The Major League Baseball offseason is getting ready to get heated up for real with free agency and the upcoming winter meetings and with teams looking to make moves, trades and signings to try and win the World Series next season, one team that could be very active is the Chicago Cubs and they may be looking to deal Jeff Samardzija to the Arizona Diamondbacks and other teams.
According to Hardball Talk, Buster Olney on ESPN.com wrote a rundown of some of the offseason moves that could go down and one that is starting is with Samardzija and the Diamondbacks, as they were talking about a move earlier in the summer and this one could heat up at the winter meetings. Samardzija is one of the best young pitchers for the Cubs and while many thought he would be around for the rebuilding, at 29-years-old he might be in perfect position to get traded, as he still has years ahead of him and his contract is under team control for the next two seasons, meaning the Diamondbacks could be assured of his services for two years, making it likely easier to give up some prospects in the deal.
Samardzija, as noted by Hardball Talk, had a little dust up earlier in the season with now new Washington Nationals manager Matt Williams when he was the third base coach for the Dbacks and while manager Kirk Gibson also had some words with Samardzija, clearly that would not affect a deal from Kevin Towers' end. Samardzija of course played college football before foregoing the NFL for baseball and last season he finished with a 4.34 ERA and a 8-13 record and he showed a flair for the K, as he finished with over 200 strikeouts last season. The Cubs and the Diamondbacks previously spoke about the deal for Samardzija, but Arizona did not want to give up too much and after missing the playoffs, they may be more willing to pull off a trade.
Samardzija had a one to one strikeout to innings ratio and while he lost the same amount of games this season as last, he was not as good as in 2012, when he won one more game in five less starts and posted an ERA a half run better at 3.81 and he also had 180 strikeouts in 174.2 innings, a bit better than his 214 in just under 214 this season. Samardzija would be a solid addition to the staff in Arizona and he has been working as a full time starter for each of the past two seasons, as he has put up some very solid stats for a pitcher moving from the bullpen. According to ESPN.com, Samardzija was one of a handful of pitchers with 200 K's and innings last season and the biggest knock on him was that he gave up too many earned runs and walks, ranking second in both in the National League.
The Cubs have a very young team and are in rebuilding mode and even without Samardzija, the team has a number of young starters, including Travis Wood as well as Edwin Jackson and the team also has Jake Arrieta and the rotation could change depending on the moves Theo Epstein makes. The main reason for the deal according to Olney is that the Cubs may not be signing Samardzija to an extension, which makes him expendable.