This should be fun.

The Marlins will be fun to watch this year! Maybe Zambrano will even step up into a leadership role and mentor Hanley. We can only hope.

From the article, it sounds like Theo decided recently that Zambrano shouldn't be a part of the Cubs clubhouse:

New Cubs president Theo Epstein said Wednesday on WGN Radio that Zambrano would need to make significant changes to remain with the team.

“The Carlos Zambrano of 2011 and years previous can’t fit into the culture that we have here,” Epstein said. “Change needs to happen and change will happen. Either he’ll change and buy in and fit into this culture — and I understand there are a lot of skeptics around about that, and I understand that, and frankly, I’m skeptical as well.”

Like the move for the Fish. If they were going to have a dramatic improvement, I doubt clubhouse chemistry was going to be the reason anyway.

Perhaps Carlos heard how yummy Cuban food is?

Zambrano and Ozzie Guillen. Awesome. IS Milton Bradley still around?

This is so exciting!!!

Ian Stewart... Volstad... man... I know the Cubs probably couldn't have turned it around right away... but it might be real ugly at Wrigley this season. Like cover your eyes.

This is so exciting!!!

As a Braves fan, this makes me giddy.

If this comes to pass, it's been... interesting. I can't think of a more polarizing Cub in my lifetime than Zambrano. Sammy, maybe, but it seems like those who don't like Carlos, really, REALLY don't like him.

I'm sure a lot of people will have a problem with this (mostly the same crowd who isn't happy with the total rebuild the Cubs are doing), but Zambrano's final tantrum last year was the straw that broke this camel's back. I was open to him returning in 2012, but it was similar to that battered spouse who no longer asks when that outburst will happen, just when.

I sure hope the Cubs are eating every dime of his salary to get some form of talent in return.

On a lighter note, Gatorade coolers around Wrigley breathe a collective sigh of relief with this news.

I sure hope the Cubs are eating every dime of his salary to get some form of talent in return.

It would be reasonable to pay the Marlins double Z's salary if it allowed them to raid their farm system at will.

As a Braves fan, this makes me giddy.

I'm sure Heyward's knees think so, too.

I'm sure Heyward's knees think so, too.

Atlanta destroys Zambrano.

Atlanta destroys Zambrano.

I think when Z shatters one of Jason's glass limbs in one of those destroyings, I'll be able to actually hear your screaming from here.

“The Carlos Zambrano of 2011 and years previous can’t fit into the culture that we have here,” Epstein said.

Huh, that seems like a pretty dramatic statement by Theo standards.

Ian Stewart... Volstad... man... I know the Cubs probably couldn't have turned it around right away... but it might be real ugly at Wrigley this season. Like cover your eyes.

Are they getting Volstad? If so, getting a 25-year-old who can sop up innings in exchange for an overpaid guy whom you didn't want the slightest bit seems pretty good, really.

Theo's comments are particularly interesting; not only is he saying that chemistry/culture matters, but he is publicly acknowledging that one of his players may be a problem in that department.*

*The present tense assumes Z was still on the team when he made those comments.

EDIT - Coke for the DA.

If so, getting a 25-year-old who can sop up innings in exchange for an overpaid guy whom you didn't want the slightest bit seems pretty good, really.

Does it still make sense if you have to pay the overpaid guy? According to MLBTR, the Cubs are picking up every dime of Z's deal minus the league minimum. Z must be a real problem for that to make sense.

EDIT- Now they are reporting the Cubs will pay 15 of the 18 million due.

Isn't that pretty much what Epstein said a month ago or whenever. OK, maybe the "culture" emphasis wasn't there before but it was still a "Carlos needs to behave and prove himself to us" sort of statement.

I'll wait until I see the final talent and money that changes hands here but if all we're getting is Volstad while paying most of the $18 M, I am not happy. Volstad, if all goes right, is Randy Wells. And Volstad is arb eligible so will cost $2-3 M or so. Yes, he's only 25, but the K-rate is under 6, the K/BB is under 2 and the HR rate is over 1 in a neutral park ... that's not gonna translate well to Wrigley.

If this ends up as purely a Sosa/Bradley style dump then bleech!

Does a revitalized/re-energized/newly Guillenized Z have one more 2-3 WAR season in him? More than one?


2001 20 CHC NL -0.9
2002 21 CHC NL 1.2
2003 22 CHC NL 4.6
2004 23 CHC NL 5.5
2005 24 CHC NL 5.0
2006 25 CHC NL 4.2
2007 26 CHC NL 2.9
2008 27 CHC NL 3.2
2009 28 CHC NL 2.7
2010 29 CHC NL 2.7
2011 30 CHC NL 0.7

EDIT- if they are getting him for 1/3, I love this deal. They can send him away if he's a bad boy and it won't hurt them financially in the least, because they are made of money.

I'm interested to see how Carlos fares in the NL East. Like Sam pointed out, Zambrano has had more trouble with the Braves than he has with any other NL team.

Does a revitalized/re-energized/newly Guillenized Z have one more 2-3 WAR season in him? More than one?

Zambrano does seem to come back like a man on a mission when he returns from one of his hiatuses. You can chalk up most of those WAR in 2010 and 2011 to that stretch of games after he came back from murdering the Gatorade machine.

I suspect Z will be on his best behavior for a while, but we've seen too much evidence to refute the notion that he's really in control of his emotions for long periods of time.

Was Volstad just tossed out there or was it rumored somewhere?

If the Cubs pick up a big chunk of his salary - or all of it - LoMo makes a ton of sense for the Cubs... I mean - I know that's a heist and then some, but he's on the outs in Miami and the Fish seem to be trying to do what the Rays did a generation ago, which sometimes leads to really bad ideas.

OK - per Bruce Miles, sounds like its Volstad straight up.

I'm not unhappy about this, but neither am I excited by it.

I wouldn't be surprised if Zambrano pulls an A. J. Pierzynski with Miami -- horrible reputation player who pulls it together to be a respected veteran. Same manager even.

I don't know how realistic it was to expect to be excited about the specifics involved in trading Zambrano at this point. Guy is a head case and was owed a boatload of money in 2012. No way the Cubs weren't taking the short end of any swap involving Zambrano.

I wouldn't be surprised if Zambrano pulls an A. J. Pierzynski with Miami -- horrible reputation player who pulls it together to be a respected veteran. Same manager even.

Reform is a lot easier for someone who's only a dick, but not crazy.

Wow, I am shocked to see that among active pitchers, Jamey Wright has 40 more HBP than any other guy (excepting Wakefield). I was also shocked to see that Jamey Wright was, in fact, active.

I'll wait until I see the final talent and money that changes hands here but if all we're getting is Volstad while paying most of the $18 M, I am not happy. Volstad, if all goes right, is Randy Wells. And Volstad is arb eligible so will cost $2-3 M or so. Yes, he's only 25, but the K-rate is under 6, the K/BB is under 2 and the HR rate is over 1 in a neutral park ... that's not gonna translate well to Wrigley.

I think this undersells Volstad a bit - he was a first rounder (granted, the Fish actually have a pretty poor record there), he'll be 25.

I know the bb-ref similarity scores are pointless - but anyone on that 'through age 24 list' are perfectly fine.

I'm trying to talk myself into being happier than I should be, but I truly have always liked Volstad (he's been a roto end of auction flier for me 3 of the last 4 years).

I don't know how realistic it was to expect to be excited about the specifics involved in trading Zambrano at this point. Guy is a head case and was owed a boatload of money in 2012. No way the Cubs weren't taking the short end of any swap involving Zambrano.

Well, the latter point isn't that relevant if the Cubs are picking up the tab.

I'm not unhappy about this, but neither am I excited by it.

Yeah, I would have preferred the return value to be a couple of lottery tickets rather than somebody like Volstad who needs to really improve to rise to average and isn't going to be under team control for all that long. Even if he turns out, and the Cubs continue with their plan, he won't be providing discount value for a team built to contend.

First Buehrle and now Zambrano. Chicago pitching has no past.

Does a revitalized/re-energized/newly Guillenized Z have one more 2-3 WAR season in him? More than one?


2001 20 CHC NL -0.9
2002 21 CHC NL 1.2
2003 22 CHC NL 4.6
2004 23 CHC NL 5.5
2005 24 CHC NL 5.0
2006 25 CHC NL 4.2
2007 26 CHC NL 2.9
2008 27 CHC NL 3.2
2009 28 CHC NL 2.7
2010 29 CHC NL 2.7
2011 30 CHC NL 0.7

That's just his pitching WAR. He contributes .4 to 1.3 batting WAR every year. Lat year his .7 batting WAR matched his .7 pitching. His 2003-2006 peak was 5.2, 6.1, 5.8, 4.6 in total WAR, and 2008 was 4.5

Gakk.

I think if the choice is between spending 18 million dollars to have Carlos Zambrano or spending 18 million dollars to have Chris Volstad you choose Carlos Zambrano.

Hell, this doesn't even send a message to the team since everyone except the Albatross is either gone or going to be gone.

PS, Hendry made a better trade to get rid of Sosa than Theo did to get rid of Zambrano

Yeah, I would have preferred the return value to be a couple of lottery tickets rather than somebody like Volstad who needs to really improve to rise to average and isn't going to be under team control for all that long. Even if he turns out, and the Cubs continue with their plan, he won't be providing discount value for a team built to contend.

I don't think that's right. Volstad is arb 1 - if he has a good year, the Cubs will be in great position to ink him to a team-favorable contract. Further, the Cubs have the capacity to spend tons of money. The club's problem for the future isn't that they don't have the money to build a contending roster, it's that they have so little talent that they can't build a contending roster in just one offseason.

If I were running the Cubs, I'd be planning on contending in 2013, 2014 at the latest, and the primary Epstein/Hoyer acquisitions have fit with that time-frame.

Let's not start up another how-soon-should-the-Cubs-try-to-compete argument. McCoy will lose his mind.

I like this deal for the Marlins, in that they're basically getting Z for 1/$3m plus Volstad. $3m isn't much of a risk for a starter just a season removed from a 127 ERA+. In fact, I was surprised to see his overall numbers for the past few years; I knew '11 wasn't good, but I had the impression 09-10 weren't so great either. And yeah, it's been quite a while since he pitched 200 innings, but still...

Meanwhile Volstad is young, but I just don't see a lot of upside there.

As a Cub fan, the only positive I can take out of this is the chance to see an Ozzie/Zambrano clash, because Christ, that would be epic.

I know I tend toward this kind of sentiment, but I think this makes sense for both teams.

Z for $3M + a player the org wasn't sold on in Volstad (who was rumored to be a non-tender candidate) is a pretty good deal, especially given the Marlins desire to make a splash this offseason. For Chicago - well, I happen to like Volstad (and never thought the Marlins would actually dump him), think that he could be a solid 3/4 starter + this gets rid of a guy who needed to go.

For once, I completely agree with McCoy (post 34). Well said.

It would be reasonable to pay the Marlins double Z's salary if it allowed them to raid their farm system at will.

It would be, if there were anything worth raiding there. But there isn't. Christian Yelich had a good year, but he's at least three years from playing in the majors and is probably limited to left field defensively. There's really not much of anything else; some raw kids with upside (Jose Fernandez) and some originally highly-regarded prospects who haven't developed at all (Kyle Skipworth, Matt Dominguez).

-- MWE

I think we can tell what's happening here -- Epstein/Hoyer see their hand as consisting of a two, a four, a six, a Kraft American single and a 1990 Don Russ Domingo Ramos card.

I'm not seeing much to like about this deal. I am all for the Cubs turning over their roster, but if they aren't shooting for doing much in 2012, why not give Zambrano a spin and see what he can pull off? He's turned it around miraculously more than once in his career before. I'm inclined to gamble on what Zambrano can do to make himself tradebait in the first few months of the season over Volstad's long-term potential, if you have to pay Zambrano's salary either way. I mean, it's one thing if Zambrano mailed Epstein a turd in a shoebox or something like that, but letting bygones be bygones should be on the list of goals for the New Cubs, right along with getting rid of the stale old blood.

As for Zambrano and Guillen -- I expect it to be a match made in heaven more than a source of conflict.

I don't think that's right. Volstad is arb 1 - if he has a good year, the Cubs will be in great position to ink him to a team-favorable contract.

You could say the same thing about Zambrano, couldn't you? Has Volstad done anything ever to make one think he's going to have a single year that would make you want to lock him up long-term?

This could all work out well for the Cubs talent-wise, but right now it looks like the same "addition by subtraction" strategy that shackled Hendry every off-season.

If I'm Theo I would have sat Zambrano down and said "look, don't be a dink, pitch well and I'll trade you to a contender at mid-season." Effectively signing Chris Volstad to a one year, $15 million contract makes no sense to me.

The club's problem for the future isn't that they don't have the money to build a contending roster, it's that they have so little talent that they can't build a contending roster in just one offseason.

If I were running the Cubs, I'd be planning on contending in 2013, 2014 at the latest, and the primary Epstein/Hoyer acquisitions have fit with that time-frame.

Not gonna happen though.

It's true the Cubs didn't have a lot of talent on hand and I think it's true (or highly unlikely) that they could build a contender in one offseason. But they have added no talent of not this offseason. They've dumped some (nothing too special) and gotten back some guys who might contribute but if you thought the 2011 Cubs didn't have the talent, wait until you see 2012. So I don't know what "primary acquisitions" you're referring to. DeJesus? Wood?

And next year's FA market doesn't look so hot. So unless Brett Jackson is Willie Mays or Vitters magically transforms into Chipper Jones, I don't see how it's possible for the 2013 Cubs to contend. There was a chance this offseason -- not to make the Cubs instant contenders. But Pujols, Castro, Soto, Garza, Marmol, Marshall and one more FA (probably CJ Wilson) gives you one hell of a core you can build around in 2013-4. Adding DeJesus to that kind of team makes a lot of sense.

So I'm pretty sure Theo's timeline ain't anything like 2013/4. Unless we see a last-minute Prince signing or somebody dumb enough to trade us their farm system for Garza, this looks like a 5-year plan to me.

I will add -- I don't have a particular problem with this trade or with any of the moves Theo has made so far. They're a bunch of tear-down trades and I agree there wasn't much there to tear down so you can't expect to receive much in return. Theo's got a slightly better track record than I do when it comes bo building a winning baseball team so I'm happy to cut him slack even though we disagree.

It's just that when Theo took over in Boston he had a quote along the lines of "we are not going to stop being a $100 million team but we are going to be become a $100 million development machine." Of course it ended up being a $150 million development machine. That's the strategy I wanted to see with the Cubs not "follow the Rays!"

I think I like this because Theo is doing precisely what I do when I play out a few seasons of OOTP. My next move would be to sucker the Yankees into Soriano for some combination of Corban Joseph, Cody Johnson, and Brett Marshall. I usually have to toss in a BPJ or Rafael Doliz to get them to bite, but aren't major league GMs stupider than a baseball sim AI?

Actually - it's usually the ChiSox who bite on Zambrano, which is weird in an Ozzie-centric sort of way.

Not a huge fan of the deal if the return was just Volstad, but it does allow the Cubs to move on.

So once the inevitable Garza trade goes down, the Cubs are probably looking at a sub-$90 million payroll. Make your own guesses on arb awards.

Going into the 2013 offseason, the Zambrano money, Dempster and Byrd are all gone. Another offseason of sitting the top level FA market out (Napoli, Kinsler, Wright, Youkilis, Josh Hamilton, Grienke - if any of them actually hit the market) and Chicago could be in Oakland payroll territory.

I don't know if the fanbase would tolerate the Cubs at a 50 to 60 million dollar payroll.

Another offseason of sitting the top level FA market out (Napoli, Kinsler, Wright, Youkilis, Josh Hamilton, Grienke - if any of them actually hit the market) and Chicago could be in Oakland payroll territory.

Wright and Youkilis both have two years left before FA.

Looking at that chart of Zambrano's year-by-year WAR, you can see very clearly that his prime years coincided with Dusty Baker's tenure as Cubs manager. But I'm sure Dusty had nothing to do with that.

This is a terrible deal, should be getting more in return since they are eating so much of the contract

Going into the 2013 offseason, the Zambrano money, Dempster and Byrd are all gone. Another offseason of sitting the top level FA market out (Napoli, Kinsler, Wright, Youkilis, Josh Hamilton, Grienke - if any of them actually hit the market) and Chicago could be in Oakland payroll territory.

I'm trying to think of the last team that truly won purely on the FA market, though...

I think it's more likely he's freeing up space so he can be in on any and every "I gotta shed this guy" that's CERTAIN to come up in 2012 and 2013. He doesn't know what he'll need in 2013 or whenever this barren save Castro team will be any good. Do you really think there won't be a Pirates, Brewers, Royals, Rays -- or hell, a still scuffling financially Mets or Dodgers -- desperately looking to shed payroll?

I honestly don't care about payroll. If the next good Cubs team has a payroll of 50 or 150 million - makes no difference to me.

Either you're going to trust the process or you're not.

As I said in the last thread, if all you thought the Cubs needed was to spend money -- you don't need a new regime in the FO to do that.