You might have heard that a $3 flea market bowl turned out to be a 1,000 year old Chinese treasure which was recently auctioned off for $2.2 million. Now that is quite the return on investment.
For the past two years, Theo Epstein and the Cubs have been trying to sign and flip "assets" in order to push along a young rebuild of the entire organization. The veterans that the Cubs have traded have been yielding rookie and Class A prospects, that are years away from making any impact on the major league roster.
In the current basket of Cubs assets, are there any players that will actually return more than the initial investment?
It seemed like the front office really thought they could repeat a Dempster and Maholm pitcher flip at the trade deadline this year when they signed Scott Baker and Scott Feldman. Both Scotties needed to "prove" themselves after last season's woes. Baker did not pitch due to injury. Feldman got demoted from the Rangers rotation. But both pitchers this spring have been disappointing. Feldman has been shelled in most of his work. Baker only got one out before he was shelved to the disabled list.
The other pitching assets the Cubs have to deal are Matt Garza and Carlos Marmol. Garza is also injured so he has no trade value unless he comes back strong. But he has had eight months to recover and he is not close to pitching at the major league level. Marmol was almost traded to the Angels for Dan Haren (a swap of big money contracts), but the Cubs nixed the deal. Marmol is an expensive closer at the end of his deal. Not many teams are interested in Marmol. It would take a significant injury to a mid-season contender for Marmol to have a limited market.
Those assets who are at their prime peak for trading value include Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney. Castro is a legitimate All-Star caliber player who just signed a long term extension. The Cubs have no plans to trade him, even though he would bring back the most talent. Barney had his best season, but it was on the defensive side of the slate. Most teams view him as a middle infield bench player than a full time starter. If the Cubs were ever going to get anything for Barney, it would have been this off-season when the sports pages heralded his gold glove award.
The rest of the roster appears to be filled with trinkets of bench types that would not be starters on other teams.
From a major league asset stand point, the Cubs 40 man roster table is pretty picked over. The Cubs, as Sellers, will have a tough time finding quality prospects from their veteran roster.
