Cubs Move Miller

Not suprisingly, the Cubs traded Damien Miller to the A's on Sunday for cash and a PTBNL ("player to be named later", that's a FLA or four-letter acronym, which itself is a TLA or three-letter acronym). The Cubs will pay $800K of his $3M salary for 2004. Since they also signed Barrett to a one year $1.55M contract they'll effectively be paying their starting catcher in 2004 $2.35M minus the cash they got for Miller, better than 2003 but alot for someone like Barrett (or Miller for that matter). Of course, they also picked up a player to be named later which might prove useful.

The Cubs also obtained Jose Macias from the Expos for minor league pitcher Wilton Chavez. Fairly versatile switch hitter that can play 3B, OF, and 2B. Very low on base, poor slug and at 32 he's not going to get any better. A guy you wouldn't want to play unless you absolutely had to. I assume they're thinking of him as a backup at third to spell Ramirez so that Martinez would spell at SS and 2B although I lilke Martinez a lot better. Macias made $825,000 in 2003. If the Cubs are paying that salary, then they're overpaying by about $525,000.

1B - Lee, Simon as backup and pinch hitter but may be trying to trade him
2B - Grudz, Martinez
SS - Gonzales, Martinez
3B - Ramirez, Macias
RF - Sosa
CF - Patterson, Goodwin
LF - Alou, Hollandsworth
C - Barrett, Bako

SP - Prior, Wood, Clement, Zambrano, Cruz
RP - Borowski, Hawkins, Remlinger(L), Mercker(L), Farnsworth, Wellmeyer