Trade Winds Swirling in the Windy City

There’s one thing that is no secret this off season and that’s the Chicago Cubs desire to trade Milton Bradley. In fact the Cubs have plenty of teams that are interested in his services. Some of the teams mentioned have been the New York Mets, Texas Rangers, Tampa Bay Rays, San Francisco Giants and even the San Diego Padres. But what team usually winds up with the player? The unmentioned one. In this case that would be the Toronto Blue Jays.

Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun says there have been talks between the Blue Jays and Cubs, and that those talks “have legs”. “It’s early on, but we think this one has some legs,” said one Cubs official. “But they aren’t the only team we are talking with.”

The talks have centered around the one guy the Blue Jays want to dump this off season, Vernon Wells. Wells has failed to live up to the teams expectations after signing a huge contract extension, so naturally they’d love to dump him off on someone. A change of scenery for both Wells and Bradley (again) could be what’s needed.

The major problem with any trade involving these guys will be money.

Bradley has two years left on his deal with $21 million remaining.
Wells has six years left with $107 million and a $8.5 million signing bonus left.

While the “Cubs official” tells Elliott the talks have legs, I don’t see how it can happen with that much of a difference. Elliott said the Cubs have an idea of taking the difference in salary and both teams pay half. That sounds good but would the Blue Jays really do something like that?

I doubt it. That’s a lot of money for a team that needs the money to try and be competitive in the American League East.

Because of the money I seriously doubt this deal would happen, but I could be wrong. If the Blue Jays are really serious about changing things they might do it just to make a move.

Buster Olney of ESPN says he’d be “stunned” if this deal happened. I would be too. Nice to see the Hot Stove getting started early thou.

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Tags: Chicago Cubs, Milton Bradley, MLB, Toronto Blue Jays, Vernon Wells