Breaking the bank

Finally allowed to open the coffers again, the Cubs signed Carlos Zambrano to a five-year, $91.5 million extension. Was he worth it? Well, Zambrano has a career ERA of 3.37, which ranks him tenth among eligible active pitchers (min 1000 IP) and fifth among eligible active pitchers under the age of 30. (The four ahead of him are Oswalt, Santana, Webb, and Peavy. The first two both make eight figures; Peavy and Webb are enormous bargains at the moment, but probably won't be for more than another year or two.) He's also had good luck with injuries so far; he's made 30+ starts and thrown 200+ innings in each of his four full years with the Cubs, and is on pace to do so again this year. (Some would probably argue that this, along with his tendency to throw an awful lot of pitches - his count has increased from 3,407 in 2003 to 3,626 in 2006, and this year he's averaging a career high 4.01 pitches per plate appearance - is more of a warning sign than a good thing. But I don't know. Some guys actually are that durable. Clemens' career P/PA is 3.92, a hair above Zambrano's.)

There are concerns, sure. He's got a 3.86 ERA right now, which would be his career worst (not including his rookie year of 2001 in which he threw a total of 7.2 innings). Two more home runs allowed sets his single-season mark; he'll likely approach a career-worst hits allowed total; he's on pace for a career low in Ks. But with that said, his career ERA is 3.37. It's pretty darn great. And he has a career winning percentage of .605 - I know that wins aren't the best way to measure a pitcher (in fact they can be a pretty terrible way), but given that Z hasn't pitched for a single 90-win team, that's not bad. In fact, it puts him in the top ten among active pitchers under age 35. His 78 total wins are already top 60 among active players and only four guys who will still be under 30 by next season have more. None of them is as young as Zambrano.

Of course, career stats only mean so much, especially in the world of the starting pitcher. A guy who looks like a sure thing one year can flame out the next - Mark Prior, anyone? Zambrano has a good pedigree but he's still prone to maddening temper tantrums, loss of focus after a couple bad at-bats, and a general overuse of emotion that starts off cute and gets more and more tiresome every time it results in a meltdown on the mound. Still, Zambrano's stats this year in the control department aren't markedly different from those in years past - he's not going to walk as many guys as last year, for example, and his percentage of strikes is consistent with his career averages at 61%. (He's also throwing more first-pitch strikes than ever before, at 58%.) 5% of batters faced saw a 3-0 count, also about average for his career. Even where his numbers are worse, they're certainly not orders of magnitude worse. The guy will have 15+ wins barring something insane happening and his ERA will be under 4.00 unless he goes into the tank. Is a guy who gets you 15-12, 3.80 an $18 million pitcher? Worthy of the highest average salary for a multi-year-contract pitcher in history?

On the face of it, no. But again, you have to consider a couple other factors.

1) The market for Zambrano after the season.
As noted by Jayson Stark here, we are heading into one of the most barren free agency periods for starters in recent memory. The most intriguing commodities are a 41-year-old Curt Schilling and a bunch of guys with career ERAs that look like Olympic figure skating scores. Given the money thrown at Barry Zito last year - and Zito's subsequent failure to earn it - it's hard to believe that someone wouldn't have offered Zambrano nine figures on the open market, especially with teams like the Mets and Yankees, and the deep pockets found there, still struggling to put together strong top-to-bottom rotations to match their fantasy-team lineups.

2) Again, the career numbers.
Even if Zambrano's 2007 numbers aren't going to blow anyone's mind, he doesn't even turn 27 until next June, and yet he has more than 75 wins, a sub-3.50 ERA, 1000 career strikeouts and a winning percentage over .600. All other players under 30 who fit these criteria please step forward: hi, Johan. And hi, Roy, but you'll have to step back in a week when you turn 30. Anyone else? No? I realize this is more than a bit gerrymandered, and Jake Peavy is currently filling out his application form, and two of the categories are more team-dependent. Still, you get the general idea - Zambrano is pretty high up there in terms of career success among still-young starting pitchers, and his durability thus far only bolsters the idea that he's worth a long-term deal. And maybe the stability will help him get his head on just a little straighter. (Maybe?)

So I think we can stop with the doom-and-gloom just because he's had a few iffy starts ever since the tear through June and July. In particular, my dad called me today and said "I want to go on record that signing Zambrano was what destroyed this franchise!" Because of one loss in which Zambrano had a mediocre outing and got no run support. I would submit this as proof that following the Cubs for decades of futility is enough to make anyone crazy. I overreact to individual games as much as anyone, but let's try to think big picture here - the Cubs are still contenders this year and, unless the new owner is Carl Pohlad, probably have the money to be for the foreseeable future as long as the management is smart. There are several good-to-great position players locked up to long term deals and the youth movement has been filling in the gaps pretty nicely. All told, I'm not unhappy with the current direction, which is probably more than I've been able to say about the Cubs for a while now.

And hey - the Craig Monroe era is upon us!

You can't spell Podsednik without "P.O.S."

Two victories in Colorado - nice start. How about a big four-game sweep? (Or at least win three. Nothing worse than starting a series 2-0 and splitting it.) But I was a little disappointed with some news I heard yesterday. I recognize that Alfonso Soriano's loss has got the Cubs scrambling a bit. But putting in a waiver claim on Scott Podsednik? Sure, they both play left field and they're both leadoff hitters, and they both have stolen 40 bases in a season. There are a few differences, however:

Alfonso Soriano, 2007 OBP: .336
Scott Podsednik, 2007 OBP: .328

That's not so bad, I guess...

Alfonso Soriano, 2007 SLG: .511
Scott Podsednik: 2007 SLG: .377

Ah yes.

Podsednik's OBP is well below league average, which is kind of terrible for a leadoff hitter. It's one thing if you're Soriano and can knock the ball out of the park; Podsednik can't do that - he's hit fewer home runs in the last four seasons combined than Soriano has this year alone - and he doesn't get on base. The amazing thing is that he gets so much of the credit for the White Sox's 2005 title run (mostly, I think, for his walkoff home run in Game 2 of the World Series). He got MVP votes that year - 15, but still - MVP votes! I think it was that big .700 OPS that put him over the top.

The hilarious thing is that Scott Podsednik was traded, pretty much straight up, for Carlos Lee. I will grant you that Carlos Lee is not going to steal a lot of bases (Podsednik had stolen 70 in 2004 just before the trade; he also had a .313 OBP). In 2004 Carlos Lee was 28 - he hit 31 home runs, hit .305 with a .366 OBP, and then was traded for a guy who'd hit .244 with a .313 OBP. But Podsednik could steal bases for you - at a 72% clip in 2005, below the level at which Baseball Prospectus found you're better off not even trying to steal. Ken Williams is a GENIUS.

Actual Williams quote at the time: "As we stated this October, we wanted to make a strong effort this offseason to improve our pitching and defense. ... Our goal was to field a team that is more speed-oriented and offers a more consistent run-scoring attack. Scott is exactly that type of offensive player."

(Postscript: the White Sox scored 865 runs in 2004, third best in the AL. In 2005 they scored 741 runs, ninth best. But you're right, Ken - a more consistent run-scoring attack. In 2005 your team consistently scored fewer runs than it had the year before, because you traded one of your best offensive players for a light-hitting guy who was kind of fast but also got thrown out a lot. In a related story, the team ERA dropped from 4.91 to 3.61 in the same span, and then the Sox won the World Series because, if you believe Ozzie Guillen, they were so good at bunting runners over. Hint as to what actually happened: Ozzie Guillen is an idiot.)

(Post-postscript: Carlos Lee has hit 93 home runs since being traded with an OBP around his career average of .342. He's averaged more than 6 runs created per 27 outs made. Scott Podsednik has hit 4 home runs with an OBP of about .330 and fewer than 4 runs created per 27 outs made. No, seriously, what a fucking awesome trade. I know someone is going to come along and say that since they won the World Series after the trade there must be a correlation, but you know what? No. No there was not. The correlation is they scored 124 fewer runs in 2005 and that managed not to matter because their pitching was insane. Unless Podsednik taught the White Sox staff how to throw a spitball and not get caught, he had literally no positive impact on the 2005 White Sox that Carlos Lee would not have had and then some. And if that is what happened, what's his fucking excuse for the last two years?)

All this is kind of a long and satisfyingly Williams/Guillen-deflating way of saying that I think the Cubs can do just fine without Scott Podsednik, thank you. Matt Murton this year? OBP ten points higher than Scott Podsednik's. Four times as many home runs (in roughly the same number of PAs). He does have fewer stolen bases. I'll give you that one. But the Cubs have a Podsednik-like leadoff guy already to fill Soriano's void - Ryan Theriot (.353 OBP, 20 steals to just 4 CS - he's like Podsednik but good!).

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind seeing the Cubs put in waiver claims on principle; it's good that they don't just want to sit around feeling sorry for themselves. But let's not make any panic moves here. Unless Podsednik suddenly recaptures his 2003 form - the only year in which he was ever really that good - it's a bad idea to pick him up. And remember what happened last time we signed a speedy but light-hitting outfielder based on his 2003 season? I don't care what happened in 2005, Podsednik is not some sort of good luck charm. Hendry would do well to remember that.

A season on the brink (of ending)

I haven't posted in three weeks because the Cubs went on their run and I was terrified of doing anything to jinx it. But with things beginning to fall apart, I'm breaking radio silence; it's hard to imagine I could say anything to make things much worse at this point. I have to admit, this is a lot earlier than I imagined them disappointing me this year. At the risk of overreacting to less than a week's worth of events, it's looking like three-strikes-and-you're-out as far as the Cubs' real chances of contending go:

Strike one: Alfonso Soriano tears a quad, is out a month

Strike two: Aramis Ramirez tweaks his wrist, is day-to-day

Strike three: Team drops to three games over .500 after being swept by Astros; Zambrano rounds into mid-April form once more

If Zambrano starts being a mediocre pitcher again, that's three huge losses (even if Ramirez's injury is relatively minor), and the offense was already not nearly as consistent as it could have been. Mercifully, the Brewers' road woes continued in Colorado, meaning the Cubs will still be just a game back when tonight's inevitable loss is over, but suddenly the Cardinals have shown up in the rear view mirror, and the Cubs could be leading this division by multiple games if they didn't have an infuriating tendency to slump at the exact same time as the Brewers, most of July notwithstanding.

Maybe this is just one bad series. Maybe the 26 strikeouts by the lineup in the first two games was just the result of pressing after Soriano's injury, and they'll figure it out. Of course, with no off day until next Monday, they don't have a lot of time to figure it out, and going to Colorado to face a Rockies team that has played surprisingly well this year and just stomped the Brewers might not be the preferred next destination. Maybe Zambrano just had a couple bad starts in a row and he'll be fine the next time he comes up in the rotation. Maybe this is all a blip on the way to a division title; the 2003 Cubs were just three games over .500 as late as August 31 and lost 9 of 14 between August 16 and 31. Still, looking to the past can only be so comforting. The whole point of spending $300 million was for this Cubs team to be the future, or at least the present, and right now that's being derailed by injuries and a pitching staff that seem to be starting to wear down. This may not ever have been a World Series team, but there's no reason it can't be a playoff team, and yet that's starting to feel like something that's severely at risk. There's a lot of baseball left to be played, but if the next month and half looks anything like the last week and a half, most of it is going to be pretty unpleasant.