Earlier this month when the baseball GMs convened in Las Vegas to collude and catch some Barry Pincus it looked like the Cubs were going to pull off a trade for Padres pitcher Jake Peavy.  Those talks advanced far enough that the Cubs started shopping second baseman Mark DeRosa in hopes of landing some young pitching prospects to send to the Fathers to finish that trade.  He was busy trying to find a team to take Jason Marquis to open a spot in the rotation and dump his dubious contract.

But on the last day of the meetings, Cubs’ GM Jim Hendry told the Padres to go scratch.  The deal had grown to a seven for one swap, and given that the Padres have to unload him, and the Cubs are the only team he’s willing to waive his no-trade clause for, the Cubs should have been driving the demands, not the Padres.

Nobody really believed that the trade talks were dead though.  Since then, the Cubs have signed a really fast (and mostly terrible) backup outfielder named Joey Gathright.  Joey can jump over your car, which is nice.  How that translates to playoff wins, I’m not sure.

They also signed tubby little utility player Aaron Miles.  Miles is best remembered for being a former White Sox and Cardinal, and for being held at gunpoint in a hotel room with Morgan Ensberg.  Do with that what you will.

Those moves seemed superfluous at best.  The Cubs had younger, cheaper (dumber) players to fill those spots, Felix Pie and Ronny Cedeno.

Then, today, the Cubs traded DeRosa to the Indians for three minor league pitchers, none of any great consequence.

The Cubs and Rockies apparently have a trade in place to dump Marquis and the final year of his contract on the Rockies for drunken reliever Luis Vizcaino (who blows).

Suddenly, the Cubs have players in line to take over for two guys prominently mentioned in every Peavy trade rumor (Pie and Cedeno), they’ve added pitching prospects to deal and created salary space.

Then again, maybe the Cubs have decided not to increase their payroll at all until they are sold.  The money they are saving for paying Vizcaino instead of Marquis and not paying DeRosa is right about $10 million, or basically one year of crazy outfielder Milton Bradley.

Well that’s just no fun, is it?  I mean, Bradley will be fun.  Who wouldn’t love to root for a guy who not only can’t control his temper, but also is completely irrational?  Oh, and who gets hurt so often he makes Mark Prior look like Cal Ripken Jr.

Is it worth it to deal DeRosa, a versatile player who’s had two of his best seasons ever for the Cubs?  Every manager loves having a guy like him.  He can play almost any spot, can bat in almost spot and doesn’t bitch.  This past spring we even learned that throughout his career he had heart episodes where he’d feel like he was going to pass out, but he’d just kind of ride it out and keep on playing.  He had surgery on his heart in February to fix it, and about a week later was back out there running round.  He even gave the trite name “The Pulse” to his MLB.com blog as a play on it.

Baseball wise a healthy Bradley is worth more than DeRosa.  He’s a switch hitter with power and can play all three outfield spots.  He gets on base, he hits for average.  He’s a nice fit.

If the Cubs turn around and get Jake Peavy then it’s a no-brainer.  The Cubs could get a 27 year old Cy Young Award winner and not give up much more than prospects and DeRosa.

But if the Cubs don’t follow this move up with that trade, you have to wonder.  Miles is a fat little guy who will most likely be teamed up with Mike Fontenot sharing second base.  You don’t need to be tall to hit a baseball, but you’d like for your second base platoon to be tall enough to ride a roller coaster at Great America.

There’s even some speculation from good friend Paul Sullivan that Miles might lead off.  He had a .355 on base average last year (twenty one points lower than DeRosa).  He also stole three bases in six tries.  Guh.

Maybe Jim Hendry is trying to help the Indians beat out the White Sox next year?  The Tribe have landed two of the most popular Cubs of recent years.

Of course one is a 34 year old utility infielder and the other is a kickass closer with an arm that’s just about ready to fall off for good.

Or, maybe Hendry’s just clearing cash to allow himself room to resign the real Pulse of the team.