Chicago Cubs 2009 World Series Champions?

Alfonso Soriano 2009 NL MVP??

Hendry, who gets high marks for being aggressive, pleads for patience, insisting his product shouldn’t be judged until spring training opens next month or by Opening Day on April 6 — the later deadline perhaps a nod to always-on talks for leadoff hitter Brian Roberts.

Fair enough because as the Cubs stand today — poised to unveil switch-hitting Milton Bradley, who’s expected to wear Sammy Sosa’s old No. 21, as their new right fielder — they look no better than the team that left so many disappointed three months ago. In fact, you could argue they look a little worse than the club that won a National League-best 97 games in 2008.

Let’s first look at the key players they have lost: All-Star closer Kerry Wood, power-hitting second baseman/right fielder Mark DeRosa and durable fifth starter Jason Marquis.

Wood will be replaced in the bullpen by right-handers Kevin Gregg and Luis Vizcaino, who will set up new closer Carlos Marmol. Two arms to replace one. But Marmol was one of the best setup men in baseball. We don’t know how he will take to being the every-day closer. If you don’t believe this is a major adjustment, just ask LaTroy Hawkins for details.

DeRosa will be replaced at second base by Aaron Miles and in right field by Bradley. Another 2-for-1 scenario, except Miles isn’t considered an every-day player, and Bradley’s fragile past — physically and emotionally — suggests he won’t be playing in the 149 games DeRosa appeared in each of the last two seasons.

Marquis, who won 23 games in 61 starts the last two years, will be replaced by…

That’s where the caution flag comes into play.

”You deal with what you have on the wall now until somebody else is added,” Hendry said. ”We’ll still look at some possibilities.”

Let’s hope so.

And let’s hope they include San Diego Padres ace Jake Peavy on the mound and a speed boost for the lineup.

The Bradley deal — Hendry’s biggest splash of the offseason — is set to be announced today at Wrigley Field, after a morning physical in Chicago.

Outside of a few diehards who want to believe every year is the year, and one particularly upbeat radio personality who has ordered up a new set of pompons — score one for Mike Murphy — the Bradley acquisition is a little anticlimactic.

Manager Lou Piniella was promised a new left-handed bat for his lineup, and he gets his wish in Bradley.

There is no argument that Bradley is a top-tier talent. He led the American League with a .436 on-base percentage in 2008, the first year he gained All-Star status. He also had career highs in batting average (.321), home runs (22), RBI (77) and runs (78).

All impressive numbers, especially the OBP. It towers over the still-respectable .376 mark put up by DeRosa, whose trade to the Cleveland Indians last week essentially cleared a spot in the lineup — and payroll — to accommodate Bradley.

DeRosa’s crime is he hits right-handed, and Piniella entered the offseason insisting on having an athletic, power-hitting, lefty-swinging addition to his lineup. Bradley and his big numbers fit the bill. But keep in mind, DeRosa drove in more runs (87) and scored more runs (103) than Bradley and hit only one fewer homer. DeRosa was a key reason the Cubs led the NL in scoring last season.

There have been suggestions that Bradley and his interesting personality will light a fire under a Cubs team that sleepwalked through its last two trips to the playoffs. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Players who sulk as much as Bradley don’t suddenly grab everyone’s attention at crunch time — especially in a veteran-dominated clubhouse that is presided over by the fieriest manager in the NL.

No, the steady yet quiet Derrek Lee sets the tone. Alfonso Soriano, despite the wrath he gets from fans, keeps things loose. It’s a nice balance in the majors’ most unusual clubhouse. No other stadium has smaller quarters for the home team. Mix that with a daily media mob and fan expectations that have been ratcheted up regularly since 2003, and all of the ingredients are in-house for a massive explosion.

And Bradley has one of the shortest fuses in baseball.

The best hope for the Cubs and Bradley is that his talent offsets his personality. That and his injury history not catching up with him in a league that doesn’t allow the part-time breather known as the designated hitter.

But the lefty bat wasn’t the biggest missing piece to this lineup. The Cubs need a legit leadoff hitter, along the lines of Roberts or the suddenly available Chone Figgins of the Los Angeles Angels.

Get a real leadoff hitter — and, no, Miles doesn’t qualify — and you can move Soriano to the No. 3 spot. Bradley then hits cleanup, Aramis Ramirez fifth and Lee drops to sixth. Suddenly, things are looking better.

But we’re not there yet. If this is the midterm of the offseason, Hendry doesn’t get a letter grade. At this point, he gets an incomplete — and he knows it.

“I usually leave the players alone during the winter,” he said with a laugh. “They see enough of me from spring training and the summer. When this thing was over in Los Angeles, I thanked them for a really, really nice season. Look, we won 97 ballgames and we played good baseball, and all of a sudden in the postseason, things didn’t go real well.

“But I thanked them. It was a real nice season. We just didn’t finish. That’s over with, and now our focus is 2009, and basically we’re going to have another good team and give ourselves another chance. I like the nucleus of the team. I like the chemistry of the team. Jim Hendry is working hard to try and improve it.”

Piniella addressed several issues Friday during a visit to Chicago, including the closer, the “bandwagon effect,” whether Alfonso Soriano will lead off, his team’s preparedness for October and whether he could bear to spend a winter in Chicago.

Is Carlos Marmol the new closer?

Probably, but not until Marmol proves he can handle it better than newly acquired Kevin Gregg. “The best way to handle that is to let them go to spring training and compete,” Piniella said. “I’m comfortable with Marmol. He’s pitched very well here the last two years. And the other kid saved 29 games this year for the Marlins, so not bad.”

Will the same kind of outside pressures exist in 2009?

Piniella believes the players tried too hard because of the “bandwagon” created by the 100-year anniversary of their last championship. Going into Year 101, he believes it will calm down.

“I think everybody will get off our bandwagon a little bit,” he said. “The expectations will be there, and rightfully so. I like that part of it. But I think the 100-year thing has come and gone, and now we’ve got to concentrate on one year — 2009. … We can talk about last year all we want, and it’s not going to change.”

What did he think of Dempster’s theory?

Ryan Dempster said he thought the Dodgers might have been “just a little more prepared for us than we were for them.” Did Piniella take that personally?

“No, I’m not going to take anything personally,” he replied. “Why should I?”

While Piniella said he hadn’t heard or read Dempster’s comments, “The consensus here is that it was misinterpreted, basically,” Piniella said. “I thought the team was prepared. We just didn’t play well. What are you going to do?”

Piniella said there was no difference in how he prepared the team in October. “Get the team ready to play, and at the same time let ‘em play,” he said. “That’s all you can do. I mean, getting a team ready to go to the postseason is not like taking a college exam. Basically, it’s going over reports and preparing them as much as possible for your opposition. But, look, you’ve got to execute on the field.”

What about the leadoff spot?

Speaking to a grade school class Thursday, Piniella was asked by a youngster whether Soriano would lead off again.

“That question gets asked all the time,” he said.

Is he tired of answering it?

“I’m not tired of it,” he said. “But before you make changes or contemplate making changes, you’ve got to have somebody who can do that.”

Piniella said no one on the current roster was a better option than Soriano, though he left the door open for an off-season move. “If we were to add somebody who’s a leadoff hitter per se, then you can look at it,” he said. “You can talk about this for the next 90 days, and unless we add somebody, it won’t change.

“Put it this way: If the season started tomorrow and Soriano was my leadoff hitter, I’d be perfectly content.”

Could he ever imagine spending the winter in Chicago instead of Tampa?

Not in a million years. “I like our weather down there in the winter,” Piniella said. “This is cold, but it’s pleasant if you know you can get away. It’s like having grandchildren. You love them, but you know you can send them back to the parents.”

• 51 games
• 21 at bats
• 60 hits
• 36 runs
• 11 doubles
• 15 homeruns
• 40 rbi’s
• 15 walks
• 46 strikeouts
• 7 stolen bases
• .283 batting average
• .332 on base percentage
• .547 slugging

When the Cubs bring home their first-half report card, look for a lot of A’s.

Unless they get stuck with a stingy teacher grading on a curve against the ‘27 Yankees, how could they not?

Eight all-stars, a 4-game lead in the NL Central, league-leading run-differential and on-base percentage – it all adds up to sharing the best record in baseball with the Los Angeles Angels (57-38).

“We’ve had a lot of adversity to overcome,” Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. “(Alfonso) Soriano has been on the disabled list twice, (Carlos) Zambrano was on the DL, we lost (Rich) Hill for basically the whole first half. And the team is still functioning and holding its own. It’s a credit to our players. There’s some chemistry here and it’s shown in our performance.”

All those wins cover up some numbers that aren’t so pretty.

“I think winning solves a lot of problems. I know myself personally when I look at some of those numbers they are mind-blowing,” said Mark DeRosa, calling his 71 strikeouts ‘ridiculous.’ “Winning cures all that.”

Feeling better: Closer Kerry Wood, out with a blister on his right index finger, hopes to be back Friday against Houston. He said he felt better Sunday after soaking his finger again Saturday night.

“It started three weeks ago and gradually got worse,” Wood said. “I’m dealing with it every day, trying to get it ready.”

He ripped the blister open last weekend against St. Louis, and it has “been pretty sensitive since.”

Numbers game: Already with a 13-man pitching staff, the Cubs face another decision after left-handed reliever Scott Eyre continued his rehabilitation assignment by pitching 2 innings for Western Michigan on Sunday.

Manager Lou Piniella said he isn’t sure what the Cubs will do with a bullpen that already has lefties Sean Marshall and Neal Cotts.

Piniella is more certain about his rotation. Ted Lilly, Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster will start the second half, followed by Rich Harden and Jason Marquis.

The rotation is lined up for the two teams chasing the Cubs in the NL Central. Lilly, Zambrano, Dempster and Harden are scheduled to face Milwaukee July 28-31, and Lilly, Zambrano and Dempster will get St. Louis Aug. 8-10.

Blame the wind: The Cubs haven’t lost much at Wrigley Field this year. Their 37-12 start at home is their best since they started playing at Wrigley in 1916.

But when they do lose, it usually is with a crosswind, either blowing from the southeast or northwest. The wind blew from the northwest Sunday and the Cubs lost, dropping them to 5-5 with a cross wind.

They are 10-3 when the wind blows out and 22-4 when it blows in.

No place for anyone else in this corner of a hotel ballroom on All-Star media day. Sort of like the game itself — there’s a bunch of Boston Red Sox, a cluster of Chicago Cubs, and a few stragglers.

Seems that way, anyhow.

“You feel kind of bad. There are some guys here who don’t have any teammates here,” Cubs closer Kerry Wood said, glancing in the direction of Pittsburgh outfielder Nate McLouth. “I have seven of them.”

A National League record-tying eight Cubs players will be at Yankee Stadium for Tuesday night’s game. Add in their manager, with Piniella serving as an NL coach.

Ortiz was among seven Red Sox players on the AL side. Throw in AL manager Terry Francona and a half-dozen Boston coaches.

“We’re honored, as a staff and as the players, to represent not only the Red Sox but the American League,” Francona said.

At this rate, maybe the Cubs and Red Sox should just hold their own game. They’re tied, along with the Los Angeles Angels, for the most wins in the majors.

There are other links between them, too.

“Two lovable franchises that have been around a long time. Two old ballparks. A big fan base that follows them around. Really, there are a lot similarities between us,” Piniella said.

“There’s only one thing that’s not similar: They’ve won a couple of championships in the last few years and we’re still searching,” he said.

They haven’t seen each other much, either.

Since the advent of interleague play 10 years ago, they’ve met for only one series, in 2005 at Wrigley Field. The Cubs haven’t visited Fenway Park since Babe Ruth and Boston beat them in the 1918 World Series.

“That’s a place I’d like to see,” Wood said. “I’m not sure how they set up the interleague schedules, but maybe they could flip-flop so we got to go there. It’d be huge, us and the Red Sox.”

The Red Sox drew a rough reception when they took batting practice Monday night. Boston’s J.D. Drew, Jason Varitek and Dustin Pedroia heard plenty of boos from the rival Yankees fans. So did the Red Sox mascot.

Mostly what they expected.

“I don’t think it’s going to be real positive,” Drew predicted earlier.

Making themselves at home in the Yankees’ home clubhouse, that was the odd part for the Bosox.

Ortiz moved into Jorge Posada’s locker, Varitek got Kyle Farnsworth’s cubicle, Jonathan Papelbon took over Brian Bruney’s space and Dustin Pedroia dressed in Wilson Betemit’s spot.

Manny Ramirez? He got the locker used by former Yankees batting practice pitcher Charlie Wonsowicz, now the team’s director of video operations.

While Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis predicted it would be weird walking into the Yankees turf, Varitek said it wasn’t so strange.

“I think it would be different if it were a clubhouse full of Yankees,” Varitek said. “It was really nice.”

Ortiz will merely be a spectator come gametime. The big DH is out with a bad wrist, even though he connected for eight straight home runs during BP on Monday night.

Wood and Chicago teammate Alfonso Soriano also are sidelined with injuries. That still leaves lots of room for other Cubs — outfielder Kosuke Fukudome and catcher Geovany Soto will start, and the NL roster includes pitchers Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster and Carlos Marmol and third baseman Aramis Ramirez.

The 1958 New York Yankees hold the All-Star record with nine representatives.

Without much crossover between the teams, Wood said he didn’t know any of the Red Sox very well. He’d like a chance to see that classic “B” hat again — in person, in October.

Same for Piniella.

“It’d really be something,” he said. “But it’d be great to get to the World Series against anyone.”

Monday: Ted Lilly v. Barry Zito

Tuesday: Jason Marquis v. Matt Cain

Wednesday: Ryan Dempster v. Kevin Correia

Thursday: Sean Gallagher v. Tim Lincecum

Friday: Carlos Zambrano v. Braden Looper

Saturday: Ted Lilly v. Kyle Lohse

Sunday: Jason Marquis v. Todd Wellemeyer

Should be a fun, and exciting week for the Cubs!

Zambrano, 8-3 with a 3.13 ERA, went on the 15-day disabled list earlier this month with a right shoulder strain and likely will be activated to start July 4 in St. Louis.

He’ll throw one more session on the side Tuesday in San Francisco.

“I feel great today. I guess ‘Z’ is back,” Zambrano said, adding that he threw with no limitations. “I’m ready to go out there and do my job.”

Zambrano had to leave a game against the Rays on June 18 with discomfort in the shoulder and tests revealed no structural damage. He was placed on the DL June 21, retroactive to June 19 — just the second trip to the DL in his career for Zambrano.

The Cubs have struggled with injuries lately. Outfielders Alfonso Soriano and Reed Johnson and reliever Scott Eyre are also on the disabled list.