Phil Rogers Should be Replaced by a 32-year-old Blogger

As Lou Piniella was saying on Friday, enough’s enough. Alright! I love articles that start out with platitudes like this! Usually, they’re followed by shaky logic and over-reaching, knee-jerk reactions. Let’s see where this one goes… Get Carlos Zambrano out of here, even if the Cubs have to give him away. He’s not the guy you want as the ace of a curse-busting team, and at this point, it’s wishful thinking that he’ll ever mature into that guy. Did you just call the Cubs a team that is busting a curse? Nevermind, there’s stupider eggs to crack in that sentence. Pimarily, this one: get rid of Zambrano. Really? I’ll use small words and simple numbers here so you can understand just how stupid this idea is: Carlos Zambrano has a career ERA of 3.49 (I’ll give you a big hint: that’s good). He’s had over 30 starts in each of the last 6 seasons, averaging of over 15 wins and 200 innings per year in that time span. He has struck out 1238 batters in his career, good for more than 8 strikeouts per nine innings. And he’s just over 28 years old, at the peak of his career, which hasn’t been plagued by injuries and looks as if it may have a long tail to it. Proving that I did not attend Kellogg, Wharton or even the Acme School of Business, I offer this proposition for Jim Hendry: First thing Monday morning, put Zambrano on waivers. If anyone claims him and the $62.75 million left on his contract, which runs through 2012, immediately trade him for whatever is being offered, from a bag of balls to a 32-year-old minor-leaguer. No, you didn’t go to Kelloogg, Wharton, or Acme. Neither did I. But at least I have a ******* clue how much worse this team would be without Zambrano. If you replaced him with, say…. a 32-year-old minor-leaguer, the team would be about 4 wins worse per year, which is a lot. As far as value is concerned, Zambrano was worth approximately $16 million based on his performance last season, more than his $15 million salary, and if he stays healthy the rest of the season he’s likely to outperform the rest of his salary for this year. So releasing him would only make sense if it’s part of a larger rebuilding plan, where the team trades superstars for prospects and re-invests their salaries in younger players. Unfortunately, bags of balls and 32-year-yold minor-leaguers don’t really jive with that plan. Because that would be, you know.. a PLAN. This is just sheer stupidity. Because Hendry gave Zambrano a full no-trade clause in a 2007 contract extension, Zambrano can choose: Either go where he’s being dealt, waving goodbye to Wrigley Field, or block the trade and deal with the knowledge that you’re playing for a team that believes it can live without you. What a show Zambrano put on Sunday at U.S. Cellular Field. As I said above, the best estimates out there have Zambrano worth about 4 wins per season over the last 6 years compared to the replacement you suggest. Last season, that wouldn’t have made a difference because the Cubs won their division by 7.5 games. But they only won the division by 2 games in 2007, and only won it by a single game in 2003, so it may have made a crucial difference in those years. So can the Cubs without Zambrano? Sure they could… just not into the postseason. Given the Cubs’ sorry display of the previous two days, when Piniella called Milton Bradley “a piece of [bleep]” and then got upset that the confidentiality of the clubhouse had been breached, allegedly by an unknown White Sox employee, the setting called for professionalism. Here comes logic! Lou loses his cool, so Z has to be on his best behavior… Unfortunately for the North Side drama queens, their ace once again reported for work wearing size 30 shoes and a red rubber ball on his nose. Zambrano pitched badly and lost his cool for about the zillionth time, venting his frustrations on Sox hitters en route to a 6-0 loss. Oh NOES! First off, note that Zambrano could have pitched 9 innings, struck out 15 batters given up only one run… and it wouldn’t have mattered. Zambrano’s pitching in this game was largely inconsequential. The hitting was the problem. He did give up 4 runs in 5 1/3 innings, not a good outing but not a catastrophe of ace-cutting proportions, either. But before I start go too far with common sense, I must remember he “vented his frustrations.” Zambrano clearly drilled Dewayne Wise in the butt on the first pitch after he had sniffed out a suicide squeeze attempt but threw wildly past Geovany Soto, allowing rookie Chris Getz to steal home. Home plate umpire Brian Runge should have ejected Zambrano, as it looked to me like the second time he had intentionally drilled a Sox hitter. First off, Zambrano had the right idea on the squeeze play. Soto needed to get out of his crouch to catch that ball, and Zambrano needed to not throw it nearly so far outside. But the problem here was execution, not a poor decision on Zambrano’s part. And for all the reasons for Brain Runge could eject Zambrano, it “looking to you like” a pitcher drilled a hitter (twice!) is probably the worst of them. But let’s give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that Zambrano did indeed intentionally hit Dewayne Wise. How many other pitchers in the Major Leagues have intentionally thrown at another player? Should the Yankees have cut Clemens in the middle of the 2000 World Series? Is Bob Gibson the worst pitcher in the history of baseball? He also ricocheted a pitch off Scott Podsednik’s rear end in the third inning. The motivation here wasn’t nearly as clear, but Sox players believe he was angry about either Podsednik’s four-hit game Saturday or, more likely, his unorthodox dance toward the front of the batter’s box during a pitcher’s delivery. ... or maybe Zambrano was pitching him inside, as Ron Santo was suggested throughout the series. Throwing inside to a player that probably can’t turn on your fastball is good strategy, not dirty play. Sox manager Ozzie Guillen played Zambrano like a Stradivarius after Podsednik was hit. He let Zambrano throw repeatedly to first, holding Podsednik close, and never gave him the steal sign. He hoped a distracted Zambrano would hang a pitch to Alexei Ramirez or Jermaine Dye, and that’s exactly what Zambrano did, with Ramirez drilling a two-run homer on a 1-2 pitch. This makes negative sense. Wouldn’t a manager that wanted Zambrano to throw over to first and be distracted by the runner have that runner take an enticing lead? If that’s what Guillen is after, why have him “hold Posednik close?” Zambrano then unraveled like, well, like he often does. The sequence that allowed the Sox to add on to a 3-0 lead in the sixth was classic. Zambrano’s instincts were good enough to anticipate a suicide squeeze with Getz on third and Wise, the No. 9 hitter , batting. He just couldn’t execute. Soto had no chance to catch a fastball that sailed over the right-handed batter’s box. Fuming, Zambrano hit Wise with the next pitch. “It was a cutter that cut too much,” he claimed later. He offered an even stronger defense when asked if Podsednik was also hit with a cut fastball. “Yeah, cutter,” said Zambrano, who allowed five runs in 5 1/3 innings. “The ball cut a lot. I don’t want to put Podsednik on base. I’m not crazy. Nobody wants to have Podsednik on base.” Zambrano had warmed up for the predictably high-energy start with a war of words with Sox pitching coach Don Cooper, who had been critical of Zambrano’s on-field meltdown on May 27. He tried to make a joke of Cooper’s 1-6 big-league record and bragged about his no-hitter. Then, as usual, he went out and did not deliver. Delivering… I don’t think you know what the word means. Here are the facts: Carlos Alberto Zambrano has the 3rd most strikeouts, the 3rd most wins, and the 3rd most innings pitched in the majors since 2003. If that’s what you call “unraveling,” or “not delivering” I’ll take 5 of those guys in my rotation. “Not delivering” is a much better description of your baseball analyses than it is of Zambrano’s career, and because you’re far from the only dimwitted blowhard sportswriter “unraveling” is a much better description of your field than it is Zambrano’s mentality on the mound. There are many reasons that a Cubs’ team with more than $140 million invested in payroll is in fourth place in the National League Central, and one of them is a front-runner, not a difference-maker. What the hell does that sentence even mean? He’s a front-runner? Isn’t that a good thing? I showed above how a lack Zambrano would have made a very big difference to the 2003 and 2007 teams, so he’s also a difference-maker. But that’s besides the point. The point is: you don’t make any ******* sense. STOP WRITING! The Cubs are 0-5 in Zambrano’s starts in the playoffs, being outscored 31-15. We’ll dismiss the 2003 NL Championship Series as old news and blame Piniella for lifting him when he was in a 1-1 game against Brandon Webb in the 2007 playoff opener, but his pitching had as much to do with the ugly Game 2 loss to Los Angeles last year as did the four infield errors. Of Zambrano’s 5 starts, 4 of them wouldn’t have even been made if not for his efforts in the regular season. And instead of evaluating Zambrano based on his significant sample size of 200+ starts, you’ve decided to take the mathematically stpuid approach of whittling it down to the 5 starts he made in the playoffs… and then reduce it further by throwing out three data points from 6 years ago as well as the data point that doesn’t fit your hypothesis, leaving you with one data point. 1. one. ONE! rvkl;erw890jklcdk;lp9jklerwm,.kl Hendry had a chance to let Zambrano walk as a free agent after 2007, the season in which he beat up catcher Michael Barrett during a game at Wrigley, but injuries to Mark Prior and Kerry Wood gave Zambrano a hammer. Is this where you give credit to Zambrano for his significant hitting abilities, as he’s used that hammer to become the most valuable hitting pitcher in Major League Baseball in 2008? Too bad the one he now swings makes funny noises, like the one Moe favored when whacking Larry and Curly. No? That’s a shame. As is the rest of this pile of crap you call a column. Maybe the Trib should let you go, or better yet trade you for a 32-year-old sportswriter that would make a lot less money, give it has all, and generally relish the opportunity you have to write about a game for a living. Said writer probably would also avoid a “meltdown” under deadline and just fall back on writing the same old incendiary tripe that is so common amongst your colleagues. It would make more sense for the Trib to do that with your position than Zambrano’s. After all, he’s a once in a generation talent, and you’re just a hack with a job that really isn’t all that hard in the first place. If it were, morons like you wouldn’t be able to do it. Besides, at least Zambarno is earning his salary.