Back at ya, Brewers!

The wily Cub GM, Jim Hendry, responds to the CC Sabathia news with a star pitcher acquisition of his own.

Not a response, as the Cubs have obviously had this in the works, but the game is really on now. The Cards have to be shaking their heads after their two NL Central rivals significantly improve their pitching staffs with early strikes on the trade market.

The Cubs sent Murton, Eric Patterson, Gallagher and minor league catcher Josh Donaldson to Oakland. In return, Chicago got ace pitcher Rich Harden and young reliever Chad Gaudin.

Harden brings a 5-1 record and gaudy 2.34 ERA in 13 starts (the only loss to the White Sox). The edge is that Harden went on the DL earlier this year for the 6th time in 4 seasons. However, he has gone 4-1 in 11 starts since his DL stint. So far this season, Harden had amassed 92 strikeouts and only 31 walks in 77 innings, which is better than his 2.25 career strikeout to walk ratio. Harden has a 3.42 ERA for his career (entirely with the A's) but has appeared in only 29 games in the last three seasons and 51 in the last four.

The knock on Harden is obviously the durability and he's usually going to be about a six inning pitcher. However, those six innings are going to be stellar and I think the upside is so high that you have to live with the injury risk. He's had problems with the rotator and the elbow in the past and seems to be more prone to breaking down in the back half of the season. Hopefully, with the good staff the Cubs have, he will have opportunity to rest and stay fresh. Obviously, he is also moving from a pitcher's park to Wrigley, which can go any way depending on the weather, but I would never call a pitcher's park. At the very least, we replace the perpetual Prior fretting with new Cub Fan Woe.

Gaudin is a 25-year-old right hander with a live arm. He began the season in the starting rotation, going 3-2 with a 3.75 ERA in six starts. Gaudin moved to the pen on May 9 and has gone 2-1 with a 3.38 ERA in 20 appearances. Gaudin came in with Tampa in 2003, pitching 40 innings and not going more than 64 innings in a season until last year's 199.3. He'll help out the Cub pen.

The real joy in this transaction is that the Cubs got Harden and Gaudin without having to break the bank. The reality is that neither Murton nor Patterson were going to see any significant time with the big league club unless something was drastically wrong. That would remain the case for the foreseeable future. Gallagher is a talent, but certainly not on Harden's level (at this point). He was the gem for Oakland in this deal and could turn out to be a good to great pitcher in the future. The Cubs are not working for the future, though. Josh Donaldson was listed as the Cubs' seventh best prospect and showed potential (.346 in 49 games last year for Class A Boise), but hopefully Soto will be manning that slot for a while in Chicago.

Harden's injury concerns obviously brought his trade value down a little, but I see huge upside from this move. With a healthy rotation of Big Z, Harden, Dempster, Lilly and probably Marshall (maybe this is Marquis' ticket out of town?), the Cubs are in the upper echelon of NL staffs and have taken one step closer to a post-season berth.