Chicago had been waiting to move Milton Bradley before bringing in someone else to take his place in the outfield. Now they’ve moved Bradley, and according to Dallas Morning News blogger Evan Grant, they’re close to signing Marlon Byrd.
Grant says what a lot of others have said: the Cubs were interested in both Byrd and Mike Cameron, but lost out on Cameron to the Sox while trying to peddle Bradley. Why they didn’t just go after Cameron as a first priority makes no sense to me, because he’s better than Byrd by just about every measure, most especially in terms of defense and, you know, not being a creation of the Ballpark at Arlington like Byrd is.
And with Carlos Silva in town, aren’t you gonna want someone in the outfield to chase down all of those liners off the wall?