Even for the Cubs this season has been a perfect storm of frustation.

Consider these confluence of events.

– The holdup of the sale of the team has prevented them from being able to make any “bold” moves in a division that is one “bold” move away from any of about four teams winning it.

– The complete collapse of a bunch of hitters, all on the wrong side of 30 (whoops, almost forgot Geovany Soto), and the realization that the reason Mike Fontenot is a good part time player, is because that’s all he is.

– The injury to the one position player that the Cubs cannot replace.

– The inability for the Brewers or Cardinals to get out of their own way long enough to put the Cubs out of their misery.

So here we are.  It’s June 17 and the Cubs aren’t even a .500 baseball team, and yet, they are only two games out of first place in the loss column.  It’s a testatment to the general crappiness of the division that the Cubs are still in a position to turn it around and win it.

But one thing is even more irritating than the rest of it.  It’s the excuse, made by dopes like (run the usual list of Phildo, Kaplan, Yellon, etc.) that the Cubs can’t make a trade because they can’t take on salary, and besides, the economy sucks and nobody can take any salary on.  You can’t have a trade unless somebody can take on salary, right?

Wrong.  A million times wrong.

There’s a difference between dumping a bad contract and making a trade to help your team.

Here’s a wacky idea.  How about trading players who make roughly the same amount of money?  How about making a trade because a guy on another team might help your team more than he does his, and sending the other team a player who might help that team more than he can help yours.  You know…the original concept behind the trade in the first place?

If Jim Hendry wants to sit there, stewing in his mixture of Aqua Velva, flop sweat and spilled Arby’s sauce, and decry the fact that he can’t make the kinds of trades he normally does, then he’s not up to the job.

Hendry makes two kinds of trades.  He trades prospects for proven players that their current team has decided they can no longer afford:

Examples:
Bobby Hill, Matt Bruback and Jose Jerkoff to the Pirates for Kenny Lofton and E-ramis
Hee Seop Choi to the Marlins for Derrek Lee
Ricky Nolasco, Reynel Pinto and Sergio Mitre to the Marlins for Juan-for-five Pierre
Matt Murton, Eric Patterson, Sean Gallagher and Josh Donaldson to the A’s for Rich Harden and Chad “Dumpster Diver” Gaudin

And, he trades veterans who have bombed out for whatever reason and have very little trade value (and he eats big hunks of their contracts)

Examples:
Sammy Sosa to the Orioles for Mike Fontenot, Jerry Hairston the Lesser and the dude who retired before ever pitching for the Cubs
Jacque Jones to the Tigers for Omar Infante.
LaTroy Hawkins to the Giants for Dave Aardsma and Jerome Williams
Michael Barrett to the Padres for Kyler Burke and Rob Bowen

The one time he tries to trade a valuable player for prospects (which was his own salary dump) it’s Mark DeRosa to the Indians for Chris Archer, Jeff Stevens and John Gaub, and that’s caused more inexplicable angst than any Cubs move since letting Greg Maddux leave for Atlanta.  Maddux was a great young pitcher leaving in his prime, DeRosa’s a journeyman utility player who turns 34 this year.  Yup, seems about the same to me.  Continue to pine over the loss of Todd Walker II Cubs Nation.

The economy has basically put a self-imposed salary cap on each team.  Even the Yankees, who spent like David Hernandez in an outlet mall this offseason claim (key word, “claim”) to be strapped right now.  Now would be a time for a guy like Hendry to clean up.  Every team has useful players they just don’t want to pay, but nobody’s in a position to take on the salary and throw a few low-grade prospects in to get them.  (The Cubs are lousy with low-grade prospects, just not cash.)

So this means that any trades that are made this summer will likely have to be the old fashioned way.  Player for player, not contract for salary relief.

Hendry seems unable to even concieve of such a deal.

Part of the problem is of his own making.  While nitwits in the media complain about Hendry’s penchant for backloading contracts, that doesn’t matter right now.  Face it, if the Cubs payroll was $121 million instead of $135 million he’d be under orders not to increase it.

No, the problem is that he keeps giving players no-trade clauses.  It’s not a huge problem right now, because of all the guys with them only two are probably tradeable in a good economy (Zambrano and a healthy E-ramis).

But, it leaves Hendry with few options when he tries to find a sucker.  His roster is terribly inflexible.  He’s got no trade clause contracts locking down center, left, third and first, and in three of his five rotation spots.

So who does that leave him available to trade?

Ryan Theriot, Mike Fontenot, Milton Bradley (hah!), Geovany Soto, Rich Harden, Randy Wells, Sean Marshall, Carlos Marmol, Kevin Gregg, Aaron Heilman (double hah!), Jose Ascanio, Angel Guzman, Koyie Hill, Aaron Miles (guh), Jake Fox, Micah Hoffpauir, etc., etc., etc.

Every trade doesn’t have to be for a star.  Honestly, if he makes one at the deadline, it can’t be this year, because they can’t afford one.

What the Cubs have is the best rotation in the National League, and a rested bullpen with a couple of guys with some value.

They have the worst offense around.  If this was your fantasy team, you’d have a shitload of points in your pitching categories and few points in hitting, and you’d trade some pitching for some hitting.

It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

The Cubs have a huge hole in the middle of hte diamond.  They were getting nothing out of Fontenot at second, and then he had to move to third and now they’re getting less than nothing out of second.  Kosuke’s regressing at a rate that makes his decline last year look leisurely.  They’re getting squat out of catcher.

Something’s got to be done.  It’s easy to sit there and hold up your hands and say, “I got no money, I can’t do nothin.'”

Maybe you can’t do anything.  Or maybe you just don’t know how to.

It’s unlikely that the Cubs are going to be “out” of the race anytime soon.  But it seems just as unlikely that they’re going to do anything to get “into” it.