Are the Chicago Cubs willing to trade veteran southpaw Travis Wood?

For the first time this spring, the Chicago Cubs found themselves in a split-squad day. Entering Monday with 1-3 record early on, the North Siders dropped both games by the final score of 3-2 to the Kansas City Royals and 4-2 to the Colorado Rockies.

Former Royals’ second baseman Ben Zobrist squared off against the team in which he helped reach and win the World Series but didn’t do all that great in the batter’s box. Batting lead-off ahead of Addison Russell, Zobrist ended the game 0-for-2 with a walk to drop his average down to .143.

The 34-year-old switch-hitter is now 1-for-7 with his only hit coming in his Cubs spring debut against the Los Angeles Angels just four days ago. Surely, he’ll get out of his slump and show fans why Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer went out and stole him from the defending champions.

Now, back to the reason why we are all here. Following a winter that included infielder Starlin Castro being traded to the New York Yankees in exchange for Adam Warren, when and who will the Cubs be willing to trade next?

More from Chicago Cubs News

• Cubs should keep close eye on non-tender candidate Cody Bellinger
• Cubs starting pitching has been thriving on the North Side
• Make no mistake: the Cubs are very much about power hitters
• Cubs: It’s time to start thinking about potential September call-ups
• Cubs: P.J. Higgins deserves to be in the lineup on a daily basis

You have young players such as Javier Baez, Jorge Soler, Dan Vogelbach and Arismendy Alcantara but a veteran who has been with the organization for a while may be a possibility.

Veteran southpaw, Travis Wood, is entering his fifth year with the North Siders. The beginning of the 2015 campaign was a bit of disappointment for Wood as he was demoted from the starting rotation to the bullpen, having started only nine games in a total of 54 appearances.

Despite starting out with a high earned run average over five, things started to turn around for the 29-year-old. As a reliever, he posted a 2.95 ERA, becoming a reliable weapon against both left and right-handed hitters.

Both sides of the plate hit well below .300 against him as left-handers batted only .231 and .228 (righties) when he was working out of the bullpen for Joe Maddon. In his only spring start, Wood gave up one earned run and one hit while striking out two in as many innings in the team’s Cactus League opener on the road against the Milwaukee Brewers.

While trading Travis may sound appealing, there’s good chance that the Cubs would want to wait until July to see how he’s performing in order to see if his value goes up or down. Pulling the trigger right off the bat could end up backfiring on the Cubs later on down the road, especially if the bullpen takes a bit of hit via the injury bug.

This bullpen has been hit or miss over the years but they did, however, show signs of strength during the second half of the season. But if the Cubs were interested in shopping an arm, Travis’s name very well could be the first to come up in trade talks.

Only time will tell what the future holds. Regardless, it’s still very bright for this club that won 97 games and reached the National League Championship Series.