Pitching

The Cubs are reportedly seeking another veteran arm for the bullpen. This is always a worrying thought lest they add another Gregg or Heilman to the mix, but if they are serious about this, they could do a lot worse than picking up Kiko Calero, who did a fine job for the Marlins last year, and should be pretty cheap.

There are also rumors that the Cubs have shopped Carlos Zambrano. That is a big, big mistake. In one stroke, they would go from having probably one of the best rotations in the league, and certainly the best in their division, to having one of the worst. In case nobody noticed, the only reason they finished a respectable second in the division last year was because of the quality of their starting pitching.

Moves like this, pushed by unusually ill-informed sportswriters and emotional fans, only make sense if you want to shed salary and rebuild, and then only if the highly paid pitcher happens to be coming off a series of good seasons. Now, I would argue that leaving aside his stints in the DL, Zambrano had his best season statistically in a couple of years last year, but even so, his perceived worth right now is nothing like that of a Roy Halladay, who was clearly moved by a cash poor team that was interested in a complete restructuring.

So, the Cubs now have a rotation of Zambrano, Dempster, Wells, Lilly, and one of three or four other contenders, viz., Marshall, Gorzelanny, Silva, and Samardzija. Not a bad setup. I don't expect much from Silva, and Samardzija, while he throws hard, does not know how to pitch and would benefit from a whole year at AA or AAA, but the other two would be OK. If the Cubs want a genuine starter, they could try to rehabilitate Sheets or Wang, but only on the cheap. Sheets seems to want a multi-year guaranteed contract as if he were still healthy, so the Cubs can afford to stand pat at least until the season gets going and they are in a position to assess their needs on the field.

Back to the bullpen. As I have noted, Calero is a potential pickup, but the question is where are you going to put him? Piniella usually likes to carry too many pitchers anyway, presumably because he cannot keep a good accounting of who is available and is not really good at double-switches. But right now, they have Marmol to close and Guzman and Grabow as the principal setup guys. Whoever loses the competition for the fifth starter slot, likely Marshall, Silva, and Samardzija, will wind up in long relief, although, as I said, Samardzija should go down to hone his skills.

So lets say they make this logical move, they have at best two slots left unless they carry thirteen pitchers, which makes no sense whatsoever. For some reason, they picked up Mike Parisi in the Rule 5 draft, so they are likely stuck with him unless they just release him. They also picked up Jeff Gray, who has shown signs he can actually pitch in relief, so he is likely to stay. Assuming they drop Parisi, they still have a bunch of young guys like Patton and Stevens and Berg and Caridad who might just work as the last man, especially the last two.

If the Cubs want to move salary, hey, think about Soriano, which is the really bad contract they are saddled with. But, of course, they do not even mention this because there is almost no scenario where he could be moved.