Carlos Silva for Milton Bradley. No joke.

The Cubs have just completed what should be the worst trade of the MLB off-season. Milton Bradley has been dealt to the Mariners for Carlos Silva and $9 million cash. The cash will help offset the $3 million difference in salaries while making Silva's salary only slightly less obscene. The "experts" are saying this is the perfect deal for both sides, as both players have large contracts and both teams were looking to unload the players. The one minor detail they're missing is that one player is good, and the other player is bad.
I understand that Milton Bradley had to get out of town. Lou Piniella openly admitted that the Cubs would do everything they could to get Bradley out of town. Ryan Theriot just spoke on ESPN1000 about how it will be a lot nicer to go about the daily grind of baseball without having to worry about Milton Bradley. The fact remains that Bradley was a decent baseball player. He had the second-highest OPS of any Cub with 400 plate appearances in 2009, a solid .775 clip. The problem is that Bradley's trade value was shot. The whole world knew that the Cubs had to get rid of him by any means possible and the Mariners were the only team desperate enough to take on that entire salary. Blame for Bradley's plummeting value has to be spread around the entire city of Chicago. Blame Jim Hendry for taking Bradley in the first place. Blame the fans and the media for not being a little nicer to Milton Bradley, for never giving him a chance to succeed and tearing him down when the littlest thing went wrong. Blame Milton Bradley himself for not being a little nicer to the fans and the media when that happened.
That said, I'd rather have Milton Bradley, his teammates, the fans, and the media tough it out one more year than still have to pay $16 million over two years for the worst player in baseball, Carlos Silva. Here are the unbelievable pitching lines that Carlos Silva has put up the past four years:

Year	Team	W	L	ERA	G	IP	H	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
2006	MIN	11	15	5.94	36	180.1	246	38	32	70	1.54
2007	MIN	13	14	4.19	33	202.0	229	20	36	89	1.31
2008	SEA	4	15	6.46	28	153.1	213	20	32	69	1.60
2009	SEA	1	3	8.60	8	30.1	41	5	11	10	1.71

To summarize, that is a line of 29 W, 47 L, 5.60 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 11.6 H/9, and 3.8 K/9 from 2006-2009. Of all the pitchers who have thrown 500 IP the past four years, Silva has the worst ERA, the worst H/9, the worst K/9, the worst BA against, the worst SLG against, the highest percentage of starts lost at 47.95%, AND the worst average game score. And that all includes a 2007 season in which he wasn't terrible!
If this is the best Jim Hendry could do, he was either not trying hard enough or should have just given up and kept Milton. If Silva puts up 2007 numbers and the Cubs manage to do something productive with the money they are saving, this could turn out to be a not terrible deal. Don't hold your breath.

Interesting Baseball Fact of the Day: Carlos Silva is not very good at baseball.