If You Want Jake Fox, You Have to Take Aaron Miles Too

December 4, 2009 by cubsnet

As Mike Emeigh at Baseball Think Factory writes, "You have to take some not-so-good with the good, I suppose."

Jim Hendry was able to rid the Cubs of another of his multi-million dollar, light-hitting, veteran middle infielder mistakes (see Neifi Perez) by trading him to his favorite trading partner, the Oakland A's, apparently part of the price for the A's receipt of Jake Fox. The Cubs will contribute $1M toward Miles' $2.7M salary in 2010.

Fox, a man who terrorizes triple-A pitching and doesn't do too bad against big league pitching, either, but who lacks defensive prowess, will get a chance at some DH at-bats in Oakland.

In exchange for Fox and Miles, the Cubs received reliever Jeff Gray and minor leaguers Ronny Moria and Matt Spencer. The Cubs added Gray to their 40-man roster.

Chicago Cubs Online has a solid breakdown of all the players involved in the trade.

With a career 77 OPS+, Hendry gave Miles a contract worth more than $5M over 2 years. Miles then hit .185/.224/.242 for the Cubs in 170 plate appearances. That was good for a 20 OPS+. According to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index, only 52 players since 1901 have had seasons with at least 150 plate appearances and an OPS+ of 20 or lower.

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