have been two of the early rumors on potential destinations. I’m sure there have been a couple more, but those two teams are the teams that I remember right now.

Jim Hendry has extremely limited these team’s options. The Soriano, Fukudome, Bradley and even Dempster contracts are an anchor on this franchise right now. And that’s not to say there isn’t other big money tied up elsewhere.

from this past year, imo. There was very little chance that, after a decent year where he pitched innings, that he was going to go down (and also, I think there’s a limit on how far it can go down anyways, although I’m not certain as of this moment right now).

but let’s say I’m wrong on the trade rule for a sec (pretty sure I’m right on it, but just playing it out).

Let’s say I’m wrong. Also, Cubs have low 140’s as their limit. Let’s say Harden accepts arb. The pushes the Cubs to their barrier essentially. I think it’s safe to say that, in arb, he could probably get 8-10 mil, if not, a tad more. We’re essentially looking at Harden with Fuld in CF in that scenario. Certainly, I would’ve rather had the Cubs let Grabow go, give Marshall/Gorzelanny/Gaub the pen roles, sign a cheap CF to platoon with Fuld, and go with Harden. I also don’t think Fuld would be the worst idea out there (decent against righties and lefties, his discipline is there, and he’s got a little pop in the bat, enough to be more than a slap the ball around guy, while upgrading CF defense), and that Harden/Fuld might be better than Marshall/Gorzelanny/Samardzija and FA CF. I’m not too worried about Harden and I think he’ll come back just fine. He had a healthy xFIP this past year. While I don’t buy the idea that he would be a big bargain (I’m guessing that the bargain argument is the average WAR from 03-09 argument that’s been used, putting his value loosely at 2.5 WAR, and thus around 11.5 mil or so), I can buy that 8-10 mil would probably be solid value for him in 2010.

That said, there was no chance that the Cubs were going to go into the year with Fuld as their main CF option. Thus, you have to clear a contract, and assuming I am wrong on the trade rule, then Harden’s would be the one to move. One problem – leverage. As history (of baseball and negotiations in general) has shown, teams will pay less if they feel that the other side is forced into a corner. 2nd problem – early indications are that what he might get on the market is far less than what he might get in arbitration, for justifiable reasons. Now, maybe some team decides to get crazy and offer him 10 mil. It seems rather unlikely as of now, though.

Thus, the end result would be what? You deal him, have to eat some money, and likely not get that big of a return. Teams don’t give up that much for a guy only under control for 1 year to begin with – add in that the Cubs would be looked at as having minimal leverage and Harden’s own health history, and the return would likely be slimmer. Okay, so … getting something might be better than nothing. Problem is, in this scenario, even if eating a chunk of Harden’s salary in a trade is okay, it pushes the Cubs ability to go after FA’s/make offseason moves further back.

Is any of this ideal in any way shape or form? No, absolutely not. I wish the Grabow contract never happened. That said, I’m not real sure that we can chalk this solely up as an issue on health and durability. More than likely, it’s a combination of both of these factors that are at play.

That said, I’m fairly certain about the trade rule. This is the quickest article I could find on google that suggests it. It came from Barry Bloom of mlb.com last year. It notes that the player would have to give consent to be traded, and that the union would have to involved.

someone posted the specific article on bruce miles blog today, noting that there is no differentiation between “regular” free agent and Type A free agent, and as such, the free agent rule for June 15th would’ve held, unless the player waived said right (and if he did, the union would need to get involved, and I’m just not sold that, right now, the union would bend that rule unless there was a really significant Type A issue).