Carlos Silva

On March 3, 2011, I expressed the belief that the Chicago Cubs must release Carlos Silva. About three weeks later, the Cubs released him.

When Silva learned that he had been released, he laced into pitching coach Mark Riggins and blasted the Cubs.

There was a time back in the days, when the Cubs were lovable losers, when the team was managed by a succession of genial incompetents who routinely traded away their best prospects for has-beens and hired equally incompetent field managers who were generally long-suffering and sympathetic counterparts of the players they directed.

Same story, different day. I swear, this sounds like a familiar plotline. A corpulent, Hispanic starting pitcher takes the mound for the Cubs, gives up multiple moonshots in his first inning of work, calls out a corner infielder for making some negligible error, and a "scuffle" breaks out in the Cubs dugout.

Bobbleheads, t-shirts and refrigerator magnets.

Oh, my!

One of the pleasures a fan of a lousy team has to look forward to every season are the cool promotions that sucker you in to handing over a hundred bucks you may not have otherwise.

I've become an expert at this in recent years rooting on the Mariners, unfortunately. I have more dolls than any 31 year old man should, thanks to the annual Ichiro bobbles. Though, they're sucking me in again this season.

As the trade deadline approaches, Minnesota Twins fans are hoping the team adds another arm to the rotation to help push the Twins to an AL Central division title and beyond.

It was about this time last year when the Twins added Carl Pavano to the rotation.

This article is available at The Daily Cub and The Chicago Perspective . 

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The Chicago Cubs may have made one of the more lopsided trades in recent memory when they shipped troubled player Milton Bradley for supposedly over-paid under-performing Carlos Silva.

Well, he was under-performing.

As Chicago Cubs' starter Carlos Silva morphs into a Cy Young candidate so far early in the 2010 season, Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry is getting more than his share of credit for pulling off that trade.

That credit is completely unwarranted.

You don't get credit for signing the worst possible fit for your team in 2009 in Milton Bradley and ruining the season, and then receive accolades because the Seattle Mariners dumped their refuse on you and he turns out much better than expected, at least for now.

This article was originally published at The Daily Cub.  Visit TheDailyCub.com for game recaps and opinions about the Chicago Cubs

On Wednesday, Carrie Muskat wrote an article in which she said that "There are no deals pending, no scouts scouring other rosters to find help."

It wasn't a quote from Jim Hendry. It was just a line added into the article between quotes from the Cubs' general manager.

More specifically, it came immediately before the following quote from Hendry:

Always afraid to release your drafted stars whose weak performances are killing your fantasy squad, you risk missing out on some early-season hot up-and-comers that could make or break your team.

Remember this: in fantasy, you need to play it week by week, and you need to take advantage of the fact that your players aren’t “real.”

In the real world players demand and possess no-trade clauses, so Theo Epstein and Brian Cashman can’t run around signing free agents and immediately packaging them for positional or rotational upgrades.

In fantasy, you can, and you must.