No Need To Worry About Matt Garza

With the exception of Starlin Castro and Andrew Cashner, most of the focus this season will be on new-Cub Matt Garza. Ever since the Cubs traded for Garza in January, there have been question over whether or not the Cubs traded too much to get him. In total the Cubs gave up five prospects, three of which–Chris Archer, Hak-Ju Lee, and Brandon Guyer–were among the Cubs top 10 prospects within the entire organization. So needless to say if Garza falters this season, fans may point the finger towards general manager Jim Hendry for “mortgaging” the future away, even though that would be an inaccurate assessment of the trade.

The fans who seemingly can’t wait to criticize Jim Hendry for the Garza trade may be starting to warm up their vocal cords. After another poor start against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Garza has finished spring training with an ERA of 10.38 (Not far off from Carlos Silva’s ERA) in 21.2 innings pitched while striking out 20, walking 14 batters, and allowing 35 hits.

Now to be honest, I could care less how well Garza performed in spring training. As we should all know by now that spring training is not an indicator to how a established starting pitcher will perform during the regular season. But it is interesting that Garza’s 2011 numbers in spring training, are far off from the 2.28 ERA and 6 walks allowed in 27.2 innings pitched last Spring Training with the Tampa Bay Rays. But like I said, I do not think it is fair to criticize Garza for a bad Spring Training.

But what may concern some about Matt Garza this spring is that he seems to always have an excuse for each of his bad outings. When Garza struggled in the early going of camp, albeit not a excuse, he said the reason he was struggling was because he was only throwing his fastballs in set locations. That is pretty reasonable as that is what most pitchers do at the beginning of spring training and then progress into throwing their secondary pitchers.

Then after Garza continued to struggle while throwing his secondary pitches it was because of his “landing spot on the mound caused his delivery to be off.” This is not as routine as Garza not throwing his secondary pitches, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Especially considering he was dealing with a minor hamstring injury that may have caused discomfort in some of his starts.

After his last spring outing, Garza just put his struggles on the state of Arizona in general.  This is Garza’s first spring training in Arizona, as he previously was in Florida with the Tampa Bay Rays. Garza who is not a big fan of spring training in Arizona, accused the dry air in Arizona as the reason he could not grip his pitches the right way in most of his starts. That is another reasonable excuse as for the most part spring training games in Arizona are dominated by offense.

Before anyone starts to question the Cubs trade for Garza, just note that it is only spring training. Fans should also not worry about Garza making “excuses” as Garza had a reasonable explanation for all his struggles in spring training. Come April 3 when Garza takes the mound against the Pittsburgh Pirates, I’m sure most will have already forgotten about Garza’s poor spring.