This is how you trade in Fire Sale mode
The Cubs are sitting on beacoup overpriced trading chips, but they still scored a nice mini-coup in acquiring Arodys Vizcaino and Jaye Chapman for Reed Johnson and Paul Maholm. Back in the spring, I had advocated for the Twins signing Maholm on the cheap and short-term as a reliable back-end SP option, with the possibility of moving him for a prospect at the trading deadline. Maholm has had a terrific year in a hitter-friendly park, enough so that the historically pitching-savvy Braves management opted to send their #2 prospect, 20-year-old Vizcaino, and high-MiL-K-rate, 23-year-old RP Chapman to the Cubs, along with journeyman OF Johnson.
That begs the question of what a package of Span and Maholm might have yielded-- perhaps Vizcaino and Randall Delgado? Perhaps not, but clearly the Cubs have been doing their homework in finding teams with need and improving their future with a high-ceiling A propsect, the Twins thus far? not so much.