Zambrano

[BT]

<!--quoteo(post=107960:date=Jul 26 2010, 12:39 PM:name=veryzer)-->QUOTE (veryzer @ Jul 26 2010, 12:39 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=107949:date=Jul 26 2010, 11:35 AM:name=vitaminB)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (vitaminB @ Jul 26 2010, 11:35 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=107572:date=Jul 23 2010, 03:26 PM:name=veryzer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (veryzer @ Jul 23 2010, 03:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->1. Zambrano struggled early in the season and was banished to the bullpen despite the fact that he's been a solid pitcher his entire career.

2. Gorzallaney has not been a solid pitcher his entire career, Silva was coming off back to back terrible seasons, Wells was in his second year. They stayed in the rotation.

3. Zambrano has a history of volitility.

4. Despite the fact Zambrano has gotten progressively worse thoughout his career, he's still been one of the best pitchers in the NL.

Synopsis: Zambrano earned the right, through quality and quantity of work, to be able to work his problems out early in the season. Couple that with the fact he's completely insane, and you have to wonder what the fuck was going through Lou and Hendry's minds when they made the retarded decision to put him in the bullpen. Hendry and Lou took a bad situation and blew it to hell.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Here are the ERAs of the five starters at the time Lilly came back: 2.49 2.60 2.40 0.95 and <b>7.45</b>.

What kind of message does that send to the rest of the team? It doesn't matter if you perform well. If you make more money, we're going to stick with you? Which is essentially the way things usually work, and we all complain about it. See Fuk getting starts over Colvin, etc.

Once again, at the time we had been through about 3 or 4 8th inning guys IIRC. Throw in the fact that Zambrano's stuff was best suited for relief work and it made sense to me at the time. That's all I'm saying.
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What are the career ERA's? What were the ERA's of those same pitchers the year before? When did Lily come back, May? Was that enough time to shitcan their best pitcher over the last 6 years?

What kind of message did the Cubs send the team? That even though you've been an all star multiple times, the opening day starter multiple times, just thrown a no-hitter less than two years ago, and been one of the top 5 pitchers in the National League, we're gonna demote you if you don't get off to a good start? Is that the kind of message we need to send?
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The main problem with your argument is that you are ignoring Zambrano's actual performance over the last 2 years. Hendry wasn't. He has addressed your concerns when he said:

<!--quoteo-->QUOTE <!--quotec-->“He really hasn’t been up to the standards that he was before for two seasons,” Hendry said. “If you look at his last 50 starts, he probably ranks in the bottom third of the National League of overall performance, and I’m not saying that critically. That’s not something that I’m tying in with today, but that’s part of the decision that was criticized at the time, like we were taking our ace out of the rotation.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Hendry was taking the LONG view, not the short view, when they moved Zambrano to the pen. Now you can argue with Hendry's evaluation of Zambrano's last 50 starts, but (and I can't find this right now) I think I saw something at BP or on ESPN that essentially said the same thing.

To make a long story longer, you keep complaining because you feel that they yanked Zambrano after 4 bad starts, but that is pretty much the antithesis of what the Cubs did.