Me saying they're a sub .500 team means Im drinking kool-aid? I dont think so. They're quite a bit better than they were last year.
Thinking the Cubs are likely to finish within 5 games of .500 likely does. Last year they had four starters who either performed at ace level for much of the first half of the season, or (in Garza's case) were quite reasonably expected to perform at that level.... and yet they stunk.
This years starting rotation does not have four starters who you would expect to perform as well as Maholm/Garza/Smarz/Dempster did the first half of 2012. And when two of them did well, they were traded, and if Garza had stayed healthy, he also would have been.
You can expect the same thing in 2013.
And while the Cubs are not likely to give quite so many AB in 2013 as they did to outmakers like Jackson and Vitters, they also are very unlikely to get close to the production out of Soriano they got in 2012.
This team is very unlikely to even sniff at .500 by season's end.