MLB Trade Rumors: Matt Garza and Jeff Baker of Chicago Cubs Not for Sale

The Boston Red Sox have reportedly inquired about the availability of Matt Garza and Jeff Baker of the Chicago Cubs, at least according to posts at MLBTradeRumors.com and The Chicago Tribune.

They are certainly attractive trade-deadline properties. Garza is under team control for several more years, he’s pretty cheap as far as front line starters go and he is relatively young. The Red Sox need pitching, so why not take a shot here?

From the Cubs' viewpoint, though, a trade like that makes relatively little sense. The Cubs just traded away three or four of their top prospects for Garza during the offseason in the mistaken belief that they were serious contenders.

They are hardly going to go for a deal in which Boston ships them a couple of prospects. This would amount to simply trading prospects for more prospects and, since the Red Sox shipped off arguably their best prospects to obtain Adrian Gonzalez, you don’t have to be a genius to determine which team would obtain the best value here.

Nobody has ever described Cubs general manager Jim Hendry as a genius, though. But the best guess here is that he will not bite; he will decide the wisest strategy is to hold on to Garza.

On the subject of Hendry not being a genius, though, the Cubs' apparent reaction to the Baker rumors are a real head-scratcher. FoxSports reports he is close to untouchable.

At best, Baker is a useful role-player for a contending team that needs a little right-handed pop.  Historically, he has killed left-handed pitching and has been middling to just plain awful against righties.

He plays a lot of positions not very well, so he’s a good fit for a predominantly left-handed hitting team that needs a quick, cheap fix from the right side for the stretch run. A team, as a matter of fact, like the Red Sox.

For the Cubs, Baker is a bit of a luxury. First off, the Cubs are a predominantly right-handed hitting team. They are also fairly rich in infielders at the AA and AAA levels, all of whom are effectively blocked from major league experience in a losing season by the presence of a player like Baker.

The Red Sox reportedly have a pretty good farm system despite having traded top prospects for Gonzalez, so you would think the two teams match up pretty well for a trade since Baker, unlike Garza, is probably worth just B- or C-type prospects.

The fact that the Cubs evidently think Jeff Baker is an integral part of their 2012 plans tells you more about their stubborn mindset than fans probably care to know.

It tells me that management isn’t thinking straight when they want to hold on to a player whose principal value is as a platoon replacement for left-handed hitters. In case Hendry is not aware, the Cubs only have two left-handed starters, and that lack of balance is one of the major reasons they stink.