Daily Chicago Sports Tab

Baseball is fun, and the season is long enough that crazy rumors begin in early May and have two months to ferment in the minds and on the blogs of fans until the deadline happens and everyone is either thrilled or depressed.

Recently, there have been folks making the case that trading superstar and MVP Mike Trout is the only real way the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim can get back into being a contending franchise. Not shortening the name back to simply the “Anaheim Angels,” but by trading one of the two best players in the game.

Interesting.

And we’ve seen blockbuster trades help the selling team recently.

On Dec. 20, 2010, Kansas City traded their ace, Zack Grienke, to Milwaukee for shortstop Alcides Escobar, outfielder Lorenzo Cain and right-handed pitching prospects Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress. Escobar and Cain were centerpieces of the Royals’ World Series win last October, while Odorizzi was flipped as part of a package in a significant deal that brought James Shields and Wade Davis (the Royals’ current closer) back from Tampa. A case has been made well that trading away the best pitcher the Royals had in 20 years (post-Saberhagen?) made them a championship caliber organization.

But trading Mike Trout?

That’s tough to stomach.

Let’s look back through recent history for some potential deals that might be viewed as benchmarks if the Angels were convinced to even consider moving Trout.

• 2001 – Cleveland trades SPs Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew to Montreal for 1B Lee Stevens and prospects (OF Grady Sizemore, 2B Brandon Phillips and SP Cliff Lee).

This deal, like Greinke to Milwaukee, may have ultimately crushed the team perceived as the “winner” of the deal when it was consummated. The Indians brought back three all-stars in a deal that, when initially reported, were “prospects” thrown in with Stevens.

If the Angels entertained the idea of moving Trout, they would probably want a similar haul of potential to build their farm system back into something somewhat respectable.

•  1998 – Seattle trades SP Randy Johnson to Houston for SPs Freddy Garcia and John Halama and SS Carlos Guillen.

Johnson might be the best “peak value” trade comparable we can draw from for Trout, but Johnson was 35 at the time of this big trade. In fact. Johnson was involved in a few blockbusters during his career; he was traded to Seattle in the deal sending Mark Langston to Montreal in 1988, and then was part of an enormous deal from the Diamondbacks to the Yankees that included Javier Vazquez, Brad Halsey and Dioner Navarro.

Given where the Angels are at right now, they would probably want young but Major League-ready assets like Garcia and Guillen.

• 2012 – NY Mets trade SP R.A. Dickey and catchers  Josh Thole and Mike Nickeas to Toronto for SP Noah Syndergaard, OF Wuilmer Becerra and catchers Travis d’Arnaud and John Buck.

Here’s your head scratcher candidate for sake of comparison. Dickey won the 2012 NL Cy Young Award with the Mets… and was traded that winter to Toronto. The deal brought back Syndergaard – who is now looking like a legitimate ace – and d’Arnaud, who has the ability to be an all-star caliber catcher if he stays healthy. Why there were four catchers involved in the deal is a mystery, and why Toronto would move away a young, talented Syndergaard with an enormous arm for a knuckleball throwing older player is still something Jays fans hate.

• 2007 – Texas trades 1B Mark Teixeira and P Ron Mahay to Atlanta for for SS Elvis Andrus, pitchers Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison and Beau Jones and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

This might be the best comparable including a position player in the last 10 years. Teixeira was moved at the deadline in consecutive seasons, with his first move being from Texas (who drafted him fifth overall in 2001) to Atlanta for a bounty of players who are still making an impact in Texas. Twelve months later Teixeira was traded to Anaheim by the Braves, with Atlanta bringing back Casey Kotchman and Stephen Marek. It’s safe to say Atlanta lost on the overall deal(s).

So what might it take for a team… say, the Chicago Cubs… to get Anaheim’s attention in a Mike Trout deal?

The Cubs actually have the organizational depth to make an offer the Angels would struggle to ignore. C/OF Kyle Schwarber, currently rehabbing from a knee injury, is a name that would at least get Anaheim to answer the phone. And with the Cubs off to a record start without Schwarber in the lineup – coupled with Javy Baez looking more comfortable at the major league level every day – the idea of moving Schwarber is becoming more realistic every week.

With Jason Heyward signed for eight years and the Cubs theoretically adding Trout to their outfield mix in a deal, that means there aren’t many innings left for outfields in the Cubs system. Does that make Jorge Soler available? Or are we considering one of Albert Almora, Ian Happ and Billy McKinney a possibility?

And, with Addison Russell looking just fine at shortstop, Baez getting better and Ben Zobrist inked for three years after 2016, does that mean the Cubs would consider including infielder Gleyber Torres? Torres, 19, was one of the top rated prospects in baseball this year by both ESPN’s Keith Law and Baseball America.

Any way you want to spin a deal from that list of players and prospects, the Cubs have enough firepower to make the Angels an offer that would be hard for them to turn down – even if it meant moving Mike Trout.