Cubs Seasons Preview

    As baseball season bears down on us hope springs eternal. Cubs fans have had a offseason to forget and are ready to watch the team on the field. With names like Rizzo, Bryant, and Baez still here there is hope for the offense to progress and be more like it was in our run in 2016. Spring training has also been encouraging with many players excelling. The bullpen will need to find some productive players for the Cubs to succeed as well. Another thing that will be exciting is fans! Wrigley will have around 9,000 fans allowed to start the season and hopefully more as the year goes on! Fans in the stands and product with possibilities has fans hopeful.

    The starting lineup will look close to this

1. Happ 2. Bryant 3. Rizzo 4. Contreras 5. Baez 6. Pederson 7. Heyward 8. Bote.

The bench will be Marisnick, Romine(if healthy), Sogard, and Duffy. Sogard and Duffy will be the backups in the infield and also have to help in the outfield with Marisnick the only backup outfielder. Romine should be a solid backup catcher with Higgins behind him if Romine faulters. While the lineup looks very similar and hasn't produced enough latley, it has the potential to succeed. Rizzo and Contreras have been solid and mostly consistent. The others in the lineup have high ceilings and low floors but defintely should prodcue more than they did last year. With Horner most likely coming up sometime in May that should also be another bat to add if anyone falters too much. Some hitteras have also shown they will contribute on Offense. The Pederson signing looks good and Marisnick should also fill in nicely all over the field. With those two additions, the loss of Schwarber will not be felt as much.

    The starting rotation will be

1. Hendricks 2. Arrieta 3. Davies 4. Williams 5. Azolay.

Davies, Arrieta, and Williams have all been impressive on the mound in the spring. For the Cubs to excell this year we need those guys to be consistent and continue to give us good innings once the year starts. With Hendricks the know number 1 those 4 following will be a huge boost to a pitching staff that has come into the year with a lot of unknowns. With Miller, and Mills both waiting and ready if injury or ineffectiveness happens. I think the starting rotation has the pieces to be a solid piece to the team even if it is not dominant. The bullpen has a lot of names and should be able to find guys who can give solid innings. With Pitchers still trying to get into shape to throw long outings having Mills in the pen will be nice. hopefully the amount of bullpen players will help with strecthing out the starters at the beginning of the year.

    Overall this roster seems to have potential and gets to compete in one of the weaker divisions it looks like going into the year. Having consistency on the mound and getting the hitters to match early production will be keys for this team moving forward. They will have hard decisions to make on contracts and trades at the deadline though. The better they start the harder those decisions will be but the happier the fans will be. Getting fans in the stadium and having a full season will be exciting and truly shows that hope alwasy springs eternal.