After nearly two months I am back with yet another blog. What can I say, I have been a complete lazy bum as of late, and I have not given the attention to my blog for the Chicago Cubs that I should be. I will not make excuses for my lack of blogs, but come on, watching this complete suckfest game after game, would you want to spend even more time on them? Okay, so that was an excuse, and that will be the last one that I give, at least for myself. No more looking back, the time has come to look forward. Not only for myself, but for the Cubs organization as a whole. If you are ready, we can once again continue our path into the World Series Dreaming view of the Cubs.

If you can remember back far enough, about a month and a half ago, I wrote a blog about waiting until the year after next. In that blog I wrote how I felt was the best case scenario for the Cubs chances to be a competitive team again, and when fans can start to see a shimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. In case you do not want to look back or remember that far back, allow me to summarize for you. In my mindset, whether I am right or wrong, I see very little chance of the Cubs being competitive again until the year 2013 when all of these current long termed contracts, save for Alfonso Soriano, will be completely off the books and our beloved Cubs can start anew, hopefully not signing mega-length contracts again like we did for our vilified aging left fielder.

In current news, the Cubs have finally put together a winning streak. We have been teased with such a thing several times this year with winning two in a row, but never have we been able to celebrate such an accomplishment. Sure, we have swept series, two in fact, of the one game and two game caliber, but never have we been able to put together the elusive winning streak. No longer can we saw that, as yesterday some fans celebrated like the Cubs had just won the World Series! To be honest, I smiled a bit as well, and who can blame any of the Cub fans for feeling at least a little overjoyed with finally accomplishing the seemingly impossible feat.

But in an honest moment, I must confess that I felt a little disappointed when all was said and done as well. While I love my Cubs, and I enjoy each and every single win that we are able to rack up, all that win did for us yesterday was to keep us from acquiring the number one pick in next years Amateur Draft. Do not misunderstand what I am saying, I am not hoping for losses. But in a lost year, and who can call this season anything but that, the Cubs need to look towards the future and to start the rebuilding process which will be able to being in the year 2013. That includes building the farm system, which is built primarily on the draft. At the moment, yesterday’s win moved the Cubs into the third spot in the draft. Still a good pick, assuming there is enough amazing talent to last, but usually in every draft there is only one sure fire stud that you can say without a doubt will be a future star. With the Cubs currently holding the third pick, unless the Houston Astros and Baltimore Oriels suffer major brain cramps, they will have very little chance of drafting that player.

Add that into the report from Bruce Miles, who was on the weekly “Hit and Run” show yesterday morning on 670 The Score, which said that Cub fans should not expect any major moves before the deadline, and yesterday was a gloomy day despite the win which brought such happiness to Cubs Nation. In my opinion, not trading as many of these players is a massive mistake. Move as many of these older veterans as you can, and save as much money as possible. I fully understand that some players will be more difficult to move based on the size of their contracts, Soriano for example, but even if the Cubs must eat $40 Million of his remaining $60 Million owed between now and the end of 2014 (roughly $6 Million left for this year and $18 Million each of the next three years) you are still saving $20 Million which can be used on players to fill out the roster.

While every fan has their own personal favorites, only one player should even be considered untouchable, and that is Starlin Castro; although some fans have made a solid argument why even he should be considered a trade candidate if the right deal came about.

That being said, there are at least five players whom the Cubs should move if the opportunity should arise, and clear some salary off of the books. This shouldn’t be too hard for you to figure out which five, but I will let you know anyway.

The Cubs should look into moving all three starting outfielders, yes that includes fan favorite Marlon Byrd, and both corner infielders. I know that in the past Aramis Ramirez has stated that he will not accept a trade because he loves the city of Chicago and the fans of the Cubs, but recently his agent has come out and acknowledged that he may in fact consider a trade in August once his family leaves for the Dominican Republic for the children to return to school.

Fans may object to trading the players who are producing when they should be looking into getting rid of those players who are not. What they need to realize that teams chasing a pennant will want those very players who are producing and not a player who is not putting up the desired numbers.

There are several other players whom I know Cub fans would not mind seeing traded, but those are the top five in my opinion whom should be moved for one reason or another. I will get into why I feel each one of those five should be traded over the next five days. Yep that is a promise that you will get a fresh blog every day this week as I try to get back in the habit of updating my blog on a regular basis.

For now, there are only six days left until the non-waiver trade deadline. Stay tuned, there may be a trade made by our Cubs at any moment, or we may just see out beloved boys in blue stand pat and hold out hope that the team catches fire!