Thanks to Len Pasquarelli for the idea. Ex-Irish WR Jeff Samardzija is faring much worse for the Daytona Cubs than he did in Charlie Weis' offense. How badly? 0-5 with a 5.22 ERA, including 93 hits allowed in 69 innings. Sure, it's early, and sure, those numbers seemingly qualify him for a spot in the Astros' rotation, but I think ol' Lenny Q's got a good point - it is quite surprising that no team felt it was worth a 7th round pick to lock up the rights to Jeff S for one year.
Samardzija signed a five-year deal with the Cubs last June, a deal that is backloaded such that he would have to fulfill the majority of his contract in order to earn the $7.25 million set forth. According to my favorite baseball contracts' website, Samardzija would have to return his $2M signing bonus and much of the remaining proceeds under the contract in the event he chose football, so don't expect him to go Drew Henson just yet. Maybe it's too early, and maybe I'm just a little too leery of K-Walt lining up at the #2 slot on Opening Day, but I think it couldn't hurt for Rick Smith to bookmark Samardzija's baseball stats page and save his agent's phone number. Isn't he worth a 3-4 year, $5M free agent deal?