over the course of a very long season. The Cubs don\u2019t have major league ready players who can step in for them.<\/p>\n
1. Starlin Castro SS
\n2. Junior Lake LF
\n3. Anthony Rizzo 1B
\n4. Nate Schierholtz RF
\n5. Justin Ruggiano CF
\n6. Wellington Castillo C
\n7. Darwin Barney 2B
\n8.\u00a0 Luis Valbuena 3B<\/p>\n
This is definitely one of the worst lineups in baseball. The Cubs were shut out 16 times last year. Don\u2019t be surprised if putting together big innings is a problem for this group once again.<\/p>\n
1. Jeff Samardzija
\n2. Travis Wood
\n3. Edwin Jackson
\n4. Jason Hammel
\n5. Jake Arrieta<\/p>\n
The rotation has a chance to be better than last year, but this still isn\u2019t a good rotation. There is no clear number one, and Hammel and Arrieta have both battled injuries a lot in recent years.<\/p>\n
Jose Veras<\/p>\n
Veras averages a strikeout per inning, so he has potential. Still, he has to be considered one of the least reliable closers in the bigs because of his propensity to allow too many baserunners.<\/p>\n
This is a very tough call on the over\/under for wins for Chicago, but I\u2019ll lean slightly to the under. Chicago is in a very good division, and they are clearly the team that should lose the most games in the NL Central. <\/p>\n
They won\u2019t win many slugfests, and there are no stars about to burst onto the scene. It will be another long year for Cubs fans.<\/p>\n
Betting On The Cubs? It\u2019s hard to find a fan base that stays upbeat better than the Cubs fans, but last year\u2019s Cubs team didn\u2019t give them anything to cheer about. Chicago went 66-96 on the year, and the Cubs were a brutal 31-50 at Wrigley Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":73715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[61195,61324,12551,12553,12554,12555,46166,678,11260,11215,2687],"class_list":["post-73583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb-baseball","tag-2014-mlb-team-preview","tag-2014-nl-central-futures","tag-chicago-cubs-picks","tag-cubs-futures","tag-cubs-odds","tag-cubs-predictions","tag-cubs-world-series-odds","tag-mlb-betting","tag-nl-central-predictions","tag-nl-central-preview","tag-world-series-futures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73583","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\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73583"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73718,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73583\/revisions\/73718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}