Your Quick Reference Survival Guide to Garza Trade Rumors

If there’s anything that sucks about this job, it has to be the countless rumors you hear from all over the baseball community.

It’s like a freakin’ highschool full of hormonal teens desperate to get the attention of one and other while sneaking beer out of their Dad’s mini fridge. (not that I would anything about that, Dad. I swear.)

It’s hectic. Its chaos. However, it keeps me employed. Fate, how you mock me…..

Like any good writer, once something has enough people buzzing, it deserves to be given some attention. Could Matt Garza‘s days in Chicago be numbered?

Countless fan tweets, insider blogs and various other wonderfully secret sources have already speculated and made a myriad of predictions about what Mr. Garza’s fate is.

While I’m no insider (yet), there are a few things that are abundantly clear in this mish-mash of information and speculation. Rumors drive the market, but assumptions can be made just from some good old fashioned baseball IQ.

1. Should Garza be traded, it will likely be to an AL east team:

Garza is extremely appealing to the AL because of his experience and past success with Tampa Bay whereas most NL pitchers tend to be shied away from by AL GMs. They simply aren’t used to working against the DH position and can be easily rattled, among other countless reasons. The AL East is especially hungry for him because it is arguably the most competitive division in baseball and commands a higher level of execution than other divisions. Its like a constant cold war arms race for the best talent.

For those of you keeping score at home, this means either Toronto, Boston, New York (Yankees), Tampa Bay, or Baltimore qualify.  By looking purely at necessity, we can cut both Baltimore and Tampa out of the race – they either don’t have the need for Garza’s services or simply don’t have the cash to toss around at a premium player. This leaves the Jays (who need good pitching so very very badly), the Red Sox (who need a new ball team so very very badly) and the Yankees (who want to spend money so very very badly) in the race. These are all fairly respectable reasons to pick up a guy like Garza, and Matt Garza just so happens to be a guy like Garza. Who knew!

2. There will be lots of talk coming from the Cubs front office about extending Garza

Whether there’s any truth to the Garza extension talks, we may never know, but there’s a good reason for that. Simple economics dictates that supply and demand will determine the value of any product. Said product is Matt Garza, so we can already determine that the supply in this economics crash course is 1 (unless the cloning machine in the catacombs of Wrigley is complete). Demand is a little bit more complex, but we’ll keep it simple. For example’s sake, lets say there are 3 key teams in the Garza market: the Jays, BoSox, and Yankees. Naturally these three teams will have to compete with one and other for the one and only player, thus driving his price up. The Cubs, who hold all the cards in this charade, can easily pipe in and say “Yes, we’re still interested in Mr. Garza’s services coming up in the near future” and thus create a 4th buyer. This drives Garza’s price up even further without costing the Cubs any time, effort or labor. Neat trick eh? It gets better. The Cubs theoretically control the “invisible hand” of the market here by establishing a base price through these “talks” and can inflate his value even more because of the bidding war that follows from the AL East teams. It spells a meaty return for the Cubs who will otherwise lose their ace hurler.

3. Garza still fits into the Cubs’ picture and return is not certain, so don’t be a dingus and start making wild predictions.

All this speculation falls on whether the Cubs actually move Garza or not. While the signs point to him being traded, nothing is set in stone yet. The yield may not appease King Theo and his subjects, and having a weapon like Garza in your rotation is never a bad thing. It’s always good to have a few anchor pieces in a rebuild, and Matt Garza makes one hell of an anchor in the bullpen for younger players emulate. We all love to be right, but only the GMs of ballclubs know whats really going on. I’m just a guy who types it all out.

For better or for worse, you can be certain that the Cubs’ brass will only take a good, high up-side deal for Garza. The winner may be the team who is willing to surrender the young, high potential players and premium pitching talent. Both Toronto and Boston have that in many different forms, but the Yankees seem to lack the youth the Cubs desire in their minor league system. Take from that what you will.

I won’t say that this is the most exciting part of baseball for the fans, but we all have a lot of fun with the baseball season pre-July 31st. It will be very interesting to see how this all comes to surface.

Want more? You can always follow me on twitter @Denny_CubsCrib for Cubs analysis, news, humor and updates.