It's Official

Yes, Bradley is gone. But, of course, the return is pretty pathetic. Carlos Silva signed a four-year, $48M deal with Seattle and proceeded to go 5-18 with a stratospheric ERA, as well as spending most of last year on the DL. It is still unclear whether Silva has recovered from his shoulder problems. I think I read where he had a three inning start in winter ball in Venezuela and he did alright, but that was two weeks ago.

Now how bad could a guy be if the other team was willing to give you $9M to take him off their hands (effectively cutting the Cubs losses by $6M over two years) and taking Milton Bradley in exchange. Pretty bad, I reckon. But it does give them just enough money to get a genuinely mediocre center-fielder, doesn't it?

I'm beginning to think the whole new ownership is about them saving money and Hendry and Piniella saving face. Not much to inspire confidence.

And no one is really mentioning the biggest albatross on the team, namely, Alfonso Soriano, whom they obviously expect to return to form, even though they very much overvalue that form, and whom they owe a gazillion dollars for six more years of striking out roughly 25% of the time and pretty much conceding a double on every deep fly ball that he is afraid to chase, not to mention botching routine pop-ups on a daily basis.

Anyway, I wish Silva well, even though I don't expect much. He was a journeyman pitcher for the Twins back in the day, and I could never figure out why the Mariners gave him big bucks. Obviously, neither could they. The only danger here is if the Cubs feel obliged to give Silva any prioity in competing for the fifth starter job because then he will just be blocking better prospects as well as losing games. They say he throws strikes. The only problem is that batters are very likely to hit them these days.