Baseball Digest: Young starters assure Cubs of being well-armed for future - Warm Up Tosses

IT WAS SHORTLY BEFORE MID-AUGUST AND BASEBALL WAS THE SUBJECT OF DISCUSSION in the local barbershop among patrons and the proprietor.

The Cubs were hanging around first place in the National League Central Division, and one unshorn patron fervently derided their chances of making it to the playoffs.

"They've got too many weaknesses," he asserted. "Sosa doesn't hit in the clutch, swings at balls two feet off the plate, and defensively he's a poor right fielder, besides.

"Neither of their catchers (Damian Miller and Paul Bako) can hit, their shortstop (Alex Gonzalez) strikes out too much, and their bullpen is over-rated."

Although the proprietor was intently clipping away, he listened patiently to the diatribe of his customer.

"Wait a minute!" the barber finally said. "Know who's favored? The Cubs!

"And, you know why? They've got the best, young starting pitching in the division."

The proprietor's assertion could not be dismissed as wishful thinking because he's always been privy to gambling odds, and his point was that baseball odds are set on pitching strengths and weaknesses.

The young starters he was referring to were all still in their 20s as the division race moved into the final weeks of the season, and included Carlos Zambrano, 22; Mark Prior, 23; Kerry Wood, 26, and Matt Clement, 29.

By August 17, all of them had notched double figures in victories, with Prior and Zambrano looking especially impressive while raising hopes of Cub fans that maybe, just maybe, they would propel the team into the playoffs and beyond.

At that point in the summer, however, there was no telling where the Cubs would finish this year--despite the barber's proclamation--but their young starters should provide a well-armed touch to the club in future seasons.

There is no question that Prior, at least in the opinion of those who have watched him on a consistent basis, has the makings of becoming the best starting pitcher the Cubs have had since Fergie Jenkins first started churning out 20-win seasons for the club in 1967.

He has control, strikeout power and a maturity that belies his age.

Zambrano, a big, strong (6-5, 245 pounds) right-hander from Venezuela, was gaining a similar maturity in August when the Cubs were in a tight battle with the Astros and Cardinals for the division lead.

He owned a five-game winning streak until August 17 when he lost a 3-0 decision to the Dodgers and Hideo Nomo at Wrigley Field.

"I made a mistake trying to over-throw the ball instead of pitch," Zambrano said.

The admission signaled his emergence from the learning process that separates winners from losers.

He had yielded a walk and three singles in the fourth inning as the Dodgers took a 2-0 lead, and that was enough to give Nomo the win.

"Anyone can have a bad inning," Zambrano added, "but it's good for you to make adjustments so you won't do that the next time."

The learning experience can be painful for a young pitcher if his team is in a fierce fight for a title. If its lessons are absorbed, however, there is a good chance that better results lie ahead.

That's what Cubs manager Dusty Baker was hoping for when he talked about his right-handed starters as the division race entered the critical stage.

"The starting pitching is getting better and stronger," he said. "These guys are feeding off each other."

In an effort to add a little perspective to these comments about the Cubs' rotation, mention should be made of three other clubs in contention for at least a wildcard spot in division playoffs at that juncture of the season.

These clubs were the Phillies, Marlins and Oakland A's. All three teams were braced with high-grade starters who were still in their 20s.

The Phillies had Kevin Millwood, 28; Randy Wolf, 27; Vicente Padilla, 26, and Brett Myers, 23.

The Marlins starters included Mark Redman, 29; Carl Pavano, 27; Brad Penny, 25; Josh Beckett, 23, and rookie left-hander Dontrelle Willis, 21.

And, the A's were relying on Tim Hudson, 28; Mark Mulder, 26, until he got hurt; Barry Zito, 25, and first-year pitcher Rich Harden, 21.

Fortified by young arms, it's no coincidence that these three teams and the Cubs were still in the hunt for a playoff berth as division races approached the home stretch.

Going back 17 years, the New York Mets had an outstanding young rotation that included Dwight Gooden (17-6), who was 21 years old; Sid Fernandez (16-6), 23; Ron Darling (15-6), 26, and Bob Ojeda (18-5), 28.

That club won 108 games during the regular season. None of the four current teams touched on here were destined to reach such a lofty level of success but the very fact they were still striving for the brass ring in late August had to be attributed primarily to their "young guns" on the mound.

In looking ahead to the 2004 season, Cub partisans, who have a sense of history, remain hopeful the current administration doesn't view the club's pitching talent with the same cockeyed logic as regimes did in the past.

After the 1992 season, they watched in dismay as the club let Greg Maddux go as a free agent. In 1993, Maddux won 20 games for the Braves and began building his Hall of Fame credentials.

In May 1983, reliever Willie Hernandez was traded to the Phillies, and Willie promptly helped his new club win a pennant. He then went to Detroit where he led the Tigers to a World Series title in 1984, while capturing the American League's Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards as he amassed 32 saves and nine wins in 80 games.

In 1980, Cub management gasped and almost fainted en masse when ace reliever Bruce Sutter, who had a devastating split-finger pitch, asked for a $750,000 salary. Sutter was promptly dispatched in a trade with the Cardinals for whom he topped the National League in saves in 1981(25), 1982 (36) and 1984 (45).

In 1975, early in the season, starter Burt Hooton was 0-2 for the Cubs, and was then expressed to the Dodgers in exchange for two guys named Geoff Zahn and Eddie Solomon. Hooton went 18-7 for LA the remainder of the campaign.

Following the 1973 season, starter Fergie Jenkins was sent to Texas in a deal for Bill Madlock, and Jenkins went on to win 25 games for the Rangers in 1974 and 17 more games for them in 1975. Madlock excelled as a hittter for the Cubs for three seasons, winning two batting titles, and then was traded to the Giants in 1977 because owner Phil Wrigley reasoned Madlock was the type of player who "would get fat" as he aged.

And, finally, without stretching out this litany too long, the Cubs dealt Ron Perranoski to the Dodgers in 1960 for aging infielder Don Zimmer who stayed with the club for only two years. Perranoski, needless to add, became one of the majors' leading relievers in subsequent years, mostly with LA and the Minnesota Twins.

Perhaps it's unfair to bring up these gruesome details of management's wobbly, past assessments regarding Cub pitching.

There is no intention on our part to rain on the Cubs' parade in 2003, a march that was disrupted on several occasions by the inconsistency of Wood and Clement, but was enhanced by the emergence of Prior and Zambrano as two of the hottest young starters in the National League.

That being said, the Cubs should be well-armed for the next few years as long as their front-office movers and shakers don't enact any off-the-wall ideas about the relative importance of pitching as their counterparts did in the past.