The most valuable part for the Cubs is a $2.75 million salary dump. Meanwhile, the Mets get a desperately-needed #1/#2 starter with 3 years remaining on his contract at a reasonable rate. An overpaid average-at-best 2b, a #5 starter / setup man, and a couple B-/C+ prospects is not a legitimate offer. You could add every C+ prospect in the Mets organization and it wouldn’t be a legitimate offer.

You can define an ace as a guy who averages a 3.00 ERA over several years if you want. However, by your definition there are only 3 aces in baseball — Lincecum, Halladay, and Johan. Zambrano is not on their level, but he’s one of the most reliably very good starters in the game. In 7 years as a full-time starter he’s never had an ERA+ below 117 and he’s never missed a substantial amount of time due to injury. His ERA actually understates his value significantly in the National League since he’s one of the best hitting pitchers around. Compare his lifetime 639 OPS to the annual league average for pitchers of 350-360. To approximately account for this value, you can subtract .3 from his ERA or add 10 points to his ERA+. In spite of the fact that he’s been in the league a long time, he’s still just 28 — a month younger than John Maine and more than 2 years younger than Johan. The Cubs aren’t a small market team, and they’re not giving up a top pitcher in his prime just to save a few million bucks.

I also question your insistence that Niese cannot be traded for Zambrano. Niese is a B prospect with mid-rotation starter upside. From your stated offers and your refusal to consider Niese, you are basically saying that you want to trade for a high-end starter but you’re unwilling to give up anything of value in return. Add Mejia, F-Mart, Davis, or something of similar value to your trade offer or forget it.

Plus, the Cubs couldn’t wait to get rid of Angel Pagan when they had him in the first place.

What exactly does Pagan have over Fuld, outside of “experience”? Sure, he’s got better raw speed, but Pagan’s never been a great base stealer in terms of percentages. Fuld is a solid base runner with solid-good speed. The power’s about equal, Fuld is a more disciplined hitter, and Fuld is a better defensive OF, imo. He’s better in CF than Pagan, having watched Pagan through the years.

Short of it is, what exactly does Pagan offer that makes him better than Fuld, other than “experience”? Add in that Fuld is likely to be cheaper, although that’s beside the point (mind you, my initial argument was that I’d take Fuld over him, not that Fuld is a better player to have, but the more I think about it, yes, I think Fuld’s a better player to have).

But a team like the Nationals or Marlins might actually consider it

There was much more upside and cost control in the Santana package.