That's right. He's here in Chicago, getting into the best shape of his life. Away from the distractions of his native Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, where each day this week is forecasted to be 96 degrees (oh my GOD I would kill to be there!).
That's because in 2007 he won 18 games and signed this ginormous contract for 91 millllion dollars. And then, in 2008 he proceeded to get...14 wins. And last year of course he was down to 9.
To stop this disappointing trend, Carlos is doing sit-ups and push-ups and, you know, maybe running. Which you and I can probably identify with since we've all made some kind of promise to ourselves to get back in shape.
But also with Carlos, I'm sure there are all kinds of specialized exercises with specialized exercise specialists, one of which will be the guy in charge of actually making Carlos show up. Which would be a pretty specialized position in itself, since Carlos already told us he's pretty lazy and actually blew off doing his ab exercises when he was injured last year, which made you and I pretty anxious since we're some of the people paying his 91 millllion dollar ginormous contract.
And you're of course aware that there have been whispers of some kind of trade involving Carlos. Whispers that Jim Hendry won't discuss according to this article, but he does say that Carlos has full no-trade rights negotiated into his contract, and that he expects Carlos to pitch like the old Big Z in 2010.
In that same article, Lou chimed in that he didn't want to put any pressure on him, but Carlos ought to be winning 20 games a season.
And hey Carlos, that's all I want, too.
