Stove me up

It's impressive that by May 24 I had already decided that the 2009 Cubs were (a) unlikable and (b) going nowhere, but both turned out to be completely true, so can you blame me? Hope springs eternal for 2010, of course, with (finally) new ownership and hopefully healthier and/or more productive seasons from Ramirez, Soriano and Soto, among others.

Still, it wouldn't be the offseason without the hot stove, and since the Cubs are supposedly doing everything in their power to dump Milton Bradley, they're coming up a lot. (This is a typical Cubs move, of course: try to sell a guy at the absolute low point of his value from both on-field and off-field perspectives. They did the same thing with Sammy Sosa and what did it get them? Jerry Hairston, Jr. and Mike Fontenot.)

But it's not just for that reason. The Cubs remain a big-market team, and with several mid-market teams supposedly losing money and needing to dump assets, the Cubs are suddenly coming up in trade rumors. Trade rumors that have been completely invented by Chicago sports columnists who lack anything else to talk about. But let's look at just one of these, which I saw today: Phil Rogers suggesting the Cubs should offer Carlos Marmol and Starlin Castro for Curtis Granderson.

Granderson's from the area, and he's a left-handed-hitting center fielder. But that's where the fit would seem to end. He turns 29 before the start of next season, and while that qualifies as youthful on the current Cubs squad, he peaked in the 2007 season and has dropped in each of the last two, falling to a league-average 100 OPS+ in 2009. Even Kosuke Fukudome (104) topped that, and Fukudome's bat plays better in center than in right.

It's also not clear why Detroit would want to trade Granderson now. His contract for 2010 is a still pretty affordable $5.5m, and while it leaps upward in following years ($8.25m in 2011, $10m in 2012, and $13m in 2013, although that's a club option with a $2m buyout), he's hardly the contract that's choking Detroit in 2010 - that would be Magglio Ordonez ($18m), Miguel Cabrera ($20m), Jeremy Bonderman ($12.5m), Carlos Guillen ($13m), Dontrelle Willis ($12m), Nate Robertson ($10m)... you get the point. Granderson's $5.5m, in those circumstances, is hardly unaffordable, and the only reason he might be traded is simply because he can be - who's taking any of those other guys? (Well, I can imagine someone taking Cabrera, even at 20 mil.) Still, I would hardly consider it a slam-dunk.

And then, would it make sense for the Cubs to trade Marmol and Castro? Sure, Marmol's ERA has been climbing, but isn't this guy supposed to be your closer in 2010? Who's the next option? And Castro doesn't even turn 20 until late in spring training; granted, you could argue that he wouldn't be ready in 2010 anyway, that the Cubs' window with its current core is closing fast, and that Castro's stock has risen due to hype to the point where he might be able to be dealt for much more than he'll end up being worth. (Of course, if he does live up to the hype, it has potential to be the Juan Pierre trade all over again.) On the other hand, you could also argue that the Cubs' organization is somewhat bizarrely swimming in shortstops with some promise - Hak-Ju Lee is even younger than Castro (having only just turned 19) and he OBPed .399 at Boise last year, and further up the chain is Darwin Barney, whose name I've at least heard before (although a glance at his stats isn't going to wow anyone as of now). So maybe Castro is expendable. Marmol, however, may not be.

If the Cubs are serious about winning in 2010 - and they should be, as the NL looks to be pretty wide open once more - it may well take a bold move. But I don't think this would be that move.