In the offseason there was plenty of chatter about the Chicago Cubs moving outfielder Marlon Byrd in a trade at some point, and now it appears the Boston Red Sox are close to acquiring Byrd from the Cubs, according to Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe. Earlier on Saturday morning the Cubs placed pitched Ryan Dempster on the 15-day disabled list with a quad strain and called up minor league OF Tony Campana rather than doing a direct promotion of pitcher Randy Wells -- who will take Dempster's spot in the rotation on Sunday. Perhaps they will clear room on the MLB roster by dealing Byrd to the Red Sox this weekend.
Source:Red Sox closing in on deal for Cubs OF Marlon Byrd.
— Nick Cafardo (@nickcafardo) April 21, 2012
The issue of hammering out compensation for Theo Epstein took all summerand put plenty of stress on the relationship between the two organizations -- most recently an injury to reliever Chris Carpenter had the Red Sox up in arms -- but an opportunity to buy low on Byrd (he's hitting .070/.149/.070 in 47 plate appearances for 2012) is apparently enough to get dialogue going again.
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