The Chicago Cubs are willing to eat part of pitcher Ryan Dempster's salary in order to improve the quality of the prospects being acquired in any trade, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Many teams sell off their expensive veterans to save money, but the high-revenue Cubs are hoping to acquire as much as talent as possible in these deals.
Dempster is currently on the disabled list, but he looked absolutely superb before a minor lat strain knocked him out for a couple weeks. In his final three starts before going down, the 35-year-old pitched 22 scoreless innings while striking out 12 and walking just three batters.
This summer Dempster is one of the Cubs' most valuable trade pieces as he continues his late-career resurgence with a 2.11 ERA in his first dozen starts this year. With a salary of $14 million, some teams would presumably prefer to give up slightly better prospects rather than take on the entirety of his remaining guaranteed money.
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