Jose Contreras: Why Are the Chicago Cubs Still Interested?

Yesterday, Newsday National Baseball Writer Ken Davidoff tweeted that there are five known suitors for the services of 38-year-old right hander Jose Contreras, with the Cardinals, Rockies, Phillies, Padres, and Cubs are all rumored to be interested in the veteran.

Contreras is coming off of a 6-13, 4.92 ERA, 106 K season in 28 appearances, 23 of which were starts, between the Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies. While those numbers are less than impressive, he did go 1-0, 1.59 ERA, with 17 Ks following his Aug. 31 trade to the Rockies.

Granted he only made only seven appearances (two starts), and pitched a grand total of 17 innings for the Rockies, so the sample size is very small, but it was still enough for make at least a few teams wonder if he had a little something left in the tank.

Now whether or not the link to the Cubs goes back to the pre-Bradley trade time when the Cubs were looking for a right handed long reliever in their bullpen or not remains to be seen, but now that the Cubs are more or less anchored to Carlos Silva, I see no reason to sign another veteran right hander coming off a poor season.

If the Cubs do in fact decide to pursue the veteran, it is safe to assume he will make significantly less than the $10 million he made last year. One report on the MLB Trade Rumors website suggested that he could command a deal similar to the $950K minor league deal that D.J. Carrasco signed with the Pirates recently.

While adding him would throw another man in the race for the fifth starter job as well as the long reliever job, and the more competition for those spots the better, I would much rather see these jobs go to Tom Gorzelanny and Sean Marshall or Carlos Silva for that matter, than the 38-year-old Contreras.

Signing Contreras would be the definition of a low-risk, high-reward move, but after he went 23-36 with an ERA over 5.00 the last three seasons, I think it is safe to say there are better ways to spend that money, even if it is less than $1 million.