It can be a good thing to go to spring training with a roster that’s basically already set.  That could mean that you’re loaded with talent and ready to roll.

It could also be a bad thing, because it might mean you don’t have any prospects ready to bust through, and because you’ve overpaid guys and/or given them contracts that are too long, you have no flexibility left to add anybody to the mix.

Gee, which of those do you think applies to these Cubs?

Some teams didn’t even officially start their spring camps until today and the Cubs, that 83 win juggernaut that we all enjoyed so much last year, have a roster that looks pretty much like last year’s, and doesn’t have any room to really change.

The most troubling aspect of this is that not only is this team positively sedentary, but it’s gotten old.  Even the guys that fans seem to think are “kids” (and it probably doesn’t help that Lou calls anybody younger than him a “kid”), like Ryan Theriot, Mike Fontenot and Micah Hoffpauir are already 30–or in Fontenot’s case, will turn 30 this June.

A tour around the lineup is kind of depressing.  The outfield consists of 34 year old Alfonso Soriano, and two guys who turn 33 this summer, Marlon Byrd and Kosuke Fukudome. And Fukudome looks like he’s in his late 50s.

E-ramis is 31 now, Theriot is 30 and Derrek Lee is 35.  As Jay Jaffe of Baseball Prospectus says anytime he talks to a Chicago sports radio show (most recently this morning on Mully and Hanley), players don’t get better when they turn 30.  At least not anymore, anyway.  Hey, where’s Jay McGwire and his bag of needles when you need him?

We all assume that if they stay healthy, or at least healthier than last year, that the 2010 Cubs will win more games than the 2009 team did, but fewer than 2008.  But part of the problem is that older players get hurt more and recover more slowly.  So they aren’t really likely to be healthier than last year.  Just older.  And winning more than 83 with this bunch isn’t a safe bet.

When you factor in a starting rotation that includes an already injured 34 year old Ted Lilly and a soon to be 33 year old Ryan Dempster, this team’s old.  And though Carlos Zambrano is only 28, he pitched four years for Dusty Baker, so basically his arm is 38 now.

Far be it from me to just use roster age as a reason the Cubs appear to be screwed.

Why should I?  It’s not the only reason.

In this week’s Sports Illustrated there’s an article about how Jack Eyechart, their baldheaded GM, is trying to improve the team through better defense.  It worked last year, and despite bringing in noted sociopath Milton Bradley, the Mariners have tried even harder (in other areas, obviously because Milton’s a basket case in the outfield) to improve their defense.  Choosing Casey Kotchman to play first over Russell Branyan (who had a suprisingly good season last year–then again, he’s not likely to do that again, either), was another example this year.  So was replacing a good defensive third baseman in Adrian Beltre with an even better one in Chone Figgins.

The whole idea goes back to how the A’s proved in the early ’00s that if you find the right market inefficiency, you can field good teams without huge payrolls.  Then it was on base average.  Eventually, other teams figured that out, and high on base guys started to cost more.  So now the shift is towards defense.  Run prevention.

Take a look at who the Cubs have playing defense.  Try not to throw up on yourself.

There might not be a worse defensive left fielder in the world…not just the major leagues, than Alfonso Soriano.  There’s a 9 year old in Meridian, Mississippi who played every game for his team (all nine of them) in left field.  This is a kid who fell asleep on the field during one game.  Took his glove off during another to pick his nose with both hands in one, and missed a flyball in another because he was chasing a butterfly, and that kid graded out a half run better per nine innings than Soriano.

The Cubs are playing a 245 pound man in centerfield.  That’s right.  Heavy legged Marlon Byrd weighs 245 pounds.  The sound you hear is Len Kasper practicing saying “and that one will find the gap” over and over and over again.

Kosuke’s not too shabby in right.  Hopefully the pitchers will learn to pitch every righthanded hitter away.  Way away.  Like in the lefty batter’s box away.

The infield at least has competence at the corners.  E-ramis has turned into a good defensive third baseman, and Derrek Lee is super good at first.  They’d better be, because the middle infield is–how do I write this elegantly?  A fucking joke.  An absolute, grade-A, pile of steaming defensive horseshit.

If you were going to try to find three guys to rotate through those two spots, you could hardly find three less equipped to handle shortstop and second base than Ryan Theriot, Mike Fontenot and Jeff Baker.

If the Cubs choose to waive Andres Blanco at the end of spring training and give a bench spot to Chad Tracy, Kevin Millar or Micah Hoffpauir (more on that in a second), they won’t have a shortstop on the roster.

Ryan Theriot’s not a shortstop.  The Cubs complete lack of urgency in finding a real shortstop after Theriot saved their ass by playing it reasonably well in 2007 remains a mystery.  He doesn’t have shortstop range and he certainly doesn’t have a shortstop arm.  And if they choose to use Fontenot as his only backup, that’s ludicrous.  Fontenot has even less range and an even weaker arm.

Baker’s value is to play competently at several positions, but he excels at none.  He’s a utility player, and a good guy to have on a team, just not in your lineup a lot.

But honestly what good would it do to have Blanco on the bench?  He’s such a non-factor at the plate that he’s useless as a pinch hitter, and in the National League can you really afford to waste a bench spot for a guy who might go in as a defensive replacement at short or second once a week?

Now, if you wanted to argue that the only way for Blanco’s defensive ability to have an impact on the team would be to make Baker a true utility player, and have Theriot play second while you put up with Blanco’s terrible offense at short all year, I’d listen to that.  That might make sense.  Blanco can really play shortstop.  He hit .252 in very limited duty last year, and posted a gawdawful .303 on base average.  He has no power (a career .321 slugging average).  He basically hits like a pitcher.  No manager wants to have two automatic outs at the bottom of his lineup.

In this case it might be worth considering, at least.  Maybe only worth considering, though, probably not doing.

So that leads us to the big question.  What dopes are the Cubs going to keep for their bench?

Lou seems to insist on having 12 pitchers, so that leaves 13 spots for position players.  You’ve got eight starters, so what five guys make the team on the bench?

Let’s assume the platoons in right and second stick.  So that puts Xavier Nady and Jeff Baker on the bench against righties with Kosuke and Fontenot in the lineup.

You have to have a backup catcher…apparently.  So Koyie Hill and his complete lack of offensive value take up a third spot.  Only two left.

Right now, the idea is to keep Sam Fuld to backup at all three outfield spots and Andy White to back up at short and second.

But the Cubs have Hoffpauir, Tracy and Millar in camp, too.  All three are more valuable hitters off the bench than Fuld or White would be.

In my mind, Tracy is the best of the three.  He’s a lefty like Hoffpauir, but unlike Micah he can play third base in addition to first, left and right.  Millar can play all four spots, too, but he’s a righthanded hitter, and he’s been a shitty one since 2006.  He’s also by far the oldest of the three (he’s 38).  Tracy’s the youngest of the three.

So it’s Tracy!

Well?  He’s pretty well sucked the last two seasons.  He’s posted OPS pluses of 82 and 76, which…is not good.

These guys are so underwhelming that you can’t make a case to keep two of the three.  It’s one or none.

In my mind, the easiest thing to do would be to keep one of them and send Fuld back to Iowa.  You already have two guys capable of playing center on the roster in Byrd and Fukudome.  And honestly, except for the fact that he can’t throw, Xavier Nady can play center (and has) in a pinch.  Hey, it hasn’t stopped Juan Pierre.  Because if somebody gets hurt, you can just call Fuld up from Iowa and he’s going to be there the next day.  And if he’s out of options (I don’t think he is, and frankly I don’t care enough to look it up–it’s my Phil Rogers impersonation) who cares?  You can shake a tree and a Sam Fuld falls out of it.

To make a long story short (I know, it’s way too late for that.)  I think Lou is having Fontenot give short a try just to see what options he’s got.  But I think Fontenot will embarrass himself there, and Blanco will make the final roster.  I think Fuld won’t.  I think Tracy has an edge over Millar because the bench could use another lefty bat, I think Tracy has an edge over Hoffpauir because he plays more positions.  And, I think no matter how it shakes out, the Cubs are going to have a shitty bench.

And if Kevin Millar makes the team just to yuk it up with Ryan Dempster, I think I’m going to dig a hole in my yard and live in it until the Cubs are mathematically eliminated.

In June.