Last man standing: Is Lilly the next starting pitcher to be traded?

With the Astros trading Roy Oswalt to the Phillies today, 3 of the top pitchers on the market have now found new homes (Cliff Lee, Dan Haren and Oswalt).

Who’s left?  None better than the Cubs Ted Lilly.  However, the list of teams interested in the lefty is dwindling.

It was reported earlier by Jayson Stark that 6 or more teams had interest in Lilly, which possibly included the Mets, Phillies, Tigers, Twins, Dodgers and Yankees.  Now that list appears to be down to 2 or 3.

The Phillies are out, after acquiring Oswalt.  According to John Paul Morosi, the Tigers aren’t pursuing Lilly and the Twins are unlikely to get him.  Both Joel Sherman of the New York Post and Ken Davidoff of Newsday say a deal with the Mets is unlikely.

That pretty much leaves the Dodgers and the Yankees.  As I reported yesterday, the Dodgers are focused on Lilly and Pirates lefthander Paul Maholm.  The Yankees like Lilly too, Jon Heyman Tweets, but they have a good starting rotation already and will likely just jump into the fray if everyone else bows out.

Also, there has been speculation on the talk shows that the Cubs could trade Lilly and then resign him after the year and thus get some prospects and keep Lilly, who apparently likes it here in Chicago.  The only problem with that scenario is that the Cubs may want to save some money, with all the bloated contracts on their roster, and give some of their youngsters, like Andrew Cashner a shot.

However, if the Cubs can find someone to take Carlos Zambrano off their hands, without eating a significant portion of his contract, they could have the resources to resign Lilly.

In any case, with less than 2 day remaining until the deadline, Jim Hendry needs to get something decent in return for Lilly, or this opportunity will have been wasted.

Tags: Andrew Cashner, Carlos Zambrano, Chicago Cubs, cliff lee, Dan Haren, Roy Oswalt, Ted Lilly, Trade Rumors