There has been a great deal of frustration this season over the seemingly inconsistent and unpredictable offense and, as much as that broader inconsistency in just overall good play (baserunning, fielding, managing, etc.). I would argue that the Cubs have in fact been VERY predictable and consistent. Look at the numbers:

Over the past 3 months, the Cubs are 12-26 against teams that currently have a winning record, they are 29-15 against sub .500 teams over that same period. They beat up on bad teams, in large part by riding their consistent starting pitching and superior payroll investment and talent to overcome underperformance. They have shown they cannot compete consistently with good teams or hit off of good pitchers.

The point of this is in some ways similar to Mariotti's point in his column today - the Cubs go into a stretch playing a bunch of bad teams and, if recent history is any guide, they will probably win 2/3 of these games. It doesn't mean they are a better team than they were a month ago, or any better positioned for the playoffs. It simply means the current 2009 Chicago Cubs are a mediocre performing team that is better than the small market teams who can't land anyone of significance but nowhere near the vicinity of consistently beating the league's elite teams.

A betting man (or woman) should love the Cubs, they have in fact been one of the most predictable teams in the league all year.

Apologize if this has already circulated but WSJ had interesting piece today about how the Cubs struggle in key game situations. I think some of the data not as damning as the rest, but the 3-0 count stat is pretty interesting. It is worth noting that the Cubs rank 8th in overall MLB strikeouts so these numbers below do deviate from the broader norm.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124217883823113503.html

Average major league team had a .477 slugging percentage and struck out once every 19.44 trips to the plate when batter has a 3-0 count. The Cubs slugging just .214 and striking out once every 7.44 chances."

Here is how they rank in several scenarios where a whiff is not appreciated:

Source: Stats LLC

Any thoughts on the 3-0 count enigma? Only thing I could think of is that Cubs batting coach's approach is to have Cubs take more pitches than other teams when count is 3-1. Outcome of this is that either the player walks (which doesn't help BA or slugging %) and if pitch is strike then the 3-0 advantage is now a 3-2 disadvantage

Just my two cents here obviously but certainly many fans make sweeping assumptions of player values based on just a few early games in the season. Here are some thoughts on things I think Cub fans should and should not worry about.

Don't Worry About

- Derek Lee's hitting

- Milton Bradley's hitting

- Ryan Theroit's fielding

- Zambrano, Marshall, Lilly, Dempster

- Heilman, Marmol

Do Worry About

- Rich Harden's ability to consistently go 5+

- A Soto sophomore slump

- Team baserunning and team speed (particularly Theroit's awful inability to steal bases

- Kevin Gregg, Neil Cotts, Angel Guzman

After making the trek up for D.C. to catch the two games at new Yankee stadium here are a few observations --

1) Inside, the new stadium is being rightfully slammed by NY media critics. It has all the aesthetic charm of new Comiskey, mixed with some metallic Euro bar. There is nothing distinctive and I have no idea what they spent $1.5 billion on (my guess is the majority was spent on the sick jumbotron which is the biggest and sharpest picture I've ever seen).

2) The food choices were awful and pedestrian. And by new NY law, all calorie counts are listed on the concession stand boards by all items. After reading I'll reconsider prior belief that hot pretzel was more health conscious way to go than a hot dog.

3) To be fair, the sight-lines are excellent. We did not have great seats by traditional standards but the view was great. And the staff had things pretty well organized for an opening weekend and getting in and getting food, etc. was very smooth (of course this was helped by frigid temperatures that had attendance maybe 60% Friday night and 40% full Saturday afternoon).

And the game...

1) On Saturday the scoreboard operator updating balls/strikes/outs was terrible. It even cost the Cubs an out when Derek Lee was caught running after a fly ball because the board said 2 outs until the last second when it was changed, correctly, to one out.

2) Fukudome looked clueless - at the plate, in the field (terrible error Saturday) and it is hard to imagine that he will turn things around. It looks like we are getting into Corey Patterson pyschological meltdown time at this point. He looks like he is just zoning out (and certainly not 'in the zone).'

3) Soriano looks locked in at the plate

21 runs. That is how many runs the Cubs have mustered during the 9 straight playoff losses. There is no way to try and explain it because it defies explanation. Some of the futility occurred against a team and player who now participates in the ineptitude (Derek Lee). Some of it occurred against a dominant pitcher (Beckett), while other times it occurred against mediocre bullpens.

The offensive flameout is exactly what I feared throughout the year - that the lineup 1-9 would go into the collective funk at the same time as they did against the diamondbacks and at varioust times this year.

In 1989 I attended 55 games in the bleachers and since that time have watched probably 90% of the games and lived and died with the team. Through the playoff failures of 89, 98, 03, 07 I never wavered from knowing I would start anew the following March. Today, I feel different. I feel betrayed by this team that has let me down beyond description.

Perhaps the offseason will thaw these feelings, but I think the link between myself and this team has been forever damaged by these 3 games.

"The crowd was more electric but I just played my game." When it comes to October baseball, the Cubs haven't "played their game" since the Bartman meltdown. They are a different creature in the post-season, one seemingly incapable of escaping the weight of history. We can "clean house" as many suggest, but we know that is really not the issue. Have people forgotten the statistics these players put up this year? Players have been added (Soriano, Lilly, DeRosa) with no connection to the past and they still get swept up in what is happening.

I don't recognize this baseball team right now, and feel oddly disconnected from them the last two playoff seasons. I'll tell you when it started for me - Game 7 of 2003. Even when Wood hit that HR I felt disconnected and oddly unemotional. I sweated out games in April more than I am stressing about the last two games. That is odd - I'm almost resigned to what is happening.

I don't know if they will win Saturday, but I can tell you this - the offense will score runs with Fontenot and or Johnson in there rather than Dome.

This season has been fantastic to watch and enjoy as a fan, but perhaps I am the only one with a gnawing tinge of fear over another short, opening round playoff series against Arizona - which is how things are shaping up most likely.

I believe that history is relevant until it isn't, and frankly these guys have killed us for several years. Their anemic offense seems to pep up just enough against us, but the offense is hardly the issue -- i don't see how we can get past Webb, Harden and Randy Johnson (whom we have never beat) in a short series. And add Cub-killer Adam Dunn to a mediocre lineup and they have enough firepower to score against us.

The Cubs have a great team, but drawing Arizona in a short series is an utter nightmare versus the opportunity to play teams far weaker in a 5 game series format (Mets, Philly, Dodgers). To me, Arizona is the absolute worst team we can draw.

So did some crunching and the Cubs offense is registering 7.4 runs per game with Soriano absent from the lineup and 4.7 runs with him. The team is also 10-5 without him and 8-9 with him. Small sample size, and you can talk about various factors skewing these early results but the bottom line is that this is a split that bears watching.

More relevant is his early season splits with bases empty versus RISP. He is actually hitting .240 with RISP and a jaw-dropping .133 with the bases empty. We can argue all we want that he only officially bats "leadoff" once a game, but it is clear that Soriano is not getting on base to start innings or at least potentially start something if an out is already on the books. THIS SCREAMS TO GET HIM OUT OF THE LEADOFF SPOT.

Despite all of the rhetoric surrounding the Cubs offense Post-Soriano, it seemed to me that our leadoff hitters weren't doing as well as the public perception. So I crunched the numbers, and sure enough, here are the results:

13 games with Soriano and 13 games with him out and someone else batting leadoff:

                            BA                       R                    RBI

Soriano              .175 (10-57)       7                     5

Others                .155 (9-58)         10                   4

I'm not a fan of Soriano batting leadoff, but I don't think that the offense is better off with him out, which seems to be a notion that some actually entertain. As the stats above indicate, there have been many reasons the Cubs offense has been rolling, but performance out of the leadoff spot isn't one of them.