NL Central

San Francisco Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said a bunch of castoffs and misfits won the World Series in 2010. After enormously disappointing seasons in 2009 and 2010, the Cubs definitely fall in the category of misfits. 

Yes, I know what you're thinking. "What is he talking about? How is Albert Pujols 'too good'?"

Well, Albert Pujols is the best player in baseball, so let's get that out of the way. If he continues on his current path, he'll most likely retire as one of the best ever.

I would love for nothing more than to be able to tell you that the Cubs are going to win the NL Central this season, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. But that just isn't the case, of course.

Forget about the way the team finished last season for none of that matters, nor does it carry over into this season. Still, there is something gnawing at me that tells me this division is very winnable, despite the miserable 2010 season.

For one thing, Sweet Lou is no longer asleep at the wheel, and we have a manager who actually wants to do this and is even somewhat lucid.

Buster Olney from ESPN and Jon Heyman from Sports Illustrated are two sports writers quickly losing ground of credibility with me lately.  I honestly would rather not read someone's jibber-jabber unless they had their little ducks in a row and their sources correctly cited. Instead all we get are the standard unnamed source bologna in place of real writing because they have nothing else to come up with.  We should be sick of it, and we don't deserve it. 

Only a parking lot separates Paul Brown Stadium from Great American Ballpark, but it may as well be an entire time zone.

One organization is owned by a man who rarely talks, but when he does, I get about as much joy from it as being placed on hold while waiting to speak to someone from a credit card company.

He offers nothing but excuses for the failures of the organization.  Excuses, half truths and simply laughable justifications when asked why he does things the way he does.

The Cincinnati Reds were able to sign the 2010 N.L. MVP Joey Votto to a three year $38M extension.

It allows both sides a chance to avoid the arbitration process and it gives fans peace of mind that Votto will be a Cincinnati Red for the near future.

Ok that's great, but what's going to happen in 2013?

That's the question that Reds nation is wondering about in wake of the new deal. We'll get to that in a bit, first let's try and figure out who got the better end of the deal.

Ryan Braun is a very good player. According to the MLB Network, he's the top left fielder in the game today.

In fact, Braun's numbers have been so good for the Brewers since joining the team in May 2007 that the argument can easily be made he's off to a Hall of Fame start to his career.

However, Braun's numbers have declined steadily since winning the NL Rookie of the Year award that season, and he needs a strong bounce-back in 2011 to re-establish himself as one of game's best players.

The answer to the headline is yes...and no.

In my third article of this 30 in 30 series, we take a look at the Chicago Cubs, one of the hottest teams in all of baseball at the end of last season.

Posting an impressive 24-13 record under interim manager Mike Quade at the end of last season, the question now for Chicago is no longer "Just how bad are the Cubs?" It has been replaced with the much more optimistic "Just how GOOD are these Cubs?"

The Pittsburgh Pirates have made a number of offseason moves, thereby adding depth in key spots. That's true, even though none of the newly acquired players figure to be stars, meaning that the Pirates aren't likely to be contenders anytime soon.