Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Thoughts on the Most Expensive Reliever Ever

The Cubs, mostly Lou Pinella it seems, decided to move Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen. When I read this headline, I of course did a double-take. To better express how bad this move is, I'll turn to my favorite fantasy writer, Andy Behrens:
"Total organizational failure. Even if Zambrano is successful in the setup role, this is an atrocious use of resources. This is neither bold nor innovative. It's just insane. One of the all-time panic moves. In fact, it's in the panic move hall of fame."
Basically, the Cubs have Gorzelanny, Silva, Wells, Zambrano, Dempster, and Lilly returning. Zambrano's stats have not been horrible save the first outing. Other than that horid performance he has a 4 ERA, hardly demotion worthy. Let's remember how bad Silva is, how bad Gorzelanny had to pitch to make the Pirates think he couldn't help their rotation, and that Dempster is a former closer and their bullpen needs relievers and he'd certainly be a nice addition for them. Plus Zambrano's inflated salary, all things being even, is just the Cubs wasting their money.

What this really appears to be is that the Cubs are panicking. They aren't hitting, their bullpen is blowing most leads they do have, and they certainly don't seem to appear capable of winning the division or at least the Wild Card. I tend to applaud managers for trying new things, but not when they're clearly ridiculous.

Luckily for them, Zambrano's taking it well. Publicly at least, who knows if there was a showdown in the office. But maybe this is a time for Zambrano to go off, show some emotion, vent some frustration, and tell the media what everyone else already knows: the Cubs' front office hasn't been making good decisions for awhile now, and perhaps it's time for a chance and some new life.

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