Last year, the Chicago Cubs’ lineup featured MVP candidate Derrek Lee, who won the batting title and had the best on-base average and fourth-best slugging average in the league; Aramis Ramirez, whose .926 OPS ranked behind only Houston’s Morgan Ensberg among NL third basemen; and Michael Barrett, who led NL catchers outright in OPS.

The pitching staff featured Carlos Zambrano, a true ace and the only pitcher in the majors to throw at least 200 innings with an ERA of 3.50 or below in each of the last three years; Mark Prior, who was always effective and often excellent, though he missed time after being struck with a comebacker; Greg Maddux, who threw 225 decent innings; and closer Ryan Dempster, who posted a 1.85 ERA in 58 1/3 innings as a reliever.

Without having gone through every season in baseball history, I’d lay a fair wager that the Cubs were the first team ever to feature the best hitter in the league, the best hitting catcher, a third baseman as good as Ramirez, and frontline pitching of that quality and not even finish with a winning record. The culprits are clear: Injuries to shortstop Nomar Garciaparra and starter Kerry Wood hurt, a catastrophically bad season from centerfielder Corey Patterson hurt, and manager Dusty Baker is a dunce.

Lee, for instance, hit .335 with 46 home runs, batted .331 with runners in scoring position, and still ended up with just 107 RBI. Why? The 20 batters the Cubs used in the leadoff slot managed only a .299 OBA. Utility man Jerry Hairston, who had 306 at-bats in the no. 1 hole, had a respectable .344 OBA as a leadoff man, but Baker’s insistence on using Patterson and shortstop Neifi Perez, who combined for 242 leadoff atbats in which their OBA was .263, crippled the offense.

Much the same thing was true of the no. 2 slot, which mustered a .314 OBA despite Perez’s 268 at-bats worth of .300 OBA. This was, of course, predictable. Perez isn’t a bad player – he’s durable, a stellar defender, and a good contact hitter.As the light side of a platoon or as a bench player,he’s an excellent piece to have. As a starter, he’s a problem. As a leadoff man – he has a career .301 OBA despite playing several seasons in Coors Field – he’s an atrocity.

It’s worth noting the differences between Perez and, say, the Mets’ Jose Reyes, whose OBA last year was .300. Reyes was 22, and there’s reason to think he’ll develop into a star player. Perez was 32. Reyes has some extrabase power and led the league in steals; Perez is slow and can’t get the ball out of the infield. Only a madman would use Perez the way Baker did last year. Is Baker a madman?

Consider that he had shortstop prospect Ronny Cedeno, a good defender who hit .355 in Iowa last year,for 92 games. He played Cedeno in 41 games, in which he got a total of 80 at bats. In those 80 at bats he hit. 300 and ran up a .356 OBA. From September 11 to the end of the season, he got into one game – and that as a defensive replacement. Even just playing out the string, Baker refused to put Cedeno in the lineup, if only just to see what he could do.

All of this makes the Cubs’ off-season rather baffling. The team’s needs were clear – a couple of big outfield bats, and maybe a good middle infielder to pair with Cedeno.The team’s first moves were to resign Dempster, then sign Scott Eyre and Bobby Howry, a couple of expensive but not particularly good set-up men.The three will cost a bit over $14 million this year. Wood posted a 17/5 K/BB ratio and 2.25 ERA in a two-week stint as a reliever; might he make these expenses superfluous, especially since he clearly can’t stay on the mound as a starter? We may never know, but the Cubs are relying on him to start.

Other moves included signing Perez to a two-year contract extension, ineptly trying to land free agent shortstop Rafael Furcal, signing pinch-hitter John Mabry to “back up” outfield prospect Matt Murton, whom Baker was reluctant to use despite his sterling .321 BA/.386 OBA/.521 SLG line, and…well, that was pretty much it, other than landing center fielder Juan Pierre, a decent player coming off a year in which he posted a .326 OBA.

Mets fans really ought to appreciate Omar Minaya. The Mets’ core talent entering this off-season was no better than that of the Cubs – if you had to choose, you’d probably take Zambrano, Prior, Lee, Ramirez, and Barrett over Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez, David Wright, and Reyes if you wanted to win this year. But Minaya aggressively sought to fix his club’s weaknesses. While the Cubs were signing $14 million worth of decent relievers, Minaya went out and got Billy Wagner, figuring you can always dredge up a decent set-up corps. While the Cubs were half-heartedly going after Furcal and keeping Perez around in case they didn’t get him despite the presence of Cedeno, the Mets were trading for Carlos Delgado.

There’s a lot you can criticize Minaya for, but in the end, none of it means much set beside the fecklessness on display in Chicago.