The future starts last week

Theo Epstein and his lieutenants were busy last week.

On Thursday, the long-expected departure of Carlos Zambrano finally occurred, as he was dealt to the formerly-Florida-but-now-Miami Marlins for what appears at first to be a pittance. The Cubs received pitcher Chris Volstad. Yep, that’s it.

Furthermore, the Cubs will be paying $15.5 million of Zambrano’s $18 salary for the coming season. Needless to say, Volstad will not be seeing that kind of salary any time soon, or probably any time later.

The Cubs, then, traded a 30-year old with 125 career wins and an ERA+ of 122 for a 24-year old with 32 wins and an ERA+ of 90. Even accounting for the age difference, it doesn’t seem like a particularly good deal.

However, there’s more here. Zambrano, of course, is well-known for having, shall we say, psychological issues. These issues, along with some minor injuries, have caused him to average about 150 innings in each of the past three seasons. More worrying, his WHIP has risen during this time, and his strikeout rate last season was his worst since his rookie year.

All this is a long-winded way of saying that Epstein needed to dump Zambrano, and did just that. Zambrano may well bounce back this season, as he’ll be pitching for Ozzie Guillen, and theoretically will have something to prove, but it’s also likely he’ll have a meltdown and miss half the season.

Thursday’s trade was followed on Friday by another trade that is pure Moneyball. The Cubs sent pitcher Andrew Cashner to the Padres for Anthony Rizzo, a large young first baseman, who pummeled Triple-A to the tune of 331/404/652 in 2011, but in a two-month major league stint, not-pummeled the NL at a 141/281/242 clip. Rizzo is clearly the first baseman of the future, and furthermore, is a former Red Sox prospect, who was traded last winter for Adrian Gonzalez. If any evidence is needed that the Epstein regime will follow the established formula used in Boston, this is it.