Dear Mr. Hendry: Give ‘Big Z’ What He Wants

Mid-February: dreary, cold, boring (if you live in Illinois), and nothing on TV in the weigh of sports. Have no fear though my fellow sports junkies, baseball is soon to make an appearance on a TV near you. With those words I can hear a resounding shout of joy, but that is after the fact that we have to sit through two months of basketball and a debunked NHL, sounds like fun, right? Never the less there is news affront in Chicago, specifically with the Cubs. It is no secret that the Cubs were atrocious last season (last century as well), finishing with an NL worse 66-96 record. General Manager Jim Hendry has attempted to make amends with fans by spending over $300 million in the offseason to procure the best and brightest (Ramirez, Soriano, DeRosa, Kotts, Marquis, Floyd, and Lilly). Plus, one cannot forget the luring of Lou Pinella to his grave for $10 million (coaching the Cubs may kill the man).

Hendry’s acquisitions will hopefully end the longest drought in sport’s history between championships, 99 years. Either way, if the Cubs blow it this season they move into triple digits, if not they will produce big numbers to help pay for some of those big contracts. But Hendry needs to shell out just another $15 million. What is $15 million between friends? Hopefully nothing because it is vital that Carlos Zambrano is signed before the season starts. During the annual Cubs convention last weekend, Zambrano stated that he needs to be signed by the Cubs before the season starts, or he is “gone” after the 2007 season. The Cubs offered Zambrano $11 million a year, but that was not enough. I will admit that $15 million is a bit extreme, but Carlos does bring up a good point when he pointed out that Barry Zito was signed for $126 million over 7 years, hence taking the biggest free agent off of the market. If Zambrano is not signed it is obvious that he is going to be the most courted starting pitcher on the market in 2008.
Plus, it is not an intelligent strategy to let the ace of your pitching staff go without any compensation.

Mark Prior and Kerry Wood have proven that they deserve of the title ‘ace.’ But the chances of either one of them staying injury free throughout the season is comparable to me obtaining a date with a super model. With those prospects, it is vital that Zambrano stick around to lead the charge. In my mind he has proven his worth season in and season out. Last season he led a rickety starting staff with a 3.41 ERA, 210 strikeouts, and 214 innings. No one is invincible, but Zambrano is comparable to a thoroughbred horse running a marathon; the man hardly misses any starts. The rest of his numbers are in the top five in the NL. What we have here is a pitcher in his prime and one that Chicago cannot let get away. If history serves as a reference, one cannot forget the Greg Maddux ordeal in the early 1990’s. Look what happened to him? He served out the prime of his career in Atlanta, not Chicago.