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Zambrano really didn't prove any worth to the team and he was let go today.

It's probably not worth it's own thread, but I just wanted to bring up the fact that two guys that JP signed in the off season turned out to be terrible (Zambrano and Ohka).

Zambrano was only signed to a minor league deal, but i think JP needs to stop signing these 'journeymen' and hoping they'll turn out good.

Count ourselves lucky we weren't the Mets and dealt one of our better minor league pitchers for him.

Good to see him outta here.....not very good anymore IMO.

rkid wrote:Zambrano really didn't prove any worth to the team and he was let go today.

It's probably not worth it's own thread, but I just wanted to bring up the fact that two guys that JP signed in the off season turned out to be terrible (Zambrano and Ohka).

Zambrano was only signed to a minor league deal, but i think JP needs to stop signing these 'journeymen' and hoping they'll turn out good.

I disagree completely, even considering you've forgotten Thompson. Yeah, this bunch didn't turn out, but no one is really surprised by that; we knew they were long shots to return to form. Considering how much it cost, it was worth the gamble.

It was a very low risk for JP to sign these guys. Worth the shot to see if something panned out IMO.

A combined 2-7 record with a 6.66 ERA + a brutal Zambrano start where he didn't record the loss but the team went on to lose. We were put in line for 8 losses.

The problem with using the "if you throw enough crap on the wall..." mentality is that crap is still crap.

In the end I feel we DID pay a price for giving time to these guys. Unfortunately, J.P. has saved face for now with the emergence of McGowan and Marcum.

On another note, we must all be left wondering what could have been if we had the services of Meche or Lilly. Or perhaps even if the offseason rumor of Wells to the Dodgers for Penny + others came to fruition.

Or if Stairs was never signed....

Holmes wrote:A combined 2-7 record with a 6.66 ERA + a brutal Zambrano start where he didn't record the loss but the team went on to lose. We were put in line for 8 losses.

Do you think Josh Towers would have done much better in those starts?

I didn't have a problem with those deals at the time, and still don't. They were cheap and had some upside if at least one of them panned out. More importantly, they were short-term deals, which made it possible to incorporate guys like McGowan, Marcum, and eventually Janssen into the rotation. Signing one of Lilly or Meche (or both) to eight figure annual contracts over 4-5 years each would have made that impossible.

Plus, I didn't think Ohka was that bad. He had six starts where he threw at least 5 to 7 innings and gave up 4 runs or less (4.23 ERA over 36.1 innings in those starts). Getting that, plus a few stinkers, out of the 5 spot is not terrible. It just looks worse because Chacin and Towers were also in the rotation at the time, and all three are similar in that sense (except Chacin wins/gets run support).

not we really won't get the wild card