Who's At Second?

With the trade deadline approaching I was wondering to myself what the Cubs should do. We have an abundance of outfielders, our starting rotation is great, and the bullpen has been very solid. The only place where I feel like we could use an upgrade is 2nd base. Let's face it, Fontenot has not been the "little Babe Ruth" as one announcer likes to call him.

Fontenot's line so far: .236/.314/.369 with 6 HR's 28 RBI's 27 BB's and 55 SO's.

So what are our options? The best one to me is to move Soriano to second base, live with his horrible defense at 2nd instead of in left, and allow Fox and Hoffpauir to share time in left field. This would not require any finagling on Hendry's part and we would have a much better bat in the lineup. As likely as this would probably work, it's equally likely that Lou Piniella would never even consider it.

That brings us to our next, more difficult option. Trade for a 2nd baseman. However, this brings up the problem with the Cubs expanding payroll with the ownership in Limbo. Fontenot is only making $430,000 and is only signed for this year. Aaron Miles is making $2.2 million this year and $2.7 million next year. Good luck moving that contract.

Let's just say for argument's sake that we were able to trade Aaron Miles away for some prospects and we could free up $4.9 million. Who could we go after?

Earlier in the year I read a rumor that Dan Uggla was possibly available. He has had a slightly under-performing first half and even though the Marlins are playing well, I have to believe they are thinking about getting rid of him because there is no way he is signing with them this off season. He is only making $5.35 million this year and had to scratch and claw through arbitration to get that.

We have done deals with them before and they have worked out pretty good so I can't rule out a possible trade for Freddy Sanchez with the Pirates. This would bring up a financial problem. Sanchez is making $6.1 million this year with an $8 million club option in 2010.

A more likely candidate to land in a trade would be Felipe Lopez (.305/.363/.408) from the Diamondbacks. Lopez is putting up better numbers than Fontenot and is just signed for this year making $3.5 million. Did I mention he is a switch hitter?

The only other player I can think of is...Mark Derosa? Sorry, I had to.