Forget the fact that the Cubs have managed to score four runs in two games against one of the worst pitching staffs in the National League. Forget the fact that last night’s starter, Charlie Morton, dropped his ERA by 2.27 runs to 10.30 by pitching against your hapless Northsiders. Forget that John Grabow is getting paid $2.7M this year and $4.8M next year, and he’s currently sporting an 8.38 ERA and a 2.069 WHIP while giving up more home runs (2) than Randy Wells and Tom Gorzelanny combined. Forget the fact that the bullpen is dying for the return of Esmailin Caridad’s 13.50 ERA. Continue to forget the fact that Carlos Zambrano, likely at WORST a number three starter on any team in baseball, is wasting away in your bullpen and gets further and further from the starting rotation with each passing day. Forget that as of May 6, 2010, you could very easily make a legitimate argument that the Cubs have the strongest pitching staff in the MLB, yet the team is 13-15, and already five games behind the Central-leading St. Louis Cardinals. Forget the fact that you have a gun which apparently only fires bullets somehow forged from statistics, and that said gun is specifically designated for use in the firing of Jim Hendry, you weirdo.

What’s that? “It’s hard to forget all of these things when you’re writing them in the first paragraph of this post in a repetitive, chanting prose?” Deal with it, you stat-gun-toting freak. Load all of those bullets into your chamber, but save room for one more.

I saw an interesting article list on MLB Trade Rumors the other day of all of the players in the MLB with full no-trade rights.

Guess which team’s players shows up on that list quite a bit?

Of the 45 players in the MLB who have full no-trade rights, SIX of them are Chicago Cubs. No, wait. FIVE of them are Chicago Cubs, and ONE of them is an Iowa Cub. That’s 13% of all of the literally-untradeable players in the MLB. I know I’m over-simplifying, but assuming that each of the 30 teams should have its proportionate share of the 45 no-trade players, the Cubs should have no more than 3% of those 45 players on the team, or 1.5 players. That means the only players on the team who should have no-trade clauses are Aramis Ramirez and EITHER Ryan Theriot OR Mike Fontenot.

Fifteen percent of the Cubs’ 40-man roster has a no-trade clause. If these players were distributed evenly, the Cubs would have less than 4%. Twenty percent of the 25-man roster is untradeable. It should be in the neighborhood of 6%.

More damning than the number of the players the Cubs have on the list is the fact that they have a contract with, by FAR, the worst player to ever receive a no-trade clause, Jeff Samardzija. Don’t get me wrong. There are some dogs on that no-trade list. Cristian Guzman and A.J. Pierzynski immediately spring to mind. But at least those guys are actual, Major League Baseball players holding down spots on their team’s respective 25-man rosters. Samardzija can’t even do that. When given the opportunity this year, he quickly ended up on a bus back to Iowa sporting a 18.90 ERA and lashes on his cheeks from getting smacked with his own hair while whipping around to watch screaming line drives fly past him. You think THAT sentence gave you a headache? You should have seen the first several drafts.

The real headache here is the one of Hendry’s creation. As much as I’m sure Hendry (or, God-willing, his successor) would like to think his players would be willing to waive a no-trade clause, he can’t rely on it. He could very easily be stuck with all six of his untradeable players for the duration of their contracts. I already knew that Hendry throws out no-trade clauses like they’re low-fat meals, but when you look at the actual numbers, the volume of untradeable players on the Cub roster is staggering.