According to Gordon Wittenmyer’s Twitter, the Cubs may be on the verge of trading Milton Bradley to a “surprise” AL team tonight. Various rumors have linked Bradley to the Rays, Rangers, and Royals in the AL, so none of those three would qualify as a “surprise.”
Yahoo Sports has suggested that the surprise team is the Mariners, and the return is starting pitcher Carlos Silva – a guy the Cubs looked at back when he was a free agent. Silva is signed through 2011, like Bradley, and is owed a total of $25 million over those two years. Silva’s two years in Seattle have been an absolute disaster – hurt last year, and God awful in 2008. And frankly, he wasn’t very good before that. The Cubs need a starting pitcher, but let’s hope this isn’t how it goes down.
UPDATE: See Cigar’s note in the comments. The Mariners/Silva rumor has been, thankfully, squashed. Also, we could see an announcement on the Bradley front tomorrow morning (if word doesn’t leak sooner).
UPDATE 2: Wittenmyer has updated and said that the prospective deal is 3/4 done, that it’s a two-team swap, and it’s for a player that the Cubs will then have to spin off. Hmm. AL team – not the Rangers, Rays, Mariners or Angels – that would take Bradley, and that has a player that want to dump, whom the Cubs wouldn’t want to keep. Any guesses?
The Indians want to dump Kerry Wood ($10ish million left on his deal for 2010) – if Jim Hendry is so intent on getting a righty reliever who can set-up or close, why not consider Wood? Indians may not want Bradley back, though. I’m just thinking out loud at this point.
More details as they become available…