3. Chicago Cubs
It’s almost Thanksgiving. Football is in full-swing. Baseball season is months away, yet the postmortem on the recent season is unofficially complete. The quick recap of 2014 yields one interesting result.
The Cubs are going to be the surprise team of 2015.
Weeks later, the Chicago Cubs sign Jon Lester. The bandwagon is no longer accepting applicants.
Much like the Royals of last year and the Astros of the near future, the Cubs have been beaten down long enough that high-end draft picks appear to be ready for a full blast of Major League Baseball. With arguably the best and deepest Minor League system in baseball, Chicago will be the home of a ‘Prospect Parade’ until the best nine players claim their roles. From Javier Baez and Starlin Castro to Arismendy Alcantara and Addison Russell, the middle infield is stacked. No such competition exists at third base, as mega-prospect Kris Bryant will likely man the hot corner for the next decade – staring in late-April, of course.
Even before the Cubs acquired one of the best free agent arms this off-season, the team had taken large strides over the past few years to ready itself for an eventual all-out blitz on the league. Perhaps this preparation was the catalyst that led the organization to pursue Lester in the first place, but the fact remains, the Cubs were poised to shock the league this year, with-or-without Lester.
Unfortunately, Jon Lester brings expectations that may simply be too high to meet. Now that the world has caught onto the fact that the Cubs are one big breakout candidate, the bubble may have grown too fast to be sustained. Still, the team is dynamic throughout, and should challenge the Cardinals for the division title, if not the rest of the National League for a shot at the Pennant.
