There are plenty of places you can go to read team power rankings for all of Major League Baseball. I believe most respectable bloggers and journalists are required by the code of moot speculation to incite as many arguments as possible by haphazardly or systematically arranging the teams from best to crappiest.
Two things prevent me from doing that: a) I’m discredited and therfore not bound by the blogger codes of conduct, and b) We all know the Cubs are wallowing at the bottom of any but the most randomly created rankings anyway. So instead, I’ve set out to rank the Cubs players.
I used a complex formula incorporating projected player value and season data combined with intangibles factor and adjusted for fun-to-watchedness and how much the player as a person inspires and/or annoys the crap out of me. It’s a pretty advanced method, I won’t bore you with the details. I’ll just get straight to the rankings.
1. Starlin Castro
He’s really, really, really good at sports. Allowed to eat dinner on a regular basis.
2. Carlos Zambrano
Zambrano is never boring. Quite the opposite. Not only does he have a pitching arsenal entirely his own, he’s got personality. And personality goes a long way.
3. Carlos Marmol
Dude is filthy. I have no idea if he’s a complete jerk or nicer than Mr. Rogers, and I really don’t care.
4. Geovany Soto
Geo could be higher on this list if he were producing this year, but as it is there are very few hitters I would rather see at the plate than Geo right now. And by very few, I mean Starlin Castro.
5. Alfonso Soriano
All you really need to know about the 2011 Cubs is that Alfonso Soriano is in my top 5 favorite players right now.
6. Marlon Byrd
Marlon got off to a very brief rough start, but now he’s hitting about as well as he was in spring training, and also showing he is not to be messed with. Don’t let the perma-smile fool you. He’s one bad hombre.
7. Ryan Dempster
Dempster is boring good. Not his best work so far this year, but he’s still much better than what we’ll see from the 3 starters slotted behind him and Z in the rotation. And during the Stanley Cup playoffs, I needed a Canadian to rank pretty high.
8. Sean Marshall
Like mb21, I expect Sean Marshall to disappoint us this season, but really, how many Cubs from the past three seasons (including this one) can you name that you have zero complaints about the entire time? After Sean Marshall, it gets pretty difficult to come up with names.
9. Kosuke Fukudome
It’s April, yeah, so Kosuke should maybe be even higher on this list. I like him. He’s consistently above average in right field. He is nursing a sore hamstring, but he’s part of the better-than-Pujols committee in the leadoff spot.
10. Andrew Cashner*
The kid is on the DL now, which sucks, but the nearly six innings we saw from Cashner were inspiring.