Chicago Cubs Betting - Zambrano Traded to the Marlins

• Friday, January 6th, 2012

  By  Blade Armstrong

  

  Chicago Cubs betting may not be successful in 2012 but at least fans won’t have to worry about pitcher Carlos Zambrano causing trouble this season. The Cubs traded their malcontent to the Miami Marlins in exchange for pitcher Chris Volstad. The Cubs will also have to pay $15 million of Zambrano’s $18 million dollar salary for 2012. Zambrano had a no trade clause be he agreed to waive it to go to the Marlins. The Cubs also agreed to pay Zambrano the $2.4 million he lost when he was suspended back in August.

  High Risk, High Reward for Florida

  The Marlins are going for everything in 2012 so they are in a position to take a chance on Zambrano. If they can get him to pitch to his capability then the Marlins may have a #2 starter to go behind Josh Johnson in the starting rotation. Zambrano is friends with new Miami manager Ozzie Guillen so it is possible that the risk is worth the reward for the Marlins. "Ozzie has a long and close relationship with Carlos," Miami president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest said. "We went with Ozzie on this one. The bottom line was Ozzie just really, really felt confident about this deal."

  Safety for Chicago

  Chicago Cubs betting is not likely to be successful in 2012 as they are building for the future. President of baseball operations, Theo Epstein met with Zambrano back in November and pretty much said that Zambrano would have to do a lot to be accepted back in the Cub’s clubhouse. Epstein talked to a number of players who said that Zambrano would not be welcomed back. "Every player I talked to articulated to me that Carlos really violated their trust.” Epstein said, “When you're talking about physical altercations with players repeatedly, when you're talking about physically walking out on the team, it's very hard to then have that player come back into the clubhouse and be trusted.” Part of building for the future is to get a clubhouse where players get along and that meant getting rid of Zambrano and bringing in someone reliable to replace him. Chris Volstad is about as reliable as you can get although how good he is a question. Volstad is 32-39 with a 4.59 ERA in his career but he always takes the mound and throws a lot of innings. He has made at least 29 starts in each of the past three years.

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