Yesterday it was announced that starting Friday April 23rd Carlos Zambrano will be making the move from starting pitcher and Cubs “ace” to setup man working from the bullpen. The Cubs organization has put together a pretty great story about why Carlos is moving and it has absolutely nothing to do with he ridiculously poor performance through 3 starts this season. Cough Bullshit Cough.
The Cubbies are telling us Zambrano is doing what is best for his team, and although I think it is what is best for the Cubs, but I don’t think that is the real motive. The real motive is to save face after paying 90+ million on a pitcher that either has to be moved or sent to the minors when Ted Lilly returns to the starting roster this weekend.
The Cubs have stated that it has nothing to do with Zambrano’s huge loss to the Brewers on opening day or the fact that he can barely give us 6 innings without giving up 2 or more runs. Well I don’t buy it. The real reason is because Ted Lilly is coming back to the starting roster and Zambrano is the weakest member of the staff right now so he needs to be moved or be sent to the minors. And you can’t send a 90 million dollar pitcher to the minors without a shit ton of embarressment
Here is how it plays out Lilly returns to the starting rotation on Saturday making his first start since having orthoscopic surgery in the off season. With Lilly up the Cubs need to move a pitcher and you can’t move Wells, Dempster, Silva, or Gorzelanny to the pen because they are all pitching well. Not to say they are pitching great, but they each have a win this year and an ERA under 3.50. Where as Big Z has an ERA over 7 and can’t stay in a game long enough to not put a ton of pressure on a young and pretty much worthless bullpen.
Now I like the idea of Carlos being in the pen. He is strong enough to power the Cubs through the middle of games and not give up a lot of runs and instead of sending him away to the minors we can still utilize some of his strengths and hopefully minimize the majority of his weaknesses. With Lilly back the Cubs starters should be in good shape too, meaning that our entire pitching staff just became a little more well rounded and hopefully we will stop losing so many close games as our bats have struggled this year.
I like the move Cubs, but don’t bullshit a bullshitter. Carlos is performing poorly and needs to be moved or sent down to make room for Lilly and you know it. Don’t give me the I am doing it for the betterment of my team crap when it is clear that the weakest link needs to be moved and Carlos is that link right now.
Agree for the most part. I think if Gorzelany was a right hander, he would have been moved to the pen instead of “carload’. We got a lot of lefties down there already. I like the move but only if carload throws strikes. He better stop dropping his arm too or he will get battered.
We saw how well this worked for Kerry Wood.