A Cardinals, Brewers And Astros Fan Would Like Zambrano On Their Team

BTF links to Kaplan’s garbage that we discussed throughout the day and night yesterday. There are always some interesting comments on BTF that make every thread worth reading. Here’s something from cardsfanboy: just to add fuel, Zambrano has a 128 era+ for his career, that is ninth among active pitchers. He has a 131 this season so it’s not like he is using prior seasons to prop the numbers up. The 8 ahead of him are Mariano, Pedro(prior career), Hoffman, Santana, Webb, Oswalt, Randy(obviously propped up by career), Halladay. Yep a real crappy list of players there. seriously what does this guy expect from a pitcher.Zambrano gets 180 innings pitched every year, puts up good numbers, has the bonus of being a decent hitter and an excellent fielder(from memory) yep, real crappy player. and of course the average that this guy lists is just plain wrong. He probably used baseball-reference auto sum feature, but he used it including this season where he only has 7 wins currently—-considering that Zambrano has only 2003 season with wins less than 14(13) it sounds really petty and inaccurate to call him out as a guy averaging only 14 wins per season. He didn’t say he wanted him, but he didn’t have to. Here’s something from an Astros fan. ERA+ what is that - some newfangled number put out there by those mouth breathing mama basement guys who sold sammy sosa all them steroids and ruined baseball??? what matters is WINS. period. you know, like back in 1900 when there wasn’t no bullpen because guys threw complete games against all them 300 hitters and if the cubs are tired of zambrano’s act, hey no prob - us astros will take him and give all yall cubs some high character guys like brian moehler and latroy hawkins - oh. oops, that didn’t work out real too good did it? uh - hows about aaron boone? he’s such a MAN and the team is gonna REALLY benefit from his MANness when he comes back in september, yessirree Here’s more from cardsfanboy. of course a good counter, Zambrano averaged 15 wins a season from 2003-2008. NL had 11 pitchers best that average in 2008, Al had 9. So Zambranos average season in 2008 is tied for 21st in the league. In 2007.10 in the al, 7 in the nl(with Zambrano being 2nd *) so his average is tied for 17th in baseball. In 2006 the NL had 6(including Zambrano again*) with more than his average and 14 in the al, meaning his average is tied for 20th. In 2005 the Al had 7 better, and the NL 8 better, putting that average of 15 wins tied for 16th best in baseball. In 2004 the Nl had 8 better(including Zambrano*) and the AL had 7 better making his average tied for 15th best. In 2003 the AL had 10 better, and the NL had 8 better making his average tied for 19th. So this supposed pitiful winning average of only 15(again his math was wrong, it’s 15 not 14) games per season, is in the top 30 in baseball during the each years it happened, and less than probably 20 players from 2003-now have had even back-to-back seasons of averaging 15 wins. I hate defending Zambrano, but seriously this is some really bad reasoning. A Brewers fan would like to have him too. Zambrano isn’t even the most overpaid player on the Cubs. I’d take him and his contract over Soriano, Bradley, Fukudome, and Dempster. Probably over Lee too. I’m no fan of his antics, but if the Cubs want to offer him up to the Brewers for Hall and Suppan, I’ll become a fan. Jeff K points out a terrible error on my part. Uh, you have some factual errors in your own post here, son: “The Retrosheet era is 1954-present. Among starting pitchers with at least 1450 innings in that 53 year span, only Roger Clemens (143), Roy Oswalt (137), Randy Johnson (136), Roy Halladay (132) and Greg Maddux (132) have a higher ERA+ than Zambrano.” I imagine Whitey Ford will be interested to know his 2851 IP of 132 don’t count. Ditto Koufax’s 2324 IP of 131. Ditto Johan Santana’s 1543 IP prior to this year at 144. And ditto Pedro F’ing Martinez with 2800 IP of 154. There are 9 guys, and you got 5 of them. I don’t think you should be casting stones at other’s accuracy. And of course, this all ignores the fact that ERA+ is a rate stat (adjusted or not) and Zambrano has yet to have his decline phase. He may also have yet to have his peak, which is why career ERA+ is not a good choice for barometer. I forgot to include something that caused the error here. I’ve updated the post on Zambrano for future reference. Among pitchers with 1450 innings pitched from 1954-2009 who have also had 90% of their appearances be games started, Carlos Zambrano has the 5th best ERA+. He trails only Clemens, Oswalt, Johnson, Hallday and Maddux. Whitey Ford does not qualify. 88% of his appearances were starts. I included the rankings with different percentages in the original post. Anyway, it’s kind of funny that the rival fans would like Zambrano on their team. I hope the Cubs do trade Zambrano, but only if it’s to a team in their own division. I’d be especially happy if he were traded to the Cardinals or Brewers, but the Astros would be OK too. I just don’t think I could become an Astros fan, but wouldn’t think twice about becoming a Brewers or Cardinals fan. I’m at the point now where I’d love nothing more than to see Zambrano go on to have a Hall of Fame career in a different jersey, especially a Brewers or Cardinals one. Prince Fielder is an awesome player. He’s one of the most exciting guys in the game to watch. I know most Cubs fans don’t like Ryan Braun, but I figure if you’re as good at baseball as he is you can be as cocky about it as you want to be. He’s one of those guys like Zambrano. You’re not going to like him if he’s playing against you, but you’d love to have him on your team. Add Zambrano behind Gallardo and you’ve got a really good team moving forward. The best part about the trade would be that the Cubs would get nothing in return and would have to pay a large chunk of his salary. That’s not because Zambrano isn’t any good. He is. It’s because of his contract. I’d love to watch Zambrano dominate the Cubs while being paid by them. I’ve never disliked the Cardinals like some Cubs fans do. I have great respect for the organization. Year in and year out the Cardinals put a contending team on the field. Some of them are ridiculously good teams. The 2004 and 2005 Cardinals were the best teams I’d watched since the late 1990’s Yankees. Albert Pujols is the best player in baseball and I don’t care who you’re a fan of, if you don’t like watching that guy play baseball there’s something wrong with you. I’m not one of those Cubs fans who is so desperately attached to a player that he’ll give up on the team if they leave. I couldn’t care less about that. I wouldn’t become a fan of the team Zambrano went to because I’m attached to him. I’d do so because the fans have treated an excellent ballplayer like **** and I’d love to watch them be upset when Zambrano dominates them. The Cubs winning a World Series would only bring a moment of joy, but Zambrano being traded to a rival and then dominating them for years would give me many. Some of you may say that I’m not a true Cubs fan. I don’t give a ****. I stopped caring about that crap long ago. I want to see the Cubs succeed as much as anyone, but I’d rather see the fans disappointed and miserable. I’m taking off where Ryno left off.