Sources confirm Milton Bradley headed to Mariners for Carlos Silva -- merry christmas #cubs fans

Well. Clearly, Carlos Silva has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball the last two years. This is not a deal you'd make in a vacuum, and unless Silva has a previously undisclosed injury or some sort of massive mechanical problem, the Cubs won't get any decent production out of him.

However, I ask you to remember what happened seven years ago, when Todd Hundley "had" to be traded under similar (though certainly not identical) circumstances, and Jim Hendry turned him into Eric Karros and Mark Grudzielanek.

Karros had just come off two really poor years and a lot of Cubs fans wondered, "What do we want with him? We have Hee Seop Choi ready to take over 1B." Grudzielanek was similarly awful in 2002, posting a Neifi-like .665 OPS.

Yet by the end of the 2003 season, both of these players had played significant roles in the NL Central championship season, and Karros is still remembered fondly by Cubs fans for the full-page ad he took out in the Tribune thanking all of us for his memorable season.

Let's wait and see. For me, I'm happy that Jim Hendry managed to fix his mistake from a year ago, albeit at a high (for now) dollar cost. Maybe Carlos Silva will reclaim what he had in Minnesota and be worth the contract.

Next stop: signing a CF.