While two players and two big contracts -- along with cash and a whole lot of baggage -- were swapped in Friday's trouble-for-trouble deal between the Mariners and Cubs, each team also was able to acquire the exact same thing: a new reality.
No longer do the Cubs have to concern themselves with how Milton Bradley conducts himself, which last year included his infamous behavior wearing out even manager Lou Piniella, who was known to ruffle some feathers of his own in his day.
And no longer do the Mariners have to look at a really off-putting combination of numbers: Carlos Silva's pitching statistics the first two years of his contract and the whopping salary due him the next two years.
Naturally, there is a flip side of their new realities. The Mariners now have a hitter who led the American League in OPS just two years ago, and the Cubs get a pitcher who, if he can return to some semblance of his earlier form, might be a viable part of their staff for the next two years.
"This may be the classic change of scenery for both people," Cubs GM Jim Hendry said Friday. "Maybe they can both get a fresh start and perform the way they used to. It seemed like a solid gamble."
It will be up to history -- and in large part Bradley -- to decide which will be the bigger gamble, and the bigger gain or loss.
While this kind of swap doesn't make it snowflake-unique, it's the kind of deal that doesn't come around all the time: One source of trouble for another, and what's left for each side is a thing called hoping for the best.
There have been other similar deals in recent years, such as the 2005 swap that sent Phil Nevin and his $12 million salary from the Padres to the Rangers for Chan Ho Park and his $15 million. But few deals have been with stakes this high, both in salary and performance.
From the financial perspective, the Mariners are taking on more with Bradley's $21 million contract and the cash going to Chicago, with the Cubs getting Silva and a net gain of $6 million, which they are said to be ready to use to help acquire a center fielder. The money on each player already was spent, so even if one or the other ends in a worst-case scenario of a release before the two years are up, that's not far off from where they were before the trade.
They're banking on a lot more production in Seattle than they would have gotten without making this deal, that's for sure.
Before they traded him to the Cubs, the Mariners were looking at two years of Silva in their rotation on the heels of, by far, the worst two years and, by far, the most expensive two years of his career. In 2007-08, he collected about $20 million of the approximate $30 million he's earned over his first eight seasons. Meanwhile, he went a combined 5-18 with a 6.81 ERA, one season his zenith, the next even worse because he was injured as well.
With that in mind, the Mariners were looking at a two-year cost of $25 million, including a very safely presumed $2 million buyout for 2012 vs. picking up a $12 million option. (Ya think?)
So why not take on a similar contract, a little more financial burden and a player whose upside is measured in high levels of OPS, athleticism and All-Star talent? The quick answer for some would be: Well, because this is Bradley's eighth team for a reason, and he finished 2009 suspended by the Cubs.
The Mariners' answer: Why not, indeed?
"In this particular situation, we looked at everything and said, 'Hey, we're comfortable with acquiring this player,'" Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik said on a conference call. "We feel we have the support group. Players came here last year and embraced each other and carried each other around the field at the end of the year.
"I think that's a very positive environment, and players want to be in that. Hopefully he'll get here and see that and fit in like a glove."
The "each other" Zduriencik refers to is embodied in the persona of Ken Griffey Jr., hailed and carried off the field the last game of his return to Seattle last season -- and now back for another year of classic smiles and swings in 2010.
No doubt, the Junior Factor will be key in how this works out for the Mariners and Bradley. He himself made that clear Friday.
Said Bradley, "Some of the things that happen to you in your life as a baseball player are kind of surreal, and getting to play with Ken Griffey Jr. is one of those. He's always conducted himself in a professional manner and represented the game well. And hopefully, those characteristics and qualities can rub off on me."
For Silva and the Cubs, there's not really such a concern about personality conflicts, but with the clash of baseball and wood bat.
The only thing he has done less than strike out players in his career has been to walk them, so that's at least half-good. But with a penchant for giving up homers and more than 12 hits allowed per nine innings the past two seasons, Silva's going to have his work cut out for him at Wrigley Field.
But the Cubs like that prospect better than the impossible, which bringing back Bradley was. With the Twins, at least, Silva had a decent track record in Interleague play vs. the NL (7-6, 3.82 ERA in 16 starts), and perhaps he can get more ground balls in the Wrigley grass.
"We know a lot of people who know [Silva] and we have a lot of connections to his past with the Twins," Hendry said. "For whatever reason, it didn't work there [in Seattle], too."
When it comes down to it, though, this deal most likely begins and ends with one question: Will Bradley be remembered two years from now for what he did on the field, or what he did that kept him off the field?
That's the kind of question the Mariners -- and the Cubs -- didn't mind posing in unleashing this unique trade of trouble for trouble and hope for hope.
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