Rumors have continued to swirl around Carlos Zambrano being dealt to other teams.  The latest is another rumor out of New York that the Mets are interested in the Cubs “ace”. Without trying to lend any credence to the rumors out there, it might make sense to look into the potential trade market for Zambrano.

As to why the Cubs should move him – check the blog entry from Monday.

Any potential destination for Z has to be able to take on the salary.  It does the Cubs little good to trade Zambrano if they’re not clearing his salary from the payroll.  That immediately limits the teams down to the big payroll teams.  Here’s a quick review on the status of the pitching staffs for each of those teams:

Yankees: If the Cubs wanted to trade Zambrano there, they missed their window of opportunity earlier in the week.

Red Sox: Their rotation is already overflowing and they may be looking to trade a starter themselves.

Mets: This is an obvious pick.  The Mets had huge issues in their rotation in 2009, with only two starters going over 120 innings and only Santana being any good.  So they’ve got a huge need. The issue here may be making a trade work.  For the Cubs to make the move, they’d need to get a pitcher in return that is both cheap and a reasonable bet to at least come close to Z’s production.  However, if the Mets had a guy like that they would need to hang onto him themselves.  It would be hard to justify a trade for prospects here, as well, since the farm is pretty barren for the Mets at this time. The Cubs could look into something like a Zambrano for Reyes deal.  This would give the Cubs production from Reyes in 2010 but still allow them flexibility next offseason to either retain Reyes or go after a different free agent and pocket the picks from Reyes.

Angels: They were trying to hold onto Lackey, so they had money allocated to SP that they didn’t spend this offseason.  It would be more of a question mark as to whether Zambrano would waive his no trade clause to go to the AL where he couldn’t hit, though. Unfortunately, this is another team where it is difficult to find a match that works for both sides.  The Angels have historically been very reluctant to part with their prime prospects under Stoneman.  Their system has also hit a lull the past couple years to the point where it would likely be difficult to get a good return for Zambrano in a trade.

LA Dodgers: A very interesting possibility.  The two pitchers with the most IP for LA in 2009 were Randy Wolf and John Garland, both of whom are free agents (Wolf already signed with Milwaukee).  Billingsley, Kershaw and Kuroda are all back, but they may still feel a need for a veteran anchor to the rotation. Unlike the other teams in the list, the Dodgers have several very intriguing players on the farm that could potentially be had in return for Carlos. None are ready to step into the rotation right away, but Dee Gordon, Ethan Martin and Chris Withrow are all very high potential players who could form the basis of a great return in the trade.  Z’s rotation spot would have to be filled through free agency, though, which would significantly reduce the appeal of this move for 2010.

Detroit: Rumors and actions have had Detroit shedding payroll all winter long instead of taking it on.  Again, there are also the same questions of whether Z would waive his no-trade to go there.  About the only workable trade from a baseball perspective would probably have to center around a Zambrano for Miguel Cabrera swap to make the salary work for Detroit.  And Miguel would have to hit a heck of a diet between now and opening day to be acceptable in RF for a year before 1B opens back up. Still a really interesting thought, though.

White Sox: With Buehrle, Peavy, Floyd, Danks and Contreras the Sox are unlikely to be looking for more pitching.