We apologize for the delay in this week's article. Between finishing our baseball projections and the two trades, we just didn't have to update here until now.

Chicago Bears

The NFL released the 2002 NFL schedule, and the Bears have the schedule of any first place team. Aside from home and away games against the other three NFL North teams, we go to Atlanta, Buffalo, St. Louis, Miami, and Carolina, while we host New Orleans, Philadelphia, New England, the New York Jets, and Tampa Bay at "home" in Champaign.

We finally return to Monday Night Football with three games this season, including the first Green Bay game and later contests against St. Louis and former coach Dave Wannstedt's Miami. The Bears also close out the year against Tampa Bay on ESPN.

St. Louis and New England were in the Super Bowl, Philadelphia made the NFC championship game after beating the Bears in the playoffs. Miami, Green Bay, and Tampa Bay also all made the playoffs, so half of our games are against other 2001 playoff teams.

Given the deficiencies on the roster, we don't expect to win more than half of those contests, so our playoff chances likely rest on winning at least 4-6 of the remaining 8 games. Buffalo, Detroit, and Carolina all finished last, and unless they're able to make major improvements through the draft, we should be able to win all four of these games.

Atlanta's still rebuilding around Michael Vick, and New Orleans, despite barely missing the playoffs, will likely see a small drop after losing Ricky Williams. So even if we lose both games to a Minnesota team that has a chance to rebound, perhaps we can sneak into the playoffs with 10 wins.

While this speculation is undoubtedly quite early and the brevity of the NFL season allows drastic changes in the standings such as the Bears' leap from worst-to-first, we also don't believe they've done much to address the roster problems this off-season.

They're reportedly in talks for veteran (read: old) QB Chris Chandler, who would be a nice upgrade over Shane Matthews as Jim Miller's backup. Unfortunately, Chandler is even more injury-prone than Miller, and we can't rely upon current 3rd-string QB Henry Burris as a probable starter for two or three games. We still hope that they'll address the QB issue in the draft, but we suspect we'll have more to cover regarding this situation in the coming weeks.

Chicago Blackhawks

After Wednesday's 4-1 win over Nashville, the Hawks are holding at 4th place in the Western Conference. We need to secure at least a 4th seed to guarantee at least one playoff series with home round advantage. However, at 87 points, we're only six points or less ahead of the next five teams, so one bad week could have us scrambling for any playoff spot at all.

Fortunately, aside from Detroit's 110 points, no one else has dominated our conference. Colorado's at 88 and San Jose is tied with us at 87. We only have nine games left, six of them at home, but we need to win at least six at this point to clinch a playoff berth at all.

The other growing concern is the goaltending situation. Nominal starter Jocelyn Thibeault has been slumping recently while backup Steve Passmore is 7-1-1 in his last 9 decisions. We're not overly concerned at this point as we suspect Passmore can do an adequate job, and giving him more time also allows Thibeault to rest for the playoffs. We'd prefer to have our #1 goalie in the net now, but as long as one of these guys is healthy and hot at playoff time, we don't necessarily see a problem here.

Chicago Bulls

Bill Cartwright has been doing his best Tim Floyd imitation as Baby Bulls Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry did not start Tuesday's 96-82 loss to Orlando. Charles Oakley and Marcus Fizer started in their place, a decision that we don't believe adds anything to a team that's lost it's last 6 games and won only one of the last 14.

Chandler and Curry need to be out there every night for more than just 10-20 minutes so that they can learn from experience. The Bulls' only hope to build for the future is to play for the future now and be willing to accept these losses if the kids start to develop.

Cartwright had a chance to rectify this situation yesterday, but Charles Oakley's flagrant foul from Wednesday was reversed by the league. Oak was already over the league limit this season, so he would have been suspended for a game if the league hadn't changed the ruling. Unfortunately, this left Chandler and Curry at only 13 and 12 minutes respectively, and with only ten games remaining, they need to take advantage of this time to focus on 2002-2003 while also insuring the best odds for the lottery. Both Golden State and Memphis are only one game ahead of us, so we really need to tank as many as possible at this point to improve our odds at the #1 pick.

Chicago Cubs

The Cubs's offense is now set with the demotions of a few players, including NRIs Kevin Orie and Angel Echevarria. Baylor wanted to keep Echevarria as the backup 1B and pinch-hitter, but was afraid they'd lose C Robert Machado on waivers.

We actually wouldn't expect any team besides maybe Kansas City to claim Machado, as he's only a decent defender and can't hit at all. The Cubs severely erred by not dealing him in the off-season and subsequently signing a capable minor league free agent, as Adam Melhuse, while a valuable utility player and capable hitter, isn't an adequate catcher.

Machado's roster spot is only available until Bill Mueller returns from injury as the rest of the roster has been set for months. Hundley and Girardi will catch. Sosa, Patterson, and Alou will start in the outfield with Darren Lewis and Roosevelt Brown as back-ups, Brown as the primary left-handed pinch-hitter.

McGriff, DeShields, Gonzalez, and Chris Stynes will start in the infield, with Augie Ojeda and Mark Bellhorn on the bench. Until Mueller return and Stynes goes to the bench, Lewis and Girardi are the primary right-handed pinch-hitters. Bellhorn, a switch-hitter, will hopefully also see significant time off the bench.

We expect most of this roster to remain in place for the entire season, with only Mueller, Stynes, or DeShields as potential July trade bait once Bobby Hill is ready. All three are free agents after this season. However, as we also expect the Cubs will remain in contention for most of the year, they'll hopefully elect to just keep everyone and deal with the impending free agency of the three infielders, Lewis, and Girardi after the season, as well as Fred McGriff if he chooses to decline his player option.

The Cubs should allow all these players leave as they're all likely to remain overpaid while declining in skill. Girardi will hopefully retire and begin his coaching career, where he'll do less damage to the Cubs' playoff chances. Lewis can be replaced by a few dozen minor league free agents, as can Stynes and DeShields to a great extent. Dave Kelton should be ready to start at third with Hee Seop Choi finally taking over at first as the next wave of the Cubs' youth movement arrives in Wrigley.

On the pitching side, most of the roster remains as expected a few weeks ago. Lieber, Wood, Cruz, and Bere slot in as the #1-#4 starters, with Farnsworth and Fassero as the primary set-up men, and Jesus Sanchez as the second bullpen lefty. Donovan Osborne, instead of breaking camp as the fifth starter, will continue to build his arm strength in relief.

The Cubs made the moronic decision to cut Carlos Zambrano today after a disastrous outing yesterday against the White Sox in Tucson Electric Park. For those of you unfamiliar with the situation, Tucson Electric Park is a better hitters' park than Coors' field, and it's the reason why teams like the White Sox have ridiculously high team ERAs this spring. No pitcher is likely to succeed there, and if Zambrano had pitched his way onto the staff, one expectedly bad outing should not change their minds. The decision to add Joe Borowski is equally stupid considering it unnecessarily costs us a 40-man roster slot that could be used on a more qualified pitcher like Courtney Duncan. While this move might benefit the team for a week or two, it hurts the entire club in the long run. Hopefully the Cubs will wisely pick up a quality middle reliever off waivers as several teams will need to drop decent players.

In an effort to accommodate Florida's effort to cut payroll, the Cubs dealt 5th starter Julian Tavarez, right-handed prospect Jose Cueto, catching prospect Ryan Jorgensen, and left-handed prospect Dontrelle Willis to the Marlins for closer Antonio Alfonseca and new 5th starter Matt Clement.

While initially despising this waste of minor league talent, we've reconsidered after analyzing every factor of the deal. Tavarez and Clement both make similar salaries, with Tavarez likely to earn more by the end of the year due to salary incentives. He's also a free agent after the season while Clement is signed through 2003 at $3.6M. We'll likely look to trade him at some point in the next year and a half once Mark Prior and Zambrano are ready to start, but he's an excellent short-term acquisition and shouldn't complain about moving to the bullpen to accommodate Prior.

So was Antonio Alfonseca worth giving up the three prospects. First, none of these prospects have especially bright futures. Cueto was a victim of age-gate this winter, and instead of a potential Juan Cruz, he's unlikely to peak as no higher than a 5th starter. Considering the available pitching depth in the minors and even the potential roster crunch in the AAA and AA rotations, the Cubs were wise to deal him now. Willis, despite significant long-term promise, only pitched in short-season ball last year and is no less than three years away from the majors. No team should ever hold off making a move based on a prospect likely three years from the majors, so we don't consider him to be especially valuable.

Ryan Jorgensen is a top defensive catching prospect and likely ready to catch in the majors right now. However he also showed little hitting talent at AA, and he's not as good a long-term prospect as Yoon-Min Kweon. We also can easily spend a top draft pick or two on catching this year, and considering that Hundley is signed for two more years, the likely development time of a top catching prospect, there's little reason not to move him. The Cubs will need to find a decent back-up to Hundley next year after Girardi leaves, but there's no need to keep someone like Jorgensen when catching backups are readily available this time of year.

The addition of Alfonseca also allows everyone in the bullpen to shift back to more comfortable roles. Farnsworth had pitched horrendously since Gordon went down for at least half the year with an arm injury, and now both he and Fassero return to their set-up roles. While Farnsworth is undoubtedly a better pitcher than Alfonseca, Baylor is unlikely to use his closer for more than one inning. Keeping Farnsworth and even Fassero available for multiple inning outings gives us much better bullpen depth.

Alfonseca also is a master of the easy save. Only 9 of his 58 outings last year were not exactly 1 IP, which means that he likely entered the game in the 9th inning and only needed three outs with no one on base. Top closers can enter the game with batters on base and pitch more than an IP, and any other usage is a waste of their talent. Baylor doesn't realize this fact, so if we need to reserve a pitcher just to pitch the last inning in wins, then Alfonseca is an excellent pick-up. He's also the Cubs' property through next season as he's only arbitration-eligible after the year. We'd love to the see the Cubs deal him to a team needing a "proven closer" after the year, but with several million freed up next year from Stynes, DeShields, Mueller, Bere, and maybe McGriff, we won't object to two years of the 12-fingered Pulpo closing out wins.

Chicago White Sox

The recent moves by the White Sox have been relatively expected, except perhaps the release of Brian Simmons. Josh Paul will return to the minors for a fortnight until Sandy Alomar's likely first DL trip, leaving Alomar and Mark Johnson as the catchers, likely in a traditional platoon based on Johnson's improvement.

Ordonez, Lofton, and Lee will start in the outfield, with Rowand and Liefer as the back-ups. Rowand is the primary right-handed pinch-hitter while Liefer is the primary lefty.

The infield was set as expected, with Konerko at 1B, Durham at 2B, Clayton at SS, and Valentin at 3B; Frank Thomas will DH. Graffanino is the only back-up but most of these guys can play every day. We'd prefer them to deal or bench Clayton, start Valentin at SS and Joe Crede at 3B, but the Sox don't understand the difference between fielding range and fielding consistency. Valentin's 30 errors at SS are quite acceptable when Clayton will let close to 50 more hits reach the outfield, and Crede is also a great upgrade at 3B. When the Sox complain about defense, remember that they have the power to improve themselves whenever they want, but Kenny Williams doesn't know proper defensive valuation.

Buehrle and Ritchie are the only pitchers that we can hope will reach 200 IP. The Sox begin the year with Dan Wright at #3, Jon Garland at #4, and Jon Rauch at #5 less than a year after arm surgery. We've heard that Rauch's surgery was extremely successful and only lasted 1.5 hours, which indicates that the doctors knew exactly what they needed to repair. We still expect all three of these pitchers to struggle for much of the year, but they're all better alternatives than Jim Parque, rightfully demoted to the minors.

Foulke closes, Glover is now the primary set-up guy, Osuna and Howry are in middle relief while Barcelo should be kept to long relief. Lefty Kelly Wunsch was placed on the DL to open up a roster spot for NRI Mike Porzio, who despite a weak minor league track record, impressed the brass this spring.

Instead of waiting to see who was available on waivers, the Sox preemptively acquired another left-handed reliever, dealing top right-handed pitching prospect Matt Guerrier to Pittsburgh for Damaso Marte and minor league infielder Edwin Yan.

We reversed our opinions on the Cubs' trade after initially despising it, and while we initially liked the Sox's deal we're now concerned. Last year, Guerrier compiled a 118:50 K:BB in 180 IP with 158 H and 15 HR between AA Birmingham and AAA Charlotte last year. While he has great command, he doesn't dominate hitters at all, and likely would not have been more than a #4 starter for the White Sox long-term.

We really like Damaso Marte. The Pirates acquired him from the Yankees for Enrique Wilson last year, and proceeded to post a 39:12 K:BB ratio in 36.1 IP with only 34 H and 5 HR. He actually pitched much better against right-handed batters (.712 OPS vs. .872 OPS against lefties), but he has good potential from a skills' perspective despite being a flyball pitcher (0.71 Ground/Fly ratio).

Marte, who will fill the 25th and last roster spot, was also out of options and the Pirates didn't want to keep him in the bullpen over Joe Beimel or Tony McKnight, and while we don't necessarily agree with that move, they definitely made the correct decision in trading him rather than losing him on waivers.

Edwin Yan is not a top prospect but has definite potential. In his first year of full-season ball at A-Hickory in 2001, he managed an acceptable 42:62 BB:K ratio in 446 AB, along with 56 SB vs. 21 CS. While both his walk rate of 9% and SB% of 73% are below average, we believe he has the ability to develop into at least a quality back-up middle infielder if not a starter at second base. He's playing shortstop now but will likely move due to a weak arm, although he reportedly has excellent range.

The "winner" of this trade won't be known for years as Marte will likely be a decent situational reliever for the Sox this year while the value of Guerrier and Yan can't be assessed for several more seasons. Until we looked at the numbers more thoroughly we were quite pleased for the Sox, though while we still think they have more upside due to Yan, Guerrier also is likely to have a more consistent major league career.

Until Steve Goodman can rest in peace, these are your Good Chicago Sports.