Not Exactly a Marquis Signing... HAHAHAHA!!!

Aaaand the title might be a little too clever. I'm here (as your resident RATIONAL Yankee fan) to discuss the Jason Marquis signing by the Cubs. Now, OO7 here (Lefty Specialist to you blog whores) has a small side business as a tragic Cubs fan. The poor son of a bitch, before they cancelled the 2004 World Series (electroshock therapy still hasn't freed me to admit what actually occurred, but I'm seeing a Buddhist about it), was rooting for two teams who had gone a combined 182 years without a championship. He will still occasionally wake up at 4am, having moistened his panties at the thought of Mark Prior pitching healthy (which will never happen).
This leads me to what I wanted to address here. It is one thing to see your team thoroughly suck its way to a 66-96 record and know that something needs to be done, but it is quite another to go batshit crazy with your boss's cash. I applaud GM Jim Hendry for opening up the traditionally hymen-tight purse strings of the Tribune Corp. to sign some prime (for this awful offseason anyway) free agents like Alfonso "Inning-killing Strikeout" Soriano and Ted "Maddeningly Inconsistent" Lilly for Lou Pineilla to scream at next year, but let's get serious for a second.
As an aside, I will be doing that "quotes between a player's name" thing alot, notice how funny that was? See, I take the players name, then I insert a clever snippet of their talent or distinguishing feature right there in the middle. Here, watch this: Randy "Tiny Penis" Johnson, Curt "I'll Have Another Milkshake" Schilling or even Josh "Ouch, Ouch, My Finger" Beckett.
Back to Marquis. So Jim Hendry has a near-death experience striking a deal with Yankee castoff Ted Lilly, but then doesn't heed the word of his creator and tempts death AGAIN by signing Jason Marquis. Now, it goes without saying that Marquis' 6.02 ERA was the highest among all pitchers who qualified for the ERA title (which means that they pitched at least one inning for every game that their team played i.e. 162 IP over 162 game season). But among ALL PITCHERS who pitched in the major leagues this season, Marquis' ERA ranked him 481st of 635.
"But Rough Justice," you'll cry, "maybe he was extraordinarily unlucky! What about his peripherals?" Well, you are a moron, because you've fallen into my obvious and ill-conceived trap, so let's examine those peripherals:
He struck out 4.45 batters/9IP, good for 72nd among the 80 qualifying pitchers, 522nd out of the aforementioned 635. Still more telling of his true atrociousness is his K/BB ratio (that's strikeouts per walks for you Angels and Diamondbacks fans) of 1.28. That means for every batter he walked, he struck out 1.28 (ranked 459 out of 635). Compare that to Greg Maddux, who, despite being old and decrepit, managed to post a K/BB ratio of 3.16. Unfair comparison, you might say? Fuck you, I might say. But how about Jeff "Eye of the Tiger" Weaver, another vomit-inducing ex-Yankee, who came in with a ratio of 2.28? Or Rodrigo "Yo Soy Un Poquito" Lopez at 2.31? Any league average pitcher should be striking out two men for every one walked (2.00). An inability to strike out batters combined with a propensity to walk batters means that a pitcher is a walking, talking big inning for the opposition, because a one-out walk doesn't mean, in the words of Jim Mora, Sr., DIDDLY POO, if you strike out the next two batters in the inning. Marquis not only was giving up one out walks, but batters (who hit .289 off of him, which isn't the WORST batting average against, but it's close) magically turned into Johnny Damon to the tune of a .364 OBP and a .509 Slugging, kept walking and getting hits long after an excusable walk was handed out by J-Marq.
So, 21 million dollars later, the Cubs plan on running Marquis out there every fifth day. A guy who gave up 35 home runs pitching half his games in a pitcher's park, who will now be pitching in the friendly, and really really small, confines of Wrigley field. Projections? We are not in the business of projecting. I am, however, in the business of making bold proclamations that end up being way off base (although that is REALLY REALLY unlikely here). In that spirit, he'll be in the bullpen by June.
This underscores a much larger problem in the major leagues, and what will be a constant theme throughout my criticisms of GM moves. GMs spend way too much money on shitty pitching. Jim Hendry, for one, just spent $21 million dollars on a shitty pitcher. What I don't understand is that there are any number of minor league workhorses, career shitkickers, and starry-eyed hopefuls that could give you the same or better numbers than Jason MOTHERFUCKING Marquis. Using them has three benefits:
ONE: Lets a GM see what he has in his farm system, no reason to keep a 40-man roster spot open for a guy who pitches worse than Jason Marquis.
TWO: YOU DON'T PAY JASON FUCKING MARQUIS TWENTY-ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
THREE: YOU DON'T PAY JASON FUC... gaaaaah. Sorry, aneurysm.
Me and Double-Oh were having a discussion the other day about what Johan Santana would make in this completely insane market for pitching. 12 years $300 million? 20 years $400 million? He'd be the first 30 game winner since McClain on the Yankees or ::gasp:: Red Sox. Anyway, I'd better wrap up this ridiculously long post, Jeff "Evolution is a Myth" Suppan will be signing his Kevin Brown contract any minute.... GAH!