Hey everyone: I used to run Old Style Cubs, and after a bit of a break I've started a new baseball blog called My Favorite Player at http://www.myfavoriteplayer.net. During the preseason I'm picking my favorite player from each team, and the Cubs are up first. Here's the post in it's entirety: if you like it, check out the rest of the site. Thanks!

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How do you pick a favorite player on your favorite team? If a team is successful, its easy to gravitate toward the catalysts of the offense, the guys that are getting it done at the plate and holding their own out in the field. If a team has a defineable strength, say, pitching, there’s a handful of potential favorites that you have to choose from. In that situation, it’s a difficult choice, because they’re all so awesome everyone has a strong reason for picking who they did. It’s kind of like figuring out who your favorite Ninja Turtle or New Kid on the Block was: you can’t look dumb when someone asks you why you picked Michelangelo or Donnie. Not that I liked Donnie or anything, I just, well…nevermind.

What do you do, though, when your team has flashes of brilliance mixed with splotches of being losing jerks? There are a couple of approaches. One way is to look toward the future and focus on the prospects. You can do this with the Cubs, but I don’t recommend it. Matt Murton and Ronny Cedeno are the rookies that should be getting steady playing time in ‘06, but neither appear ready to wow the crowd. Besides, the Cubs weren’t that bad last year: I’ll save my prospect-gazing for teams like the Royals and the Rockies. The Cubs also have some star power of their own, even if it’s not reflected in the standings.

When a team doesn’t have a great season, you can’t blame it on the star player, who is in this case Derrek Lee. Lee’s ‘05 season was like a van Gogh painting: a canvas full of bold strokes that’s inspiring to look upon. Having closed a hole in his swing, Lee laced doubles and mashed home runs at an incredible rate. Lee was also a marvel at first base, greatly improving the rest of the infield with his long reach and sure glove. Not only did he have a career year in 2005, he has all the appearances of a genuinely nice person, well-spoken and faithfully wearing his Cubbie “Believe” bracelet all season long. I bet if you ran into Lee in the Chicagoland area, he’d probably understand if you wanted to give him a hug.

There’s every reason to love Derrek Lee, and yet I can’t call him my favorite player; perhaps he’s a little too well-groomed for my taste. No, my favorite Cub needs a little more fire in him. Mark Prior, maybe? or Kerry Wood?

Both are power pitchers that love the strikeout — which is great because I love the strikeout — and have no fear out on the mound. In 2004, Prior brushed back Barry Bonds and his armor without batting an eye, and in 2003 I was convinced that Woody was going to get the Cubs to the playoffs by himself, making a nifty behind the back grab on the mound against Atlanta, and hitting a home run in Game 7 of the NLCS, determined to get enough runs by himself to beat back the Steve Bartman haze that still surrounded the Friendly Confines.

Those were pre-2005 memories, though, and their story lately has been injury and inconsistency. Try as he might, Wood can’t lead the team from the DL, and Prior needs a full season to prove he’s as good as we know he can be.

The pitcher who doesn’t need another chance to prove how good he is, however, is my favorite player, Carlos Zambrano. Why? His two-seam fastball says it all. On any given day, not even Zambrano knows how his two-seamer will break. He’ll usually struggle for an inning or two, as if he’s trying to figure out what exactly his pitches are doing, before going seven or eight without batting an eye. Zambrano’s two-seam embodies what I love about this guy: it’s crazy as hell. No one knows what’s going to happen exactly, but nine times out of ten, it’s going to be good. He swears at himself, in Spanish, on the mound, and chews gum to help burn off some of his extra energy. He’s bursting with enthusiasm and never wants to leave the mound. He’s got so much going for him that it doesn’t even matter that he’s a great hitter to boot.

Only on a team with Wood and Prior would a guy like Zambrano get overlooked coming into ‘05. Well, not in ‘06. This guy is the ace of the staff and one of the most likeable players out there. He’s not as efficient with his pitches as you’d like him to be, but at 25, he’s still got a lot of time to grow.