The Peavy Sweepstakes Vol. 10: Cubs or Bust Edition

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go, there are people shopping prospects, trying to get Jake Peavy, but he's gone nowhere."

The Atlanta Braves traded for Javier Vazquez. Take them off the list.

The St. Louis Cardinals don't have the money or the players to make a trade, take them off the list.

The Yankees want C.C. Sabathia and don't want to let Phil Hughes go. Put them at the bottom of the list.

The Dodgers play an hour away. Take them off the list.

Ditto for the Angels.

The Astros are trying to cut their own payroll. If someone would take Miguel Tejada off their hands, they might be interested. But, they also might not have the players to make a deal. Put them below the Yankees at the bottom of the list.

The White Sox have the pitching prospects, have the money off their books already this winter, and have a team that could win with Peavy right now. However, they're not on his Desired Destinations List and GM Kenny Williams seems more intent on trading away Jermaine Dye's $12 million salary, perhaps for yet another young pitcher (Homer Bailey?). Put the Sox somewhere in the middle.

So what teams are there that want Peavy and could, in theory, trade for him?

From what the various rumor mills are reporting, Padres GM Kevin Towers has the Cubs and...the Cubs to choose from at this point.

There appears to be an order of dominoes that have to fall for Cubs GM Jim Hendry if anything is to happen with the Padres.

First, Hendry has been rumored to be in talks to move starter Jason Marquis. There have been rumors that Kansas City and the New York Mets have expressed interest. How much of Marquis' $9.875 million salary the Cubs will have to pay as part of unloading him is to be determined, but that appears to be the first thing on Hendry's list of things to do while in Las Vegas.

The next item on Hendry's To Do List is to (gulp) bring something back from Vegas: a left-handed right fielder to bat somewhere between second and sixth in the Cubs batting order.

Various media outlets have now linked Hendry's interests to temperamental Milton Bradley, formerly of the Texas Rangers. It remains to be seen how a fireball like Bradley would fit into the mild-mannered Cubs clubhouse with happy wallflowers like Derrek Lee and Alfonso Soriano.

Bradley might never come to Chicago, however, if Hendry can acquire one of the two rumored outfielders the Cubs have been linked to in Kansas City—Mark Teahen and David DeJesus. Either of them would fill the left-handed-hitting outfielder need for the Cubs at a price that might afford them the ability to make a move to add a salary like Peavy's.

Once Marquis is gone and Hendry has his left-handed-hitting outfielder, then we might start to hear the Peavy rumors heating up.

BUT WAIT!

The other rumor on Monday has now been reported as becoming official: the Tribune Company, owner (for now) of the Chicago Cubs, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

So what does that mean? Can the Cubs add any salary now? Peavy has been said to want the final year of his contract, valued at $22 million, to be guaranteed if he's traded. Can a bankrupt company do that? Citi's still paying $400 million for the Mets' new home, so it shouldn't stop them.

Now that enough teams have either eliminated themselves from talks for Peavy or been eliminated by Peavy's no-trade clause, it looks like Towers has been limited to the Cubs as perhaps the only place he can move Peavy.

What's a salary-dumping GM to do?