The Only Thing Crazier Than Carlos Zambrano? Moving Him To The Bullpen

[picappgallerysingle id="8589463"]

You can blame a Billy Goat all you want, but the only curses that surround the Chicago Cubs are the ones that come when they make dumb decisions.

The Curse of Stupidity and Bad Baseball Management is the only one that has kept the Cubs without a championship since 1908.

And moving Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen isn’t going to help end that drought any time soon either.  It is so apparent this move is so bad, even Phil Rogers  realizes it is completely stupid.

You’ve seen the rest of the rants, now read the best.The only way I will backtrack on this is if the Cubs win the World Series.

If the Cubs win the World Series this year, I’ll attend a St. Louis Cardinals game wearing a Yadier Molina jersey.  If they make it to the World Series, I will go the entire offseason without making a Tony La Russa drunk joke.

Before yesterday’s win against Jeff Suppan, the Cubs were 6-10 and on pace to lose about 100 games, so it looks like I’ve just made a safe bet there.

This team is a joke.  And not one of those funny Chris Rock jokes.  Or one of those corny Chip Caray jokes.

The offense is reeling.  The bullpen is atrocious.  So, the thing to do here is to move one of your best starting pitchers and use him as a middle reliever.  Not a closer, but a middle reliever.

Those Cubs front office guys make Kyle Farnsworth look like a Rhodes Scholar.

The Cubs claim the move was an organizational decision, which makes sense considering this franchise has been operating under the advisement of Baseball for Dummies.

GM Jim Hendry, assistant GM Randy Bush, manager Lou Piniella and pitching coach Larry Rothschild were all a part of the process that ruled in favor of moving Big Z to the bullpen.

If that’s the case, Piniella has got to go.  As reluctant as I am to throw push the eject button on a coach — especially one that has guided the team to two division titles and three consecutive winning seasons.  But if Sweet Uncle Lou thinks that moving a guy who has averaged 32 starts and 200 innings  into a role in which he is used one inning at a time, the game has clearly passed him by and it’s time for a change at the top.

It’s really no surprise that Hendry endorses this decision.  His recent decision making has been as questionable as Ben Roethlisberger’s.

Giving an eight year contract for a left fielder who will be a 38-year-old earning $18 million when his contract expires in 2014.

Trading a once-heralded, untouchable prospect for one year of allowing the other team to walk off with wins in the ninth.

Signing a three year, $21 million dollar deal for an outfielder who hasn’t spent two straight years on the same team since 2005 and had no track record of being the middle-of-the-order hitter he was paid to be.

If this was Las Vegas, Hendry would be shuttled to the nearest rehab center for compulsively gambling away his team’s future.

Then there’s this from ESPN’s Bruce Levine:

The Padres at some point will put closer Heath Bell on the market. The Cubs will have as good a shot as anybody to obtain Bell if they’re willing to give up a No. 1 prospect like infielder Josh Vitters.

(snip)

Cubs GM Jim Hendry will gladly overpay in prospects if he gets the go-ahead from the Ricketts family to trade for a pitcher like Bell and absorb his $5 million contract.

Gladly overpay for a 32-year-old closer?  Jim, if that’s the case, go away.  Go far away from baseball.  As far away as possible.  Do so now before you make Brock-for-Broglio look like a fair deal.

This is all the proof that I need to know that unless Jimbo is telling me where I can get a good bucket of fried chicken, I’m turning down every piece of advice he gives me.

Rothschild co-signed on the move as well, reminding us of the success stories of Todd Worrell and Rob Dibble.  Nevermind the fact that neither Worrell nor Dibble ever started a game for their respective teams.

Worrell never led the National League in wins.  Zambrano, on the other hand, has done so.  Dibble  burned out his arm by age 29 and was out of baseball at age 32.  And he was never even managed by Dusty Baker.

Levine also reports that the Cubs have yet to consider bringing up hard-throwing righty Andrew Cashner, the team’s first round pick from a few years back.  And why not?  It’s not as if he was an elite college closer at Rutgers.

Oh, wait.  He was.

Everyone in a position of power thinks that the decision was a good move for the team.

And where was this brash decision making when Alfonso Soriano was whiffing away at the plate and in the field last year?  Or when Crazy Uncle Milton was imploding and playing like absolute dog crap?  Or perhaps when Kevin Gregg went out of his way to raise the “L” flag atop the Wrigley Field scoreboard?

The Cubs wanted Big Z to control his emotions coming into this year, and he’s done that.  They wanted him to lose weight, and he did so by trimming the excess pounds.

They let Soriano and Gregg toil away as they played like trash and allowed Milty to run amok in the clubhouse.  So, tell me why the Cubs are jerking around the longest-tenured ballplayer who has done things exactly how the management wanted them to be done?

By moving Zambrano to the bullpen,  the Chicago Cubs have told their fans they would rather see Tom Gorzelanny, Randy Wells or Carlos Silva in the starting rotation than Big Z.

It’s that kind of logic that has kept the Cubs from winning a World Series since 1908 and the kind of thought process that will keep them titleless until 2108 as far as I’m concerned.