Carlos Zambrano MPL Player

2009-05-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Carlos Alberto Zambrano (born June 1, 1981, in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela), popularly known as "Big Z" or "El Toro," is a right-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who has played for the Chicago Cubs since 2001. He is signed with the Cubs through the 2012 season. He is one of the few switch-hitting pitchers in the MLB and has won a Silver Slugger Award twice for his hitting.

Zambrano, an imposing figure at 6' 5" and 255 pounds, was signed by the Cubs as a free agent in 1997 and made his debut in 2001. After being used in both starting and relief duties, he enjoyed his first full season as a starter in 2003, finishing with a 13-11 record, 168 strikeouts and a 3.11 ERA.

Widely regarded as one of the best hitting pitchers in the game, he has a career .240 batting average with 17 home runs, 48 RBIs and a slugging percentage of .386. The 17 home runs is the most ever by a Cubs pitcher in history. He also tied the club record for home runs by a pitcher in a single season after clubbing six round trippers in 2006. Ferguson Jenkins is the other Cub great who compiled six home runs in one season as a pitcher. Due to his impressive stats at the plate he has been called on to pinch hit 17 times in his career.

Zambrano is one of only two National League pitchers to have won at least 13 games in each year from 2003–07, the other being former teammate Greg Maddux. In 2006, he became the first player from Venezuela to lead the National League in wins.

Pitching style

Zambrano is noted for his vibrant personality on the mound.He allows his emotions to be evident, always indicating whether he is happy with his performance or not. Zambrano's pitches match this nature, as every pitch in his repertoire has significant movement. His pitches come out of a slinging, three-quarter to low-three-quarter delivery. His main pitch is a hard, moving two-seam fastball that clocks at around 90–94 mph and a four-seam fastball that can reach 99 mph, but usually settles around 96 or 97 mph. He also has a heavy sinker that he throws with a split grip, a pitch that hitters often beat into the ground – an advantage considering Wrigley Field's tall, thick grass.He always makes sure to mix in plenty of sharp-breaking sliders and split-finger fastballs to keep hitters from sitting on his fastball. In addition, Carlos has also developed a changeup that he throws mostly to left-handed batters. His main weakness is a lack of pinpoint control, leading to a tendency to surrender walks. Nevertheless, Zambrano seems to be hurt less by walks than many pitchers, since batters hit many more ground balls than fly balls against him. This can be attributed to the sinking movement of his fastball.

Professional career

2001–02 seasons

Zambrano was called up to the Cubs and pitched in his first game on August 20, 2001, starting against the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field in the second game of a double header. Zambrano started the game well, retiring the first nine of the first ten batters faced. He ran into difficulties in the fourth inning, and was removed before getting any outs in the fifth. He was charged with seven earned runs, walked four batters, and threw just 74 pitches.

One month later, on September 20, Zambrano gained his first big-league victory by finishing out the fifth inning against the Houston Astros. Zambrano pitched just two-thirds of an inning in relief of Juan Cruz, and was just 20 years old.Zambrano did not have any additional starts in the season, and the Cubs finished in third place with an 88-74 record.

Zambrano started the 2002 season with the AAA Iowa Cubs, but was quickly called up to the big leagues where he was dispatched to the bullpen and pitched in sixteen games during the first three months of the season. On July 1, 2002, Zambrano started against the Florida Marlins, taking a struggling Jason Bere's spot in the rotation. Zambrano logged sixteen starts for the Cubs, recording four wins and eight losses. At times he showed immense potential, including eight innings of shutout ball against the Milwaukee Brewers on September 4.Zambrano did struggle with control, logging 63 walks in just over a hundred innings of work. The Cubs posted a disappointing 67-95 record for the season, finishing in fifth place.

Attitude

Zambrano, despite still being occasionally prone to letting a bad start get away from him, developed from an emotional fireballer to a more mature and calculating pitcher who gained greater placement and movement on his breaking pitches while retaining his devastating two-seam and four-seam fastballs, the latter often showing that most unhittable combination of 98 mph heat and unexpected movement. Zambrano has always been well-known for his displays of emotion: he rises and falls with the ups and downs of the game, unable or unwilling to hide exuberance after a key out or great frustration after failure. Occasionally, after striking out, Zambrano will even break his bat over his knee. This unsuppressed emotionality has sometimes been called a weakness, and at times in 2006 it appeared to many fans that Zambrano was consciously attempting to tamp his emotions down. However, Zambrano's apparent experiment failed quickly, as his least emotional starts were rarely the most dominating. Furthermore, Zambrano's indulgence of his emotion not only seemed to have a net positive effect on his performance, but endeared him to fans and made him today indisputably the Cubs' fan favorite by a wide margin. Always popular and an exciting pitcher, it was arguably not until 2006 that Cubs fans collectively accepted that both Prior and Wood were unlikely to overcome their injuries, and Zambrano's combination of intimidating attitude and performance made him the team's top draw and only truly indispensable player.

Zambrano's ERA of 3.41, was inflated by a couple of quick exits in the beginning of the season and a somewhat less effective final few starts, possibly due to running up relatively high pitch counts throughout the season. During the middle months of the season, Zambrano was generally dominant, and established himself as one of the National League's top pitchers. He was often mentioned as a Cy Young candidate, although the Cubs' last-place finish made wins hard to come by. Despite getting no-decisions or losses towards the end of the season, his 16-7 record was still noteworthy for a weak-hitting, 66-win team. He also registered 210 strikeouts and a .207 batting average against; both led the National League. His summer streak earned him the National League Pitcher of the Month award for the month of July.

Over the course of his career, Zambrano has also been able to produce on offense. Zambrano's batting average had previously been relatively high for a pitcher, averaging in the .230s and even reaching .300 in 2005, in 80 at bats (a full season for a pitcher). In 2006, however, Zambrano apparently decided to forgo the traditional sacrifice bunts and slap-singles that are the only option for most NL pitchers, and test his skills at swinging away. While Zambrano's batting average dipped to a more pitcher-like .151 (although this figure was higher at many times during the season), Zambrano began to hit home runs with more frequency. Despite his low batting average, Zambrano's 12.2 AB/HR ratio that season was on par with that of top power hitters. Zambrano finished the season with six home runs as a batter, the most by a pitcher in a season since Mike Hampton of the Colorado Rockies hit seven in 2001, and not far from the all-time mark of nine (excluding Babe Ruth), set by Wes Ferrell in 1931. His hitting prowess led then-Cubs manager Dusty Baker to take the very rare step of using him as a pinch-hitter four times during the 2006 season, in which he went 0-4 with 2 strikeouts. Still, Zambrano's dangerous hitting earned him a Silver Slugger award. He avoided arbitration with the Cubs by agreeing to a one year, $12.4 million dollar deal.

2008 season

Zambrano started the 2008 season by compiling a 12-4 record with a 2.76 ERA through July 27. At the plate, he has a batting average of .354 thru September 14. Zambrano also had a four-hit game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 23, making him the first Cubs pitcher since Lew Burdette in 1964 to accomplish this feat. On June 21, the Cubs placed Zambrano on the 15-day disabled list (retroactive to June 19), because of a right shoulder strain. In his return off the DL on July 4, Zambrano pitched six shutout innings and recorded the victory in the Cubs' 2-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. On July 7, Zambrano was one of seven Chicago Cubs players announced as participants of the 2008 MLB All-Star Game. On July 19 he set the club record for home runs by a pitcher, when he hit a seventh inning homer in Houston off Wandy Rodriguez.

In his first start back after missing two starts due to rotator cuff tendinitis, Zambrano pitched a no-hitter on September 14 against the Houston Astros. The game was moved to Miller Park in Milwaukee because of damage in Houston due to Hurricane Ike making it the first ever neutral site no-hitter.Zambrano only allowed two base-runners as he walked Michael Bourn in the 4th inning and hit Hunter Pence in the 5th inning. It was the first no-hitter by a Cubs pitcher since Milt Pappas did so September 2, 1972 breaking the longest drought of any team to have already had a no-hitter. The record now belongs to the San Francisco Giants. Zambrano gave up one walk and threw 10 strikeouts over 110 pitches in his 14th win for the season and his 95th all time.

Career earnings

As of 2008 season
Year League Team Salary ($)
2008 National League Chicago Cubs 16,000,000
2007 National League Chicago Cubs 12,400,000
2006 National League Chicago Cubs 6,500,000
2005 National League Chicago Cubs 3,760,000
2004 National League Chicago Cubs 450,000
2003 National League Chicago Cubs 340,000
Career Total 39,450,000