Jason Marquis made almost $5.2M for the St. Louis Cardinals last year and was, going away, the worst full-time starting pitcher in the National League. His 74 ERA+ was worse than any other pitcher who qualified for the ERA title in the NL. The Chicago Cubs, naturally, signed him to a three-year contract that averages $7M per season.

Marquis entered his age-27 season last year having just come off two years in which he had posted ERA's 13% and 3% above average, respectively, while throwing a total of 408.1 innings. So what happened? Well, there were a couple of disturbing trends.

Trend one:

The price for a Carlos Zambrano long-term contract is now set. ESPN.com reports that the San Francisco Giants have signed Barry Zito to a 7 year, $126M contract. (Hat tip: Chicago Cubs Online.)

Zambrano and Zito are very different pitchers who produce similar results. Zito's career ERA+ is 127; Zambrano's is 133. Zito has a slightly longer track record (6 full seasons v. 4). Zambrano is three years younger. Zambrano hits much better, with Zito being 1-for-29 in his career. (At 80 plate appearances over a full season, a pitchers' hitting ability should come into the equation more than it does, even if it shouldn't be much of the equation.)

If Zambrano eventually signs a contract worth $18M per season, that will push the Cubs' 2007 payroll to $119M, without knowing what Mark Prior, Neal Cotts, and Will Ohman are going to make. It will also push the payroll committed to just 13 players in 2008 to $103M.

SI.com's Tom Verducci provides his list of 10 potential breakout players in 2007. Coming in at #4 is the Cubs' Rich Hill:

Chicago pushed Hill to 199 1/3 innings between Triple-A and the majors last season -- way beyond his pro high -- so a potential breakdown looms. But if Hill stays healthy and gets a regular turn in the crowded Chicago rotation, he has the stuff to win 15 games.

Say the game ends at 11. Where will 60,000 Bears (and Packers) fans toast 2007?
The NFL's change in game time has ticket holders and partygoers across the city doing quite the New Year's shuffle.

By James Janega and Kathy Bergen
Tribune staff reporters
Published December 27, 2006

Sample:

The NFL announced late Monday that the Bears-Green Bay game would move from a noon start to 7:15 p.m. Sunday, meaning 60,000 or so fans will stream out of Soldier Field and into the middle of the city's New Year's Eve party as midnight approaches.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/foo...

Also see: http://www.chicagobears.com/

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Chicago Bears Cityscape
http://chicagocubsphotos.blogspot.com/20...

"Sammy Sosa began training Thursday in hopes of returning to the major leagues," reports the AP. And this time, he'll take a non-guaranteed contract like the one he rejected from the Washington Nationals before the 2006 season. "I want the chance and I believe one is going to appear. This time I will accept an offer like the one with the Nationals because I want to get back to the majors," Sosa said.

I, for one, am eager to see Sosa try to play again.

CubsNet.com has now enabled, on a trial basis, comments by anonymous users. As a result, you can now comment on blog posts and forum threads without registering with the site. All comments by unregistered users will be placed in an approval queue, and there is no guarantee on how soon your comment will show up on the site. In order to write your own blog posts and start your own forum threads, you will still need to register with the site.

UPDATE (12/26/2006 11:10pm): Shortly after we enabled anonymous comments, CubsNet.com was hit with a huge amount of referrer spam (a mini-DNS attack) that forced the site to be shut down due to the server load. Due to Christmas festivities, the problem could not be addressed until now. Turning anonymous comments back off has, so far, fixed the problem. So, they will remain off. As a result, we encourage you all to become a registered user to get the full benefits of the site.

Identity theft of MLB players alleged

Video also available: ID theft

By Dave Wischnowsky
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 20, 2006, 10:08 PM CST

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custo...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custo...

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Major league Dumpster diver
Man stole players' financial data from agent's trash: cops

December 21, 2006
BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/18157...

Bush spent his whole playing career with the Minnesota Twins, never as a full-time starter, but almost always as a useful player. He ended his career, spent as an outfielder and DH, with an adjusted OPS+ of 102. He was on both the 1987 and 1991 Twins World Series championship teams.

For my generation at least, he's well known as one of the better bench players in the classic Nintendo game RBI Baseball.

The Cub Reporter, one of the Cubs Blog Army's prominent blogs, has redesigned and relocated to be more fully incorporated into the Most Valuable Network. Here is the new location. There was a recent discussion at the Baseball Primer Newsblog regarding changes to All-Baseball / MVN.

Two new sources have been added to the CubsNet.com aggregator: MLB Rumors and Chicago Cubs Rumors, both from Yahoo! Sports.

I keep forgetting that #31 has not been retired. The ceremony at Wrigley was for the 300th win by Greg Maddux and not a jersey retirement ceremony.

It might be an idea to have a dual ceremony with Maddux and Fergie Jenkins honored with their #31 being retired.

"Stanford hired former NFL quarterback Jim Harbaugh on Monday to take over its struggling football program," reports the AP. "Harbaugh had spent the last three years as head coach at the University of San Diego, a non-scholarship Division I-AA program. He led the Toreros to a 29-6 record, winning 27 of his final 29 games at San Diego."

"First baseman-outfielder Ross Gload was traded by the Chicago White Sox on Saturday to the Kansas City Royals for reliever Andrew Sisco, a 6-foot-10 left-hander coming off a difficult season," reports the AP. Both players are former Cubs.

There are teams mentioned in this story that I didn't know existed!

Always room for more?

Is there a saturation point for the Chicago area sports market?

December 14, 2006
By KAREN SHOFFNER
Staff Writer Evanston-Review

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston/bus...

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CAN YOU NAME THEM ALL?

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston/bus...

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Photos from Ryne Sandberg Day at Wrigley Field

Just what the Bears need: another defensive starter out. ESPN.com reports:

Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson was charged Thursday with not having a gun owner identification card after six firearms were found at his Gurnee home.

The misdemeanor charge carries a penalty of up to a year in jail upon conviction, said Jeff Pavletic, first assistant state's attorney in Lake County.