The Yankees signed Mark Prior yesterday, which I believe is the first piece in the grand attempt to reassemble the great Cubs 2003 starting rotation with Larry Rothschild again leading the staff.
Why do I say this? Well, we do know that the Yankees have expressed their desire to re-sign Kerry Wood this offseason, and, well, everyone in the Chicago media is trying to get the Yankees to trade for Carlos Zambrano.
All we would need the Yankees to do then is to convince Matt Clement and Shawn Estes out of retirement and *blammo* we have the Cubs 2003 starting rotation!
Seriously now…
I would say the possibility of the Yankees bringing Kerry Wood back is pretty high. Both that organization and its fans were extremely happy with what Kerry brought to the team last year.
Now, ever since the Cliff Lee signing, various media outlets in Chicago, legit (Bruce Miles) and bs (Al Yellon) have talked about the possibility of the Yankees trading for Carlos Zambrano, and Cubs fans have become all a-twitter about the possibility.
Here’s a big dose of reality here…IT AIN’T HAPPENING!!!
Carlos Zambrano isn’t going anywhere even if the Yankees did want him.
The only people talking about this possibility are the Chicago media…the same media that tried to run Zambrano out of town last season.
First off, Zambrano isn’t the type of player that the Yankees would take a chance on…especially with the contract that he has.
Second, no one outside of Chicago has even made a whimper about this happening. No Yankee officials have said a thing. No one in the New York media is saying anything.
Third, and most importantly, Zambrano has a no trade clause and doesn’t want to be traded.
The first two points are pretty self explanatory, but the third one needs a little more said about it. For two years, people (especially me) said that the Cubs should try to trade Derrek Lee who also had a no trade clause and wanted very much to stay in Chicago. It took a long time before the Cubs were able to convince Lee to accept a trade. Zambrano has been even more vocal than Lee about staying in Chicago. If the Cubs really wanted to move him, they would have to start working immediately behind the scenes to carefully convince Z to change his mind on this matter. I’m not privy to such information, but I don’t think that is in the process of happening right now.
On top of the silliness of this idea, there is this little fact that would need to be put into consideration…who do the Yankees have that they would be willing to part with that would actually help the Cubs in a trade? Unless they are planning to trade A-Rod or Teixeira, the Yankees don’t have a whole lot of prospects that the Cubs might find helpful to their organization. (And, no, Gardner is not someone the Cubs need.) The Yankees farm system is pretty weak right now. They have a couple of decent catchers in their system…Gary Sanchez and Jesus Montero…but with Posada pretty much done as a catcher and questions about recently signed Russell Martin, the Yankees are probably going to hold on to those two guys.
I want Zambrano gone more than just about anyone…but I’m not going blatantly go out and say the he’s on the trading block just because I want him gone. He’s going to be on the Cubs roster in 2011, and will likely be the Cubs opening day starter.
