Cubs: Carlos Zambrano brought a little bit of everything to the table

When we talk about Cubs pitchers of the early 2000s, we tend to talk about ‘what might have been’ with Kerry Wood and Mark Prior – or maybe the second coming of Greg Maddux. Despite being a rock at or near the top of the starting rotation for a decade, though, it seems like Carlos Zambrano doesn’t get nearly the love he once did.

Signed back in 1997, the Venezuelan native made his big league debut four years later, making one start and five relief appearances for the 2001 Cubs – just enough to get his toes wet in the big leagues. From there, though, it didn’t take long for him to play his way into a prominent role on the pitching staff.

He split time between the rotation and bullpen in his first full big league season, making 16 starts and an equal number of relief appearances while working to a 3.66 ERA. But in 2003, it was Zambrano’s coming-out performance as a full-time starter, playing a day role on the NL Central Division champions.

Thanks partly to a league-best 0.4 HR/9 mark, Big Z – at just 22 years old – was part of the team’s young three-headed monster atop the rotation alongside Wood and Prior. He cracked 200 innings for the first time in his career and, in the process, kicked off a stretch of five-straight 200+ inning seasons in Chicago.

Wood and Prior were the only two Cubs more valuable that year, if you ask Baseball Reference. In August, the big righty flirted with a no-hitter in Arizona but fell short. As we all know now, though, Zambrano eventually crossed that off the to-do list in 2008 in the only neutral site no-no in MLB history.

Chicago Cubs: Effectively wild, Carlos Zambrano made his mark with the team

Control – both over pitches and his emotions – often eluded Zambrano. In 2004, arguably one of the best years of his career, he turned in a 2.75 ERA in 31 starts, but also led the league, hitting 20 batters.  Still, he earned the first All-Star selection of his career, even as the Cubs failed to build off their 2003 run, missing the postseason entirely.

Chicago finished below .500 in both 2005 and 2006, but that didn’t stop Zambrano from going out and doing his thing. Over that two-year stretch, he racked up nearly 440 innings of work, earning his first Silver Slugger and second All-Star nod in ’06, finishing fifth in NL Cy Young voting. Thankfully, the Cubs’ mediocrity was short-lived, with the club returning to the postseason in each of the next two years.

In Aug. 2007, Zambrano inked a massive extension to stay on the North Side. But the story of his performance in 2007 was wildness. There were altercations with teammates, maddening inconsistency on the mound and, for the second-straight year, a league-high in free passes. Despite it all, he won 18 games that season and, again, finished fifth in NL Cy Young balloting.

2008 was a special year for the veteran. Of course, he threw that no-hitter against Houston (a team he always seemed to dominate), but he did it all that year:

• 3.91 ERA in 188 2/3 innings of work
• No-hitter against Houston at Miller Park
• Slashed .337/.337/.554 in 85 PA, hitting 4 HR and driving in 14 runs

For his exploits, he picked up the second Silver Slugger of his career and was one of seven Cubs named to the NL All-Star team. However, while he was still a key piece for the club, he began to lose some steam in his final years in Chicago.

Chicago Cubs: The beginning of the end for Carlos Zambrano

In 2009, we all remember what he did to that ill-fated Gatorade cooler. He was solid, but unspectacular on the mound that year – and in 2010, Zambrano pitched just 129 2/3 innings. The highlight was probably making yet another Opening Day start (his sixth-straight, something no other Cubs pitcher had ever accomplished).

The 2011 campaign marked the end of the road for Zambrano. He’d always brought a certain level of, how should I say this, eccentricity to the yard every day – but when he packed up his gear after a brutal late-season showing on the road and went home, the Cubs suspended him and wound up trading him that winter – ending his time in the Windy City.

While it was an unceremonious ending to his Cubs career, it shouldn’t take away from what he did during his decade with the club. He played an integral role on the 2003, 2007 and 2008 postseason teams, really became the face of the ‘pitchers who rake’ movement and helped snap a decades-long streak during which the team hadn’t thrown a no-hitter.

He irked baseball traditionalists and was certainly unconventional at times, but Carlos Zambrano is definitely one of the most important players to put up a Cubs cap in this century.