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:

Marquis' home runs allowed rate increased 33% from 2004 to 2006.

Combine that with more balls in play, because of this trend:

Marquis' strikeout rate went down 30% from 2004 to 2006. Outside of home runs, Marquis' batting average allowed on balls in play has stayed relatively consistent, and that at a below average level. But more balls in play means more hits. When those hits are increasingly fly balls, as has been the case with Marquis, those hits are increasingly extra base hits.

Of course, these graphs do not tell us why Marquis has seen his K% drop and his fly ball % increase. That is going to be Larry Rothschild's job to determine and fix.

That Marquis' problems be fixed is important both because of how much and how long the Cubs are paying him and because Marquis is blocking a stable of young starting pitchers. As Bob Sacamento at CubsHub.com pointed out, barring injury, Marquis will keep Sean Marshall and Angel Guzman out of the rotation in 2007, and potentially Sean Gallagher and Donny Veal down the road. Let's also add in Juan Mateo and Carlos Marmol. Marshall and Mateo were both better than Marquis last year, and Marmol was even with him, albeit all in fewer innings. It is quite likely that one of Marshall, Mateo, Marmol, and Guzman would be better than Marquis in 2007, let alone 2008 and 2009. Of course, the Cubs clearly have no desire to spend any time finding out which one.