The 2010 Major League Baseball trade deadline is just under a month away with the deadline being its customary date of July 31st on a yearly basis.

Over the next month I will try and tackle every Major League team as the deadline approaches to see if they will be buyers, sellers or stick to their current roster.

I will be basing my assumptions on the direction the team is going, their record as of the date I post the article, possible roster injuries and so on and so forth.

I will provide the information about each team by division.

I began with the National League East’s Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Florida Marlins & Washington Nationals.

I began my look at the NL Central earlier in the week with the Cincinnati Reds and St.Louis Cardinals.

Today I will move onto the legendary Chicago Cubs.

Coming into play today against the Arizona Diamondbacks the Cubs sit ten games under .500 with a record of 37-47. Even with the disappointing record despite the third largest payroll in baseball the team is tied for third place in the NL Central with the Milwaukee Brewers, ten and a half games behind the division leading Reds.

In the off-season vice president and general manager Jim Hendry focused much of his time on getting rid of Milton Bradley and his bad contract, as the city of Chicago and Bradley did not hit it off in a baseball as well as personal sense.

Hendry accomplished his big off-season feat trading Bradley to the Seattle Mariners for pitcher Carlos Silva on December 18th 2009 in a swap of bad contracts (Silva is currently playing on a four-year, $48 million deal).

The team also needed a new centre fielder and managed to pull Marlon Byrd away from the Texas Rangers via free agency, signing the player to a three-year, $15 million deal, as well as traded away the struggling Aaron Miles & Jake Fox to the Oakland Athletics for pitcher Jeff Gray and prospects.

They locked up reliever John Grabow to a contract extension that would pay him $7.5 million over two years and added an impact bat off the bench in Xavier Nady (one-year, $3.3 million deal).

With a rotation fronted by the likes of Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster & Ted Lilly, along with the offensive punch of Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee and an excellent supporting cast, Cubs fans everywhere came into 2010 wondering if this was the year the World Series curse would end.

The acquisitions of Silva (9-2, 2.96ERA) & Byrd (.304, 9HR, 36RBI) have paid off for the club with Silva being the most reliable starting pitcher thus far for the team this season and Byrd gaining instant popularity in centre field as fans formed the “Byrd’s Nest”. Byrd has also earned his first All-Star selection, being named to this season’s NL squad.

The Cubs have seen pretty good starting pitching from their top five with the exception being Zambrano.

Zambrano has been a nuclear meltdown for the club as he has struggled mightily for the club (3-6, 5.66ERA) and was even sent to the team’s bullpen earlier in the year. Zambrano currently sits on the team’s restricted list and will undergo evaluation for anger issues, following a dugout tantrum on June 25th. The team has also suspended him without pay.

Lilly is pitching better than his record showcases (3-7, 3.76ERA) and just two seasons after winning seventeen games Dempster currently holds a 6-7 record with a 3.54ERA, despite allowing sixteen home runs in the first half of the season.

Randy Wells is holding his own with a record of 4-6 with an ERA of 4.67 while Tom Gorzelanny has pitched to a record of 3-5 with an ERA of 3.31 split between the bullpen and his now starting role.

Yet somehow with all of the starting pitching doing their jobs no one on the staff holds a winning record except for Silva.

Is the offense the reason behind this?

Byrd is playing like an All-Star as I listed above, Soriano is producing again (.273, 14HR, 41RBI), Geovany Soto is playing above average behind the plate despite a lack of power numbers (.281, 8HR, 23RBI), Tyler Colvin is surprising the baseball world (.272, 12HR, 32RBI), 20-year old Starlin Castro has made an impact in his first season since being called up (.271, 2HR, 20RBI) and Mike Fontenot (.302, 1HR, 17RBI) & Ryan Theriot (.277, 0HR, 18RBI) have hit for average, but the team continues to lose.

The blame cannot all be put on the down years from big boppers Ramirez (.184, 8HR, 27RBI) & Lee (.230, 10HR, 36RBI) or even the disappointing Kosuke Fukudome (.266, 8HR, 26RBI). Fukudome has not played poorly, but his .258 AVG, 29HR & 138RBI across 370 games played in three seasons does not justify the four-year, $48 million deal the Cubs signed him to in 2007.

Is the bullpen the problem?

Closer Carlos Marmol has a record of 2-1 with an ERA of 1.99 with 16SV in 19SVO and lefty Sean Marshall (5-2, 2.18ERA) have been impressive, but no one else including the highly paid Grabow (currently on the disabled list with a sprained left knee) has stood out for the team. That still does not explain the rotation’s losing record.

It seems like the Cubs are hard luck losers this season, not scoring runs when they are needed at their most. Clutch hitting is highly under-rated in the game of baseball in my opinion, but this could simply be the reason the Cubs are not owners of a better record than they currently have.

Their offensive numbers are not poor, their starting pitching is pitching well despite their win-loss records and the bullpen, which is not a good one, is not losing them as many games as the starting pitching records indicate.

Whatever the cause may be if the Cubs do not start winning ball games soon you can fully expect the team to make deals come the July 31st trade deadline.

GM Hendry has let the media know that he does not plan on making any deals until his club is out of it in his mind, hoping for a turnaround.

The Cubs would love to rid themselves of Zambrano, but it is very doubtful that any team in baseball would take an emotional unbalanced player in treatment for anger management with over $40 million left on his contract plus a vesting player option for 2013, but no one ever thought that a team would take Bradley either and it did occur. Perhaps if Zambrano can prove that he is mentally stabile and can return to his form of 2007 some team will look to swap bad contracts yet again, although this looks very doubtful.

Some more intriguing players that could be dealt by Chicago are Theriot, Fontenot, Nady, Fukudome & Lee.

There are plenty of teams in the market for an infielder such as Theriot or Fontenot with the Philadelphia Phillies being the most obvious. With second baseman Chase Utley & third baseman Placido Polanco going down to injury, but expected back later in the year, the Phillies may want to go with a cheaper option as a replacement that would than turn into a bench bat upon Utley and Polanco’s return.

Theriot is currently riding a one-year deal worth $2.6 million, while Fontenot is even more affordable earning $1 million on a one-year deal this season.

Both players can play all around the infield and both would only be a midseason pickup with no commitments to them after 2010 is over. Surely neither would come at an expensive cost in farm system prospects, so perhaps the Phillies could look at one or both as infield options.

The Colorado Rockies are also in need of an infield replacement while starting shortstop Troy Tulowitzki sits out with a broken wrist. The Rockies are relying on regular second baseman Clint Barmes as well as youngster Jonathan Herrera to fill in until Tulowitzki’s return, but with their eyes on another playoff run the team may need an upgrade.

Nady, although not as potent as he was when acquired from the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2008 by the New York Yankees, is still capable of putting up big offensive numbers if given the necessary playing time. Perhaps an American League team in need of a designated hitter such as the cross town Chicago White Sox could come knocking on the Cubs door about Nady. The White Sox have been linked to Washington Nationals first baseman Adam Dunn, but Dunn has made it public that he does not want to fill a DH role. Nady could be a much more affordable option than Dunn and could possibly regain the hitting form he possessed in 2008 (.305, 25HR, 97RBI).

Fukudome has been a let down from an offensive standpoint since coming over as a highly touted free agent outfielder from Japan. The money he earns is not worth the production he has put up, yet there are still teams showing interest in the import. The Nationals have been linked to the outfielder, but seem content with Roger Bernadina in the outfield. Surely if the Cubs would eat some of Fukudome’s remaining contract a team could use his left-handed hitting services in a playoff run, but his contract is definitely a turn off for most teams, otherwise a deal involving Fukudome could have already been done.

The biggest trade chip the Cubs possess is Lee. Lee is in the last year of a five-year deal that pays him $13 million annually, an expensive addition to any ballclub, but who would not be tempted by a three-time Gold Glove, two-time All-Star first baseman with a batting and World Series title under his belt?

Lee is a career .282 hitter with 303HR & 975RBI in fourteen big league seasons. He has proven that he can remain healthy, even at 34-years old and could come cheaper than most teams would expect as he is having a down year thus far. Imagine a team such as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim slotting in Lee to fill in for the injured Kendry Morales. Any team’s offense could improve with Lee in its lineup and he is most certainly due for a big second half, this being his end of contract year.

The Cubs are not ready to give up on 2010 just yet, but if things remain the way they are come the trade deadline the team has numerous trade chips that could reward them with a lot in return.

Will the team turn things around?

Will the Cubs deal?

One thing is most certain, the city is getting tired of not owning a World Series title and times will need to change in one way shape or form.

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