Carlos Zambrano

In case you haven't heard the news, brace yourself, Cubs fans. Carlos Zambrano is a starter again. He is scheduled to start on Monday.

"Sometimes you don't know what you have until you lose it," Zambrano said of starting again. "I don't want to lose this opportunity. I just want to take advantage [of it] be prepared and be ready for the last two months."

Listen Carlos, we'd love for you to pitch well so we can ship you out of town after the season.

You may remember about a month or so ago, former Chicago Cubs pitcher Mark Prior had a workout in front of several major league scouts and general managers. By all accounts, Prior was just "OK" in that throwing session.

On Tuesday Prior showed just how serious he is with his most recent comeback attempt. The former second overall pick in the MLB draft pitched a scoreless sixth inning for the Orange County Flyers of the independent Golden Baseball League. According to the manager of the Flyers, Paul Abbott, Prior will be used as a setup man.

The MLB "Non-Waiver" Trade Deadline has come and gone but another has yet to arrive, the August 31st Waiver Trade Deadline. This simply means teams can still trade players but with the requirement of placing their players on the waiver wire, which is pretty secret in MLB and often if a contract is too hefty a player goes free.

Last year the Chicago White Sox shocked the baseball world by claiming outfielder Alex Rios from the Toronto Blue Jays and his expensive contract, in the neighborhood of $50 million left on it and getting him with no trade whatsoever.

Carlos Zambrano has grown up and apologized—a month later—and not face-to-face with anyone he wronged—unless he had done something to Pedro Gomez of ESPN.

On Monday, Zambrano apologized for his dugout tirade a month ago after the first inning versus the Chicago White Sox in which Zambrano felt runs were given up because of shaky defense. Gold Glover Derrek Lee took some of the heat, even though no one had a chance to catch Carlos Quentin's home run in the left field stands.

With Lou Piniella retiring at the end of the season, many Cubs fans might be saying good riddance due to Chicago's disappointment recently. 

The next question is obviously, "Who's next?"

Well, Ryne Sandberg has already thrown his hat into the ring. Sandberg, a Hall of Fame inductee and Cubs legend, would certainly bring big name quality to the dugout and his experience might go over well with the players.

The season-ending injury to Jake Peavy left the White Sox with a solid-but-not-spectacular starting rotation from top to bottom. Questions linger.

Freddy Garcia has been solid thus far this year, but can he be relied on as the team’s fourth starter? I’m not ready to write off Daniel Hudson this year just yet, but he failed to make it through five innings against the Royals in his only start of the year.

So...two or three weeks of anger management classes and suddenly Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano is a new man, huh?

You'll have to forgive me if I'm not buying what the Cubs are selling.

Apparently "cured" of the anger issues that have prevented Zambrano from reaching the full potential of his obvious talent, Big Z has been cleared to begin his baseball rehabilitation in Mesa.

From one "rehab" to another "rehab" and—Poof!—magically, all is well again.

If this is what he truly believes, then it's no wonder that former Cubs broadcaster and current Sox color man Steve Stone was never hired as a GM.

I understand that Zambrano has not fared well in recent years as a pitcher—starter or reliever.

I also know that Big Z has not lived up to his humongous contract.

But to seriously suggest that the Cubs try and make their former ace a first baseman is about as stupid of an idea as I've ever heard.

Giants beat writer Henry Schulman wrote a piece suggesting that an Aaron Rowand for Carlos Zambrano trade with the Cubs would make sense for both clubs if the future contract obligations could be worked out.  It sounds like a textbook case of wishful thinking to me, because the Cubs would be damned fools to trade Zambrano for Rowand.

Don't be fooled by what some of the Cubs players and management will tell you, the truth is that the majority of the players do not like Carlos Zambrano and wish he was elsewhere.

This is nothing new—Cubs players have long disliked Big Z.

Now, this latest incident where Zambrano stormed into the dugout and seemingly yelled at everybody and anybody hasn't helped the relationship.

But according to sources within the organization, this is not the first time that the majority of Cubs players have privately wished that he would move on.