What the Hell Happened with Carlos Zambrano?

Since Carlos Zambrano came into the league he’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball. He’s no longer as dominating as he once was, but he’s still a really good pitcher. He picked up his 100th career win this season. Zambrano has had a lot of up and down seasons and 2009 was no different. Much of the “up and down” is imagined by the media and fans, but when Zambrano is bad, he’s really bad. And when he’s good, he’s really good. The good far outweighs the bad and it’s ignorant to suggest otherwise. Here are Zambrano’s pre-season projections: ZAMBRANO IP H HR BB K ERA CAIRO 205 179 20 88 164 4.26 MARCELS 176 155 17 76 141 3.76 ZiPS 201 183 19 87 156 3.81 JAMES 196 166 18 87 163 3.56 Chone 185 181 19 78 144 4.14 AVERAGE 193.1 173 19 84 154 3.91 The ACB projection for playing time had Zambrano logging 200 innings and he’ll fall short of that. He has one start remaining this year and will finish the season with about 170 innings pitched. That’s two seasons in a row for Zambrano in which he’s battled injuries. This year’s injury was not pitching related so that’s a positive sign after battling shoulder soreness in 2008. Despite the injury, Zambrano will still reach his projected WAR of 3.65. He’s currently at 3.5 so a decent starts puts him at 3.6 and or above. Zambrano was paid $17.75 million this season and has been worth nearly $16 million. Assuming a decent start in his final outing, he’ll end up being worth about what the Cubs paid him. Zambrano improved his K/9 rate back to where it was from 2002-2006 (over 8). It was 7.36 and 6.20 in 2007 and 2008. Unfortunately his improved control in 2008 was just a fluke. It was great in 2008, but he walked only 3.43 per 9 and his career rate is 4.03. it’s 4.04 this year. Overall, his K/BB remained about the same. A large part of Zambrano’s success this season has been because he’s allowed the fewest home runs per fly ball in his career. That’s luck. His 3.58 FIP has been the best in several years, but if you adjust his home runs per fly ball his xFIP is 4.29. That’s still the best it’s been since 2005. The only thing that happened to Zambrano this year was a back injury. That’s it. Other than that he has exceeded any reasonable expectation and despite the injury he has still reached expectations. It’s unfortunate that athletes today are too stupid to realize that pitcher wins are essentially a useless statistic. Pitching is about 40% of the game. That’s a large chunk for sure, but the pitcher has control over about 40% of what happens on the field. The rest of the game is up to the position players (offense, defense, baserunning). It’s even more unfortunate that the media and fan base remains ignorant of this simple fact. A reasonable projection for Zambrano in 2010 is probably going to be around a 3.8 FIP and around 3.5 WAR. The question will be playing time. If he pitches 200+ innings he’ll beat those projections. A lot of fans think Zambrano has to live up to his contract, but he has this season. He has every other season, too. It’s unlikely he’ll ever be worth more than his contract again, but that’s true of all players who sign free agent deals. Teams get their value in players before they are eligible for free agency. Since 2002 Carlos has been worth 28.2 WAR, which is just over $100 million in value. In that same span, he’s earned less than $60 million. Some idiots say that Zambrano hasn’t earned his contract. ********. He earned the contract, has been worth it to this point, and over the course of his career he’s been worth a hell of a lot more than he’s been paid.