The 2003 Chicago Cubs have made it into the National League Championship Series (NLCS), where they will face the Florida Marlins. The Cubs are having a miraculous season this year. The Cubs organization has been very busy, making good transactions to get this far into the post season. The factors that got the Cubs to the NLCS are those key transactions, pitching, and veteran players. With those factors, the Chicago Cubs have all the components win the World Series, and I believe they are gong to win it.
This year, the Cubs started off very well. New manager, Dusty Baker was having everyone connect and play very well as a team. Last year, Dusty was the manager of the San Francisco Giants, who won the NLCS last year. At the end of the first couple of weeks, Chicago was in first place in the Central Division thanks to good pitching and okay hitting. Then, Houston and St. Louis started to gaining ground on Chicago since they are all three in the Central Division.
By the time the All-Star break had come, the Cubs were 5 ½ games behind Houston, and St. Louis were 3 ½ games behind Houston. After that, Chicago's front office decided that they needed to make some trades to get back into contention, so they acquired Kenny Lofton and Aramis Ramirez.
Kenny and Aramis were from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Chicago picked Kenny up because they needed a center fielder for the injured Cory Patterson. Kenny brings leadership, speed, playoff experience, and good talent to the Cubs. Aramis is going to be our "future- third baseman. When I say "future- it means he is a very good young talent that will hopefully be there for the next 8 years. Ramirez has youth for the most part, but also is good offensively. Defensively, Aramis needs a little work with his defensive skills. Kenny and Aramis both started not doing very good, but after they got used to playing in the windy city, they did just fine.
