Poor Cubs: Santana joins NL
Tuesday's pending baseball trade involving Minnesota and New York rippled through both sides of Chicago.
Positively (for the White Sox) and negatively (for the Cubs).
Talk about addition by subtraction. The Sox will become about three games better in the standings if Johan Santana does go from the Twins to the Mets.
Santana will exit the American League, the AL Central and the Sox' nightmares.
That's assuming the Mets can seal the deal by signing Santana to a long-term contract for, say, Times Square and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Of course, one team's addition is another team's subtraction.
The Cubs' only assignment in 2008 is to keep from going their 100th year without winning a World Series.
Santana would make the task considerably more difficult. With a loaded offense and him at the top of the starting rotation, the Mets would be favored to win the National League.
If the Mets did fulfill that promise, the Cubs would go not only a century without winning a World Series but since 1945 without winning the pennant.
Oh, sure, that might be mere speculation emerging from the feeling the Cubs aren't ever going to win anything significant in our lifetimes.
If the Cubs are good, another team in the NL will be great. If the Cubs are great, another team in the NL will be greater.
The Cubs recently signed the best available player from Japan? Another contender probably already secretly signed a better available player from Uranus.
It is what it is. It's the Cubs. It's a federal law that they're a heartache waiting to happen.
Last season was a prime example. The Cubs teased by winning the Central Division. Then they lost to Arizona, which lost to Colorado, which lost to Boston in the World Series.
Arizona and Colorado? Why don't the Cubs just concede to Montana and Idaho right now and get it over with?
Add up everything and the Cubs are further from breaking their championship drought than Super Bowl media day is from reality.
Santana poses a different sort of misery for the Cubs than he did for the White Sox.
The Sox didn't beat Santana very often. Their record against him looked like mine against my checkbook.
Lou Piniella is noting that the Cubs look like they'll be too right-handed again this season, so the Cubs might do all right against the left-handed Santana.
Hey, anything's possible … other than the Cubs winning a World Series.
Figuring Santana's relative slump late in 2007 was an aberration, he should dominate the rest of the National League.
Maybe the Cubs still can counter by acquiring Brian Roberts from the Orioles. Maybe they can even steal Erik Bedard out from under the proposed Orioles-Mariners trade.
That would make the Cubs a formidable contender in 2008, perhaps even the NL favorite. Until, that is, somebody else comes out of nowhere to become this season's Rockies.
The Cubs' problem isn't that they're competing against other contenders in the NL Central and then the NL overall.
They're competing against a much more daunting opponent.
Even before the Santana news, the White Sox had to beat only the Tigers, Indians, Twins, Reds Sox, Yankees and Angels.
The Cubs have to beat the Mets, Brewers, Phillies, Braves, Rockies, D'backs, Dodgers …
And history, too.