Cubs: Camp tour | 
Miller | 1 Man vs. 1 Fan | Samardzija
MESA, Ariz. -- Five things to know about the Chicago Cubs:
1. Keeping Milton Bradley healthy and in the lineup will be one of the biggest keys to Chicago's success. When he plays, he produces. He has a long injury history and he has played in more than 126 games only once in his nine-year career. He's a switch-hitter who is dangerous from both sides of the plate, and his lefty presence helps balance a righty-heavy lineup that was exposed against the Dodgers in October. Manager Lou Piniella intends to bat lefty Kosuke Fukudome second, Bradley fourth and lefty Mike Fontenot sixth to balance the lineup. Piniella also welcomes Bradley's fiery temperament, thinking maybe that's one missing ingredient from last year's very nice (and often bland) clubhouse.
2. Carlos Zambrano on the decline? The analysts at Baseball Prospectus, in their often prescient PECOTA projections for 2009 (a sabermetric formula for forecasting how a player will do in the upcoming season) predict Zambrano's victories will decline (to 11) and ERA will rise (to 4.12) this summer. "I don't pay attention to that," Zambrano says of predictions in general. "Last year, nobody had the Philadelphia Phillies to win everything, and they were the champions. Everybody had Johan Santana or somebody else winning the Cy Young, and Tim Lincecum won the Cy Young. So I don't pay too much attention to that."
3. With a healthy and productive Zambrano, who no-hit Houston last September, the Cubs have as good a rotation as there is in the NL: Zambrano, right-hander Ryan Dempster, lefty Ted Lilly, righty Rich Harden and lefty Sean Marshall. Waiting in the wings is right-hander Jeff Samardzija, who impressed last August out of the bullpen but whose long-term prospects remain as a starter. Cubs pitchers last season set a major league record by leading the majors in strikeouts for an eighth consecutive season, dating back to 2001.
4. The battle went through the last week of camp, but the Cubs will start the season with Kevin Gregg, who posted 61 saves for Florida during the past two seasons, as their closer and Carlos Marmol as their set-up man. Interesting moments are sure to come, especially with the notoriously impatient Piniella if Gregg blows a couple of saves early. "We're not going to tip-toe through the tulips with this thing," Piniella says. "We made our decision. We're going to give this guy every chance to succeed. I'm sure he will."
5. In retrospect, Piniella thinks the attention focused last year on the Cubs' 100-year drought since their last World Series title added undue pressure on the club -- and affected the players -- despite the organization's best efforts to deflect it. "It's nice not to," Piniella says of not having to face daily questions regarding the 100th anniversary. "Everyone saw us win 97 ballgames last year and, at the same time, it was the 100th year since we had won a World Series and it was like the stars and the sun and the moon and everything else was all aligned."
5a. It's worth remembering that the Cubs dominated at home last summer, going 55-26 in the Friendly Confines, thus assuring their road to October. It was the most home victories for the Cubs since 1935, when they had a club-record 56 wins at Wrigley (they also won 56 in 1933).
