If the rumors are true, the commissioner’s approval is the only thing holding up a Carlos Zambrano trade sending him (along with $15 million of his $18 million salary) to the Marlins in exchange for Chris Volstad. I’m going to miss Carlos.

Big Z has been one of my favorite Cubs during his tenure in Chicago. Almost always a good pitcher and sometimes an elite one, I doubt many will remember him for his work on the mound. Instead, he will be remembered by his detractors as a man unable to control his anger. But more than that, he was a man who refused to give anything other than max effort. His swing was the epitome of unrestrained aggression. His hustle when trying to beat out routine grounders in unimportant situations was so excessive it was frightening. He would use his bare hand to field liners back up the middle if he thought that was his best chance to make the play. He always left it all out there on the diamond. And through it all he wore his emotions on his sleeve… the fate of his mood entwined with the performance of the team.

I want players like that on the Cubs. Media personalities like Kaplan never cease to give lip service to qualities like hustle, grit, fire, and caring about the team. Carlos Zambrano was all of these things to a fault. But the media turned on him. More than turning on him, they used their position of power to turn the fans on him as well. Controversy makes for good print. Jim Hendry also spent the last few years of his inexplicably long tenure making Zambrano the scapegoat for his poor planning.

Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer inherited an untenable situation. Already planning a rebuilding season for 2012, they could not afford to suffer the negative publicity associated with retaining Carlos through the last season of his contract. His added benefit to the product on field wasn’t going to be enough to sway public opinion, and the idea of extending him was simply unrealistic. He had to be moved.

In return for Carlos the Cubs will be receiving Chris Volstad, who ranked #40 and #58 on the 2007 and 2008 Baseball America Top 100 lists. The 25 year old right hander stands a startling 6’8” on the mound. He uses his height to his advantage, driving low 90’s sinkers towards the plate at a sharp angle that induces grounders by the boatload. He also flashes a pretty decent slider an average changeup and an average curveball. If I’m not mistaken, he should be under control for the next three seasons.

A quick glance at Volstad’s career W-L record (32-39) and ERA (4.59) would seem to paint the picture of a #5 pitcher. But we know better than that by now, don’t we? Looking deeper into the peripherals, we see a young pitcher who just posted career bests in his strikeout rate and walk rate. These gains are reflected in his defense-independent pitching stats, posting better FIP and xFIP numbers in each successive season. He posted a nearly identical strikeout rate, walk rate, and xFIP to fellow groundball specialist Justin Masterson. The only big difference was in their HR/FB ratios.

Volstad has a strange history as regards to his HR/FB ratio. He has alternated between stunningly good ratios in 2008 and 2010 and terrible numbers in 2009 and 2011. Whether this is due to a flaw of some sort (pitch selection, perhaps) or simply random variation remains to be seen. But if there is one thing to keep an eye on to tell the story of how valuable Volstad will be in 2012, it’ll be his HR/FB ratio. If it’s poor, he’ll repeat last season as a fungible #5 starter. If it ends up where I think it will, Theo just acquired a good #4 under club control for three years for a troublesome #3/4 he couldn’t really choose to keep anyways. That has to be considered a victory for the new regime.

Still, I’ll miss watching Carlos snap a bat over his leg once a year.