You’re really not a big time athlete until you learn to refer to yourself in the third person.  Rickey Henderson perfected the art, and took it to heights no one ever expected.  Rickey is infamous for referring to himself only as Rickey.  Not just after games, but during them, not just during them, but during pitches while he’s the one at the plate.

When someone sets the bar that high, how can anyone ever expect to exceed it?

Carlos Zambrano mulled that over all offseason.  Given his proclivity for surfing the net for porn to chat with his brothers, I’m sure he did a lot of research.

But in today’s Chicago Tribune, Carlos didn’t just raise the bar.  He ripped the bar down, and broke it over his knee like one of his bats after an unsatisfactory at bat.

Carlos started out with the necessary third person reference:

I want to sign with the Cubs before the season starts. If they don’t sign me, sorry, but I must go. That’s what Carlos Zambrano thinks.

Impressive, it’s not even spring training yet, and Carlos has his ‘a’ game working.

Then, it happens.

Jim spent a lot of money. I hope he has more for ‘Big Z.’

I don’t believe what I just read!

Unbelievable!  Unbelievable!

Do you believe in miracles?  Yes!

Hear me now and believe me later!

Carlos Zambrano has just broken the last barrier of sports cliche quotes!  He’s successfully used the fourth person!

He’s worth the $126 million just for that alone.  Pay the man.

But do we really think that the Cubs aren’t going to pay Carlos?  They just spent the offseason giving Mark DeRosa and Jason Marquis enough money that they can wipe their hineys with $20s and not blink, you don’t think they’re going to pay the  force of nature that is Big Z?

Besides, it’s not like they’re spending their own money.  They just make the deals, they’ll let some other poor schlub pay the bills.  Hell, they won’t have to pay Carlos until next year, they’ll probably offer up the gross national product of Luxembourg.

And if you’re scoring at home, the gross national product of Luxembourg is goat cheese.

And yes, I did just steal a joke from Benson.  Hey, what do you want, I’m rusty.

In the same rag that Carlos’ quotes appeared, Seabiscuit’s Jockey tried to get the bottom of why the Cubs would want to bat Alfonso Soriano leadoff?  After all, he hits home runs.  You never bat a guy who hits home runs leadoff.

Leadoff is reserved for guys who slap pathetically at pitches and do neat things like go out before batting practice and roll balls down each line to see how slanty the grounds crew made it.  (That’s not a slam at Yosh Kawano, he’s a clubhouse guy, not a groundskeeper.)

Most of all, leadoff hitters do not hit home runs.  Juan Pierre couldn’t have hit 10 homers last year if they let him bat at second base.  Now THAT is a leadoff hitter.

Sullivan wrote somewhere around 1,000 words, but missed a few slightly relevant points.

Let’s see if we can make any of them for him.

1. Over the course of a season each hitter in the batting order will bat roughly 30 more times than the person who bats before him.  The leadoff guy will hit 30 more times than the second hitter, the second hitter will bat 30 more times than the third hitter (who will hit 60 times fewer than the leadoff guy, etc.)  Juan Pierre batted 105 more times than E-ramis did last year.  How’d that work out for the Cubs.

By moving Soriano from the leadoff spot to the fifth spot, behind the Cubs’ other two best hitters, Derrek Lee and E-ramis, the Cubs could cost him 120 plate appearances.  You could make an argument that a team should simply organize their lineup from best hitter to worst, regardless of any other factor (size, power, ability to save a season by hitting .231).  It’s hard to argue that you should actively try to get your best hitters fewer times at the plate.  Right?

2. We know that the Cubs’ management hates on base percentage as a stat, but who knew that the Trib’s beat writer did, too?  The single most glaring reason for batting Soriano leadoff instead of third through fifth is that he hits better in that spot.

Over the last three years, Soriano has reached base at a good, but not great .357 clip while batting leadoff.

When hitting third it drops to: .315

When hitting fourth it drops to: .227

Batting fifth it’s: .317

And it’s not like the Rangers and Nationals didn’t give him a fair shot in those other spots.  Well, not cleanup, he only batted 41 times there.  But he had 706 leadoff at bats, 557 batting third and 573 batting fifth.  Kind of makes you wonder why it took them so long to figure it out.

It’s not just his on base average that suffers.  His batting average is higher when he hits leadoff than hitting third or fifth, so is his slugging percentage.  He walks at a higher rate, he strikes out at a lower rate and best of all, he never goes out before games and rolls balls down the frickin’ baselines.

3. If the Cubs moved him to fifth, who the hell is going to lead off?  Mark DeRosa?  Cesar Izturis?  Who’s making out the lineup, Dusty?  You could argue that Matt Murton might find a nice home at the top of the order.  He got on base at nearly a .400 clip in the second half last year, and he’s not as slow as you’d think for a guy who looks like Ron Howard with a better toupee.  Thing is, why not just bat Murton second?  Since he’s a better hitter than DeRosa, and you and I are better hitters than Cesar, you’d think getting him more at bats than those clowns would be to the Cubs’ benefit, too.

4.  Did I really just read an entire article where Sullivan compared Soriano to Rick Monday?

Guh.

The Cubs will have plenty to sort out in spring training.  Giving Carlos a big check and Xeroxing Soriano’s name into the leadoff spot on all of the lineup cards should be givens.