With a record of 18-30, the Chicago Cubs have the second worst record in baseball, and there is a very good chance that they will once again be sellers at the trade deadline this season. While guys like Jason Hammel, Darwin Barney, Nate Schierholtz, and many others could easily be moved, the prized piece for the Cubs this trading season will be 29-year-old RHP Jeff Samardzija.

Samardzija is a talented pitcher who the Cubs would surely love to keep around. That said, he becomes a costless agent after the 2015 season, and the two sides appear to be far away on an extension. With over a season and a half of team control remaining, the Cubs appear to be in a prime position to sell their ace for a king’s ransom.

President Theo Epstein and GM Jed Hoyer have completely rebuilt this organization, specializing at acquiring young, cost controlled talent. Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo are young, cornerstone players who are performing nicely at the big league level. They also have talented future role players scattered throughout their roster. Also, through strong drafting, a huge emphasis on International Costless Agency, and multiple big league sell-offs, the Cubs also have one of the best minor league systems in all of baseball.

While they have a nice stock of young and talented players, the Cubs are obviously looking to add more, with their eyes on the future. With his incredible start to the 2014 season, Samardzija looks to be one of the top players on the trade market this July, and should bring a huge return for the Cubs.

Samardzija has received a ton of national attention recently as he has a record of 0-4 through ten starts, yet he has pitched incredibly. The win-loss record for pitchers is the single most overrated stat in all of baseball. A guy can pitch an absolute gem and end up with a loss, or he could get destroyed and pick up the win. It is a terrible indicator that is used far too often to show how good or bad a pitcher is.

In this case, MLB teams obviously know that Samardzija is pitching well, and his record is solely based on bad luck. Each and every time out, Samardzija either gets little to no run support, or the bullpen blows it for him, both of which are things that are out of his control.

Through ten starts this season, Samardzija has a MLB leading ERA of 1.46, his WHIP is only 1.088, and has a 2.57 strikeout to walk ratio. While his strikeouts are a bit down this season (7.1 K/9 as opposed to a career average of 8.5), Samardzija’s willingness to pitch to contact and trust his defense early in the game has allowed him to pitch much deeper into games.

In past seasons, Samardzija seemed to try and strike everybody out, but was constantly racking up huge pitch counts early in the game. He still appears to have that elite strikeout ability, but his willingness to pitch to contact early on has made him a much more valuable player.

Samardzija has really grown as a pitcher this season. The elite stuff has always been there, but he was always more of a “thrower” than a pitcher. His stock is definitely on the rise, and the Cubs will likely benefit from this greatly. Unless the Tampa Bay Rays put David Price on the market, Samardzija is going to be the best pitcher available before the trade deadline.

Epstein and Hoyer got a nice return from the Texas Rangers in the Matt Garza trade last season. They landed Mike Olt who has 9 homeruns with the Cubs this season, C.J. Edwards who is the top pitching prospect in the system, and also Neil Ramirez and Justin Grimm. Both Ramirez and Grimm are hard throwing right-handed pitchers who are showing a ton of upside in the big league bullpen. They got all that for half of a season of Garza. The Cubs will likely get much more for Samardzija.

Samardzija looks to continue his dominance once again for the Cubs this afternoon against the San Francisco Giants. Since he would be such an attractive piece to any contending team, it is hard to speculate who will be interested in trading for Samardzija, but the Giants have already been connected to him, and would be a team that makes sense. They will get a first-hand look at him today. One thing is for sure, the Cubs will have a sky high asking price. At the moment, it appears that they just might get what they are asking for.