Carlos Zambrano Pays The Price For The Chicago Cubs Rich Pitching

Friday May 7, 2010

The Chicago Cubs have plenty of pitching talent and it has cost Carlos Zambrano his spot in the rotation.

At the Major League level the Cubs have six very good starting pitchers. In fact, they are so strong that they have moved their struggling ace, Carlos Zambrano (1-2 6.29 era 1.77 whip), to the pen. The current rotation has performed very well. As of today, they are a combined 9-8 with a 3.48 era and a 1.16 whip. In addition, they strike-out 3.3 batters for each one they walk.

The Cubs farm systems is also filled with talented young arms. The chart below outlines just how deep the farm system is:

LEVEL AAA

Pitcher              wins  losses  era   whip

Jay Jackson          2       3     2.31  0.86

Casey Coleman      2       2     3.69  0.95

Thomas Diamond    1       0     1.65  0.99

AA

Andrew Cashner     3       1     2.75  0.97

Hung-wen Chen      3      1     2.40  1.10

Austin Bibens-Dirkx  0       1    2.88  0.96

Alex Maestro          2       1    3.57  1.08

Craig Muschko        1       0    3.60  1.00

High A

Rafael Dolis            1       2    1.84  1.13

Aaron Shafer          1       0    0.83  0.92

Low A

Su-Min Jung           4       0    0.78  1.17

Brooks Raley, Christopher Archer and Christopher Rusin are three other promising young arms within the organization. These three are off to poor starts but keep your eye on them, they have potential.