The Chicago Cubs are likely to seek to sign Carlos Zambrano to a contract extension during the offseason, to avoid him becoming a free agent after the 2007 season. For that reason, the Houston Astros' recent signing of Roy Oswalt to a 5-year, $73M extension has much relevance, not only for Barry Zito and Jason Schmidt, as The Sporting News' Mike Berardino notes, but also for Zambrano and the Cubs.

Here are Zambrano's and Oswalt's numbers from July 1, 2002 (when Zambrano entered the Cubs' rotation) through September 3, 2006: