It's not a Cubs jersey anyways, sorry for not giving you a high quality BK photoshop job.
The Zambrano move to the bullpen is impressive for being such a horrific idea that outside of Chicago it’s received very little press considering how ridiculous it is. I guess there’s little angle for discussion past a “witty” headline or two when basically every single view point (basic statistics, advanced sabermetrics, historical usage, salary efficiency, common sense) all show that it’s unequivocally a terrible idea. You either have to be the kind of fan who never watches the games and just listens to sports talk radio, old and senile so you somehow believe old school players were gentlemen on the field, or just plain learning disabled to think it’s a good idea. I don’t think a lot of good things about Jim Hendry that don’t involve Eric Karros or Aramis, but I don’t think he’s a complete idiot. In fact, we’re both very passionate about drinking and acquiring pitchers recovering from injuries (sadly I can only fulfill this dream in fantasy baseball*) He does love to do very old school scout things like acquiring pitchers because they are tall and throw hard, drafting players from winning amateur programs, and picking up any catcher he can find with good birthing hips. Taking a starting pitcher who throws hard and scouts would call an inning eater and moving him to the setup role is just as dumb from that perspective as it is when looking at his consistently good to great ERA+.
So it seems to me that this deal has a lot more to do with Zambrano’s no-trade clause and open love of Chicago and lack of desire to be traded in any circumstance (and I’m a sucker enough to take as genuine and I want to live in my fantasy land where a baseball player cares about something past money so leave me to my crazy.) The Cubs have a huge salary this year and will suck at about this level for most of the year. And next year the only significant deals that come of the books are Lilly’s and Lee’s which are about the last one’s you’d want to go. Applying highly sophisticated arbitration calculations, they are probably around $120-ish million without resigning or replacing either of them. Now I have no idea what budget the Ricketts will set for salary, but there’s really three scenarios:
1) They actually know something about baseball and care about winning and realize that the farm system is a joke and the current roster has little to build on. They continue to be willing to spend money, but they realize that they need to spend it on the farm system and that a high priced free agent or two won’t make them 2011 contenders.
2) They actually know something about money and realize they have a ton of debt and have been watching the other owners around the league and decide to cut payroll to pay back their loans and/or buy some yachts. Hopefully Soriano won’t have to jump to catch throws at 1st.
3) They are complete idiots and think that a couple more big contracts is all that it will take. In which case we can all buy Ortiz jerseys to celebrate his 4 year/61 million dollar deal.
Zambrano’s contract is the most tradeable of the big deals. In the first case they could see moving him as a chance to pick up some prospects and clear some money for the farm and down the road for when they can have a real competitive team. In the second case, it’s $60+ million for escorts and blow. But, Z’s no-trade is an even larger impediment than most because he might just be crazy enough to stick to it regardless of the incentives thrown at him to waive it. So they’re working on making him annoyed enough to say fuck it, he’d rather start for the Angels than come into 40 games that Grabow/Berg/etc/etc has already blown.
While I know it’s a little tin foil hat of me, but I’ve always felt the Cubs are consistent in their need to devalue players before they trade them. They threw Sosa under the bus before they traded him. While Bradley** helped them, the Cubs leaked details left and right and made sure it was apparent how very little they wanted him. I think that they feel they need to convince fans that they should be happy that the player is going before the trade. There just always seems to be little comments dropped to the media or in the telecast that taint players before the trade. And with Zambrano along with the comments about how he has accepted the move are little things about how he supposedly hasn’t been doing some unspecified things that they’d have liked him to do and what not despite previous stories about how he lost all the weight they wanted him too and what not. The kind of little things that add up over time.
I wish I could end by saying to enjoy every last start of his before the trading deadline, but well, here we are.
* I am accepting offers to take over as GM for most major league franchises.
** I think Cubs fans are any less racist than most other random groups of Americans, but not this guy who clearly thinks white people play baseball for free. I couldn’t figure out how to fit that in without making it look like I was defending Bradley, which I’m not. I don’t think anyone should spend the time making terrible Cubs comic things, but if you’re dead set on doing it, you should be sinking your razor sharp talons of mockery into Cotts.
