Silva and Bradley

Silva has never been big on strikeouts, but he was effective for the Twins.

The Chicago Cubs and Seattle Mariners swapped bad contracts back in December, when the Cubs sent left fielder Milton Bradley to the Mariners in exchange for starter Carlos Silva. At the time, the general consensus was that while the Cubs had to deal Bradley, the Mariners won big by dumping Silva on them. Here, after a quarter of a season, is a look at how the two sides have fared thus far.

The Cubs signed Bradley to three years and $30 million after his great 2008 season in Texas. Chicago was Bradley’s eighth team, and he had demonstrated a tendency to make things difficult for his employers. Bradley was not bad, but not great, on the field in 2009. Off-field problems were what made it impossible for the team to keep him. For the Mariners and Silva, the problems were based on performance. They had signed him away from the Twins for four years and $48 million prior to the 2008 season. His first season with Seattle, despite looking bad on the surface (4-15 record, 6.46 ERA), was in line with his performance in previous years. He was injured and ineffective in his second year, allowing 29 runs in 30⅓ innings and walking more batters than he struck out. The following table compares his career rates before and after Seattle signed him.

The Mariners may have thought that Silva was finished, and the Cubs had to get rid of Bradley. So they swapped problems, with the Cubs also receiving cash. Accounting for salary differences, the Mariners ended up paying $6 million to swap Silva for Bradley. As writers and bloggers noted at the time, Seattle likely thought that they had already lost the money they owed to Silva, so in a sense this was like picking up two seasons of Bradley at $3 million per year. He had been inconsistent in his playing time over the previous few seasons, but had been a very good hitter when on the field. Here is his recent performance and 2010 CHONE projections.

The early results heavily favor the Cubs. After his terrible 2009, Silva has rebounded over the first quarter of 2010 to post some of the best numbers of his career. As Table 1 shows, he is giving up walks and home runs at around his usual rates while striking out more batters than he ever has before. Bradley, meanwhile, played only 21 games before taking himself out indefinitely for emotional reasons. In those 21 games, his batting line was .214/.313/.371, much closer to 2009 than to performances in past years.

The Mariners clearly thought it was not worth their time to fix Silva, and that they would be better off using young pitchers like Doug Fister and Jason Vargas, who have done well this season. They took a relatively small financial risk, but so far things have not worked out. Bradley, only 32, is a talented hitter, and perhaps he has some really good baseball left. However, he has been unable to stay on the field over the years, and he has worn out his welcome with eight different teams. Things are already starting to unravel after just a couple of months in Seattle. Unless the club decides to bail out early, they are stuck with him through 2011.