A couple of weeks ago, I contemplated an article based on the idea of trading Carlos Lee’s bad contract for another team’s bad contract, with the intent of either improving team defense or team pitching. So I culled through the players with bad contracts who might qualify. What I found is this….Carlos Lee may have a burdensome and excessive contract, but he is much more productive than the other players with bad contracts. The best I could come up with was Carlos Lee for Barry Zito, and even at that the Giants would have to send about $20 million to make me think about it. Carlos is a good hitter, but Zito is a mediocre pitcher, and Zito has more years and dollars on his contract to boot. How about Carlos for Vernon Wells? Sure, Wells would play better defense, but I have a lot more confidence in Lee’s offense, and I suspect that Wells is more of a candidate for a collapse even though he is considerably younger. Would you trade Carlos for Aaron Rowand? Well, look at Rowand’s offensive stats before you answer. And Carlos for Eric Byrnes? Hell, no (well unless you just want a straight salary dump, since Byrnes only has one more year). At one time I would have traded Carlos Lee for Soriano. Would I now? No…particularly after it looks like Soriano may lose some speed after his knee surgery.

I gave up on the article….but I came to the realization that at least we can be thankful that Carlos Lee has been consistently productive. There are a lot of teams with similar bad contracts who aren’t getting a lot of production.

Would you trade Carlos Lee for Carlos Zambrano straight up?

I didn’t consider it in my exercise, above, because Zambrano’s contract usually isn’t listed among the “bad contracts.” But recent reports indicate that the Cubs are interested in trading Zambrano, even though it is viewed by others as a tough sell because of his contract.

Going forward, Lee and Zambrano are paid approximately the same salary for a similar number of years. Lee is a tremendous hitter in Wrigley Field, and many Cubs’ fans have wanted him for that reason. Zambrano has pitched well at MMP (well, anywhere he has faced the Astros) and still produces good overall pitching stats….but his Ks and pitching performance has been declining each year. Negatives to a trade like this: reluctance to make intra-division trades and both players have No Trade Clauses.

However, apparently Carlos Lee really likes Chicago and hitting at Wrigley. Might be the only team he’d waive his NTC to go to. But maybe he still wouldn’t.

I believe his NTC becomes limited starting at the end of next year; perhaps at that point we could move him for some salary relief and prospects (though obviously not his whole contract). We have a wealth of prospects coming up who could feasibly step in to play LF at the big league level.