I think that Pierre makes them at least average, but I'm not sure if it makes them a lock to be above average. No matter what, this season comes down to pitching. If they have good starting pitching, they can get away with having a league average offense. If they have injuries and erratic performance from Wood and Prior, respectively, and Maddux continues to stagnate, we will finish .500 unless EVERYONE on the offense has a career year. My personal preference would have been to make sure your offense is a lock to be top 5 in the NL, and that way you can offset the inevtiable injuries/ineffectiveness of at least one of your starters. But that's not how it worked out, so we'll see what happens. You really can't prepare for injuries to a rotation besides acquiring a swingman, which is suited for someone like Rusch. What you can do is be careful with your starting pitchers and not overwork them leading to fatigue and eventually injuries. That's even before considering the possibility of a fluke injury like Prior or Lieber spraining his ankle crossing home. You don't think that having a better offense would mean the Cubs could sustain an injury more easily that the current team would?