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UPDATE (5 p.m.): Matt Garza has been scratched from his start with the Cubs tonight and according to Ken Rosenthal, a deal with the Texas Rangers is imminent. Hey, at least they waited until after the Orioles swept them to complete the deal. With that news, this story is pretty much moot. Now, I wonder what Jake Peavy is up to...
As last weekend began it seemed that Matt Garza to the Texas Rangers was all but a done deal. The scuttlebutt was that they wanted it to get done in time for Garza to start against the Orioles this weekend. That obviously didn't happen, and as the weekend went on the trade talks broke down.
Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote an article yesterday afternoon updating the Garza situation. Per the article, the Cubs anticipate that Garza will make his start for the Cubs today and speculates that would push the deadline for a deal back to this Saturday, the time when Garza would make another start.
The Orioles already traded for one Cub of course. Scott Feldman came to Baltimore in exchange for Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop back on July 2nd. It appeared that after making that trade, any chance of Garza becoming an Oriole was gone. This was especially the case when word came out the the Cubs wanted Eduardo Rodriguez and Jonathan Schoop for Garza, a deal that Dan Duquette was not willing to make.
There is one line in the Wittenmyer article that doesn't give much credence to idea that Garza might actually end up an Oriole, but it does give a little bit of hope. It is:
And some industry sources believe Baltimore, which already picked off Scott Feldman from the Cubs and continues to scout the Cubs on this trip, could be a sleeper team for Garza.
If the Orioles and Cubs have a chance of making a deal, the Cubs will have to lower their asking price from Rodriguez and Schoop. Maybe one of them could get the job done? Maybe not. There is no way to know what these so-called industry sources are basing their thoughts on other than the fact that the Orioles had scouts at recent Cubs games.
Garza would definitely be a boon to the rotation. He's a very solid pitcher capable on any one day of being brilliant. He's currently owed about $4M for the rest of this season, in which he's pitching to a 3.17 ERA/3.78 FIP.