In the interest of full disclosure (and in an attempt for me to use a big word like disclosure) I will admit that when I heard that the Mets had traded four Shea Stadium maintenance crew members to the Twins for the greatest Rule V Draft Pick of All-Time, I knew it was bad news for the Cubs.

After all, this Johan Santana fella (honestly, he was a Rule V pick from the Astros by the Twins in 2000–further proof that any success the dumbass(tros) have had this century has been blind luck) is pretty good at throwing a baseball.

But I didn’t take it nearly as hard as the one Sun-Times columnist who used to actually think before he wrote.

Wait, that’s not fair, all of the Sun-Times sports columnists think before they write.

Rick Telander: “I wonder how many half-assed, one sentence paragraphs I need to barf up today to fill my column inch quota?”

Jay Mariotti: “Does this shade of lipstick bring out my eyes?”

Carol Slezak: “Did my Jetta ‘beep’ when I hit the remote lock button this morning?”

Point is, Couch used to be reasonable most of the time. Not lately. Now he’s just like the rest of the monkies, crapping in his hand, throwing it at the wall and seeing how much of it sticks.

I know he didn’t write the headline, but it sucks enough to be a perfect compliment to his column. “Santana trade rocks Cubs” I’m sure this is some 48 year old recently demoted to copy editor’s attempt to prove he’s cool by using Santana and rocks in the same sentence. Something that hasn’t been true since he started cutting singles with Rob Thomas and Michelle Branch. Actually, I’m giving the Sun Times too much credit. They just ran that headline because it was the right number of picas.

If you haven’t heard the buzz, Johan Santana already has won the National League Cy Young Award, and the New York Mets have won the pennant. Everyone gets so worked up when a big trade is made, but they still have to play all the games, nobody wins anything on paper and you never know what might happen.

I hadn’t heard that, Greg. I’m glad to know it though, because now I can save a lot of time this summer not reading the newspaper.

That’s what the Cubs are going to be saying, anyway. But forget all that garbage. I agree with the buzz. The Mets get Santana, the best pitcher in baseball, and the Cubs get a 100-year anniversary.

Uh, the 100th anniversary is coming whether they want it or not. The Cubs last won the World Series on October 14, 1908, this October 14 the NLCS will still be going on, much less the World Series.

I guess what a reasonable person would infer from Greg’s column is that the team with the Cy Young winner always wins the pennant. So by trading for a guy that Greg thinks will win the Cy Young in the National League, it means the Mets have already won the pennant.

In the last ten years the teams who had the NL Cy Young winner, won one pennant. The 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks and Randy Johnson. In that same span, only the Yankees of the same year and Roger Clemens have done it. In fact, in the AL, it’s only happened twice since 1990 (Bob Welch and the A’s that year).

In New York, there is fallout over why the Yankees didn’t get him and why the Mets did, as if those are the only two teams. In Chicago, both teams are short on starting pitching, and no one ever talked about Santana coming here.

This is untrue, because we talked about a Santana trade, and we’re not nobody. In fact, if not for the Twins unwillingness to stop demanding Sam Fuld from the Cubs, it might have happened. I mean, come on, Johan’s good, but he’s no Sam Fuld.

The Mets traded a bunch of prospects to Minnesota for Santana, and a few details have to be worked out before it’s final. Santana and the Mets have to agree to a contract extension, which they will.

I think Greg is just mad because he had a column full of forced outrage ready to go if the Cubs had traded for Santana and given him the seven-year, $175 million contract extension he wants. Greg had all kinds of great stuff ready about how the evil Tribune was spending the next owner’s money. But Greg should also realize that the Cubs failing to land Santana saved him the inevitable image burned into his mind of a pantsless Jay Mariotti running in circles in his little glass “Around the Horn” booth in the Sun-Times newsroom nattering “Tribsters, Tribsters, Tribsters” over and over again.

The White Sox are happy because a pitcher who kept humiliating them is no longer in their division or their league. The Twins probably wouldn’t have traded him to the Sox anyway, not wanting to help a division rival. But that’s no excuse for the rotation the Sox have put together.

Whatever, they just jumped Minnesota and now are a third-place team, somewhere around .500. Two more starting pitchers, a center fielder and a leadoff hitter by Opening Day, and who knows? They can compete for the wild card.

Yay? Ooh, third place! Huzzah! I hope Greg’s being ironic here, because with or without Santana, the Sox are a lot closer to the Royals and Twins than they are the Tigers or Indians.

The thing is, this trade kills the Cubs.

Kills them.

If they want to have a chance at getting past the Mets and into the World Series without a miracle, they have to answer back.

And that means grabbing Erik Bedard from Baltimore. I called for this two weeks ago, but now the problem is much bigger.

Wait, you called for it? Well why hasn’t it been done, then? If the great Greg Couch demands it, it must be done. Look, we can argue this point for all time, trading Rich Hill to get Bedard defeats the purpose. You go from having three good starting pitchers to three. Bedard’s better than Hill, but the Cubs need to do better than Jason Marquis and Jon Lieber. Hill’s not the problem.

The Seattle Mariners are trying to get Bedard out of Baltimore, but Orioles owner Peter Angelos has a way of flipping out just before making a trade. This wouldn’t be a bad time for the Cubs, with all their prospects and revenue streams, to muscle in and make a big offer. Felix Pie, Rich Hill and Sean Marshall all can go.

Bedard is a No. 1 pitcher, a lefty starter who will turn 29 in March. And suddenly, something is holding up the Seattle trade.

The only thing holding up the trade is Peter Angelos trying to convince Bedard to sign a contract extension to stay in Baltimore. If Bedard turns it down, he’s going to the Mariners.

Besides, Hill, Marshall and Pie aren’t going to get it done, and you’re still going to have to find a centerfielder. Oh, and since Marshall is better than Marquis, you’d actually be further weakening the thing you allege to be strengthening.

‘We continue to talk,” Orioles president Andy MacPhail, who could do more for the Cubs right now than he ever did when he worked for them, told the Baltimore Sun. ”We’ve had some other clubs chime in, as well.”

None of the rumors include the Cubs.

And you call yourself a journalist. SSM has been all over Bedard to the Cubs rumors for weeks. Treat yourself, buy a little of that elusive Internet access for your home. It’ll do wonders for you.

You’re going to see a million stories this year about the Cubs’ anniversary. As you know, they last won the World Series in 1908. We’ll hear about who the president was back then, what was the price of milk. Stuff like that. We’ll get a history lesson on the Cubs and their failures. People will think it’s cute and call them the Cubbies. We’ll hear about curses and goats and Bartman.

Huh? You mean horseshit stories like the one you wrote today? If the Cubs should trade for Bedard to avoid these stories, I’m confused. You’re going to write them, anyway. The Cubs could pull off a five-team trade and land Bedard, Santana, Josh Beckett and Jake Peavy and you’d still be writing those stories. Because they’re easy and you like easy. You prove it every day.

And when people ask whether Cubs fans believe in curses, I hope they’ll say this: I believe in Johan Santana. I believe in Erik Bedard.

I don’t get it? What? Huh? I once wrote that I believed in Mark Prior. Now, I believe I’d enjoy it if he drowned in the hot tub.

The Cubs spent decades not even trying to win. It’s different now. The front office is trying. They spent all that money last year, and this year they’ve already gotten outfielder Kosuke Fukudome.

But they don’t seem to realize how far they were last year from being a success. They barely beat a bunch of small-market teams to win a weak division in a weak league, and that doesn’t count. Then they were swept in the first round of the playoffs.

I’ll agree with you for once here that getting swept in the playoffs does not make it a successful season. But I think what the Cubs realized last year was that their offense wasn’t good enough, and that their right fielders were a clown college, so they converted some weak American dollars into yen and bought themselves the great Fukakke. They’re trying to get a real leadoff hitter so they can move Alfonso Soriano to the middle of the order. They’ve yanked the closer role from Ryan Dempster and are keeping him quiet by dangling a starting pitching role at him, even though we all know he’ll get traded to the Blue Jays in spring training for one of Ernie Whitt’s used nut cups. You still haven’t come up with a proposal for Bedard that the Orioles would actually accept.

OK, now to prove I’m not a complete prick, I’m going to agree with most of what you say the rest of the way. Most.

Don’t the Cubs realize the whole season was a flop. It wasn’t just a bad week in the playoffs. The Cubs aren’t good enough. And now, with the Mets getting Santana, they’re even farther behind.

Uh, yeah, I think we got that they weren’t good enough when they…you know…didn’t win a game in the playoffs. But are they really behind, not to mention far behind, the Mets, the team that didn’t make the playoffs?

Sure, they’re good enough to win that division again this year. They probably will. But that means nothing.

Well, gee the Rockies didn’t even win their division and they went to the World Series. So you could argue that winning any division means nothing. I don’t see the Cubs feeling secure that their current roster is good enough, in fact, if they don’t get better they’re no safe bet to be better than the Brewers. (Especially if Ned Yost ever gets fired and the Brewers hire a real manager some day.)

The Mets have better starting pitching than the Cubs, a better closer, better hitting, better balance.

The Mets have deeper starting pitching, but let’s face it, they have no idea what they’ll get out of Pedro Martinez. His arm is on it’s last legs. (What? I don’t even know what that means.) John Maine’s a decent starter. Oliver Perez is way too inconsistent to know what he’s going to be, and who’s the fifth starter? El Duque? Obviously adding Johan to that rotation gives it new life, but he doesn’t get to start every playoff game. Does he?

And it’s not like Johan’s not human. The Twins have done a great job of keeping his innings down through the years (unlike say, Dusty Baker and his pitchers over the years–see Ortiz, Russ; Prior, Mark; Zambrano, Carlos, etc.). Having a great bullpen in Minnesota has helped. It’s pretty awesome to be able to limit the best pitcher in the league to under seven innings a start every game. But old Johan proved to be mortal last year going only 5-7 with an ERA over four in the half.

Granted, Jason Marquis would give a testicle to be 5-7 with a 4.04 ERA in the second half of a season, but it’s proof that Santana’s not infallible. Though really, who suggested he was? I mean, other than Greg Couch?

Oh, and the Mets’ lineup? The one with three tremendous players (Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran), three really old guys (Moises Alou, Carlos Delgado, Luis Castillo) and two guys who aren’t so good (Brian Schneider and Ryan Church)? Well, that’s balance. Just not the kind you probably want these days.

The Cubs are going into spring training with the strange concept that having a whole bunch of mediocre starters at the end of the rotation is the key to success. Keep in mind that whoever the No. 5 starter is, he won’t make the postseason roster.

Like hell he won’t. Who was the fifth starter this year? Wade Miller, that’s who…oh, yeah, never mind. OK, score one for Greg-o.

In the playoffs, you need three top starters. The Cubs don’t have that.

Sure they do. Zambrano, Lilly and Hill are a pretty good 1-2-3. Would Bedard help? Sue he would, but again, Greg, you have yet to lay out your plan for actually getting him. Beside, you actually need four starters if you want to win in the playoffs. Who won the last playoff game for the Cubs? Matt Clement, the fourth starter. Who lost game four in the 1984 playoffs for the Cubs in that motherfucking Garvey game that really killed them? Scott Sanderson, the fourth starter. The 1989 Cubs only had three starters in the playoffs and how did that work out for them? The White Sox, who allegedly won the 2005 World Series, did it with five starters working deep into each game. The Red Sox won the World Series this year with four starters. You’re going to need four, and so, once again, you need to add one to Zambrano, Lilly and Hill.

If they truly accepted that last year was a failure, then they would see that this team isn’t ready to break any 99-year slump. Especially now that the Mets have decided to win, sneaking in and grabbing Santana when there was never any discussion about him here.

Oh, well, you can always blame the goat again.

May a well aged goat molest your grandmother in her sleep. All this was, was so much tired, old, columnist pap. The Cubs need to get better, but the Mets trading for Santana didn’t close the door on the pennant. Relying on Jason Marquis or Ryan Dempster to start games will do that. So your idea that another starter is a need was right. You just want to trade the wrong one to get him. And the idea that the season’s over now is just so Mariotti. Better go find your shade of lip gloss, Greg.