I’m not the only one pleased with the direction the “new” Cubs are taking. Former baseball GM Jim Bowden came out in favor of Theo and Jed’s winter moves on ESPN.

While I still have cringe-inducing memories of Bowden as GM of my “other” team, the Nationals — namely his man-crush on toolsy, troubled outfielders — I still think he basically knows what he’s talking about. And he makes some good points in the ESPN piece.

Basically, Bowden said the new regime entered Phase 1 of the rebuilding project with the goals of adding more depth to the rotation, making the lineup more left-handed, improving the defense and beefing up the farm system, and the Cubs’ recent moves have accomplished these tasks.

There’s no doubting that the rotation is now over-run with arms, for lack of a more flattering word. Not pitchers, mind you, but arms. A pitcher is someone who is at least somewhat a master of his craft; an arm is a guy who can throw a baseball fairly well. Chris Volstad, Travis Wood and the more recent add-on, Paul Maholm, are arms. What they are today is what they will be tomorrow, next year and probably the rest of their careers. They are guys that expansion teams populate their rotations with.

But I’m not knocking them. I’d rather have experienced arms like this trio than baby arms like Casey Coleman who are more likely to give you 2 innings and 6 earned runs than a quality start, or geezer arms like Rodrigo Lopez who wouldn’t even make an expansion team. Keep in mind, this is a rebuilding project. It will take time to develop and acquire pitchers, so in the meantime, and for the sake of being at least mildly competitive, we need solid arms. And now the Cubs have more arms than Vishnu.

When it comes to restocking the farm system, I love the Anthony Rizzo acquisition. Yes, he flopped horribly with the Padres last year — I think he had like a negative 300 WAR, but he was actually a 0.1 WAHSC (Wins Above Hee-seop Choi) – but he probably wasn’t quite ready for the big stage and San Diego’s Petco Park is so huge it can sap the confidence of any young slugger. All Rizzo might need is to pop a couple of wind-aided taters over the ivy on a hot summer day in order to feel like he belongs in The Show, and from there the sky is the limit. All indications are that he has the maturity and drive to ultimately make it — it’s just a question of how good he will be.

So all in all, a promising start to The New Era. Now if we could only get rid of those damn blue alternate jerseys …

Chicago Cubs fans got a belated Christmas gift with the trade of Carlos Zambrano to the Miami Marlins for Chris Volstad. As far as the Cubs’ on-field fortunes are concerned, the deal means little. Both pitchers are back-end-of-the-rotation guys. After a promising rookie season in 2008 (2.88 ERA), Volstad has regressed. He had a 4.89 ERA last year in a pitcher-friendly park, although he finished strong with a 2.32 ERA in September.

Zambrano, meanwhile, when he wasn’t quitting on his team and breaking stuff was equally mediocre, albeit at a much higher salary. The Cubs’ new regime didn’t want to add cancer treatment to their other difficult tasks, so it smartly got rid of Big Z, even agreeing to pay $15 million of his $18 million salary.

I, for one, am willing to contribute to the Big Z Exile Fund to help defray that 15 mil hit. Seriously, Theo, hit me up with your PayPal address and I’ll send 5 bucks your way.

I’ll admit, I liked Carlos for a while, like, when he was good and reasonably sane. But his true colors were in full bloom last year and there was no going back. He made it clear he didn’t want to be on the North Side anymore, so he had to go.

I continue to be encouraged by the Cubs’ moves. The early maneuvers — DeJesus, Stewart, Marshall trade — were sensible and low risk. And the Z trade simply had to be done. Sometimes you have to destroy a village in order to save it, so tearing down a roster that wasn’t working and setting the stage for a realistic and sustainable rebuilding program is something that all Cubs fans should applaud, even if it will come with at least a couple more years of ugly baseball.