2008 Chicago Cubs Team Preview

2008 Chicago Cubs
Make or Break: A Century Later
BaseballEvolution.com 2008 Spring Preview

Mere days from now, one of the scariest seasons anticipated to date will commence. To address the giant 800-pound pink elephant in the room for a second – the Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908. Ooh, shocking, look at the symmetry. 100 years. You done yet?

Other things happened in 1908. According to legend out of the nation’s capital, the seventh-inning stretch was invented when the Club of 43’s fattest member – one William Howard Taft – stood up to stretch during the seventh inning. While probably apocryphal, the crowd allegedly noticed this behavior and replicated it out of respect for the president. Whether or not this is true is irrelevant, as it has nothing to do with the 2008 Chicago Cubs, anyway. My point is that hedging one’s bet on the Cubs merely because disaster awaits anything less than a World Series ring this year is a silly move, but you might get lucky in doing so, anyway.

Last year, I had the gall to say Michael Barrett was “a dependable bat with a good arm.” After his trade to the San Diego Padres – becoming the backup for Josh Bard following a solid half-season taken by injuries – he left the catcher position open for longtime benchwarmer Henry Blanco, and the job seemed his for the taking.

Enter Geovany Soto.

This stud – as Asher claimed he would be in our fantasy baseball draft – lit up American Military Academy High School in Puerto Rico and stretched that success to an 11th round draft pick by the North Siders in 2001. Soto made it to the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate in Iowa by 2005. Last season, in 100 games before being called up, Soto earned his trip to the show with 26 homers, 109 RBI and an OPS of 1.076 in 110 at-bats. If he can show the same production for his first full season after 30 major league games under his belt, he will become another shining exception that proves the rule against drafting high schoolers, and a welcome exception he would be.

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