Why trading Bradley and signing Byrd is finacially a good deal...add the numbers to prove it.

The Cubs save almost $8 million in 2010 by signing Byrd and the trade of Bradley...

Here's why.

The other option out there was to trade Bradley to Tampa Bay for Pat Burrell...if that trade happened, Tampa Bay would likely be looking at the Cubs to pay the difference in the money remaining on the two salaries...which would be $12 million.

In getting Pat Burrell, the Cubs still would have had to sign a center fielder.

So assuming Byrd would have signed either way... lets look at the numbers.

trading Bradley to Tampa Bay

Player	Amount
Burrell	$9 mil
Bradley	$6 mil
Byrd	$3 mil
total	$18 mil

keeping Bradley

Player	Amount
Bradley	$9 mil
Byrd	$3 mil
total	$12 mil

trading Bradley to Seattle

Player	Amount
Silva	$11.5 mil
Bradley	-$4.5 mil
Byrd	$3 mil
total	$10 mil

All of these numbers are for the 2010 season.

The money for Bradley in the Burrell trade scenario assume the Cubs pay $12 million for the remaining 2 years on Bradley's salary. For 2010, that would be half or $6 million.

The money for Bradley in the Silva trade is from the 9 million the Cubs got from Seattle for the trade. For 2010, it would again be 1/2 so $4.5 million.

Burrell would have no place to play in Chicago...at the very least he would platoon with Fukudome.

The Cubs, no matter what, had to get a center fielder. Fukudome was not going to play out there again in 2010. So...just wasn't going to happen. Don't forget, we are paying Fukudome $13 million this year too. He's got to play somewhere.

The Cubs save $4 million by not keeping Bradley.
The Cubs save an estimated $10 million by trading him to Seattle instead of Tampa Bay.

This is good, people. Jim Hendry has, believe it or not, played this out about as well as anyone could have hoped (unless you actually though Bradley could be a productive and noncancerous player). And the back weightedness of the Byrd contract is very mild in comparison to the contracts of Zambrano, Bradley, Fukudome and Soriano.

The situation is improving. It's not prefect, but it is actually improving.

Trust me.