Things can’t get much worse for the Cubs right now. They’re currently nine games below .500, 9.5 games out of first place in a weak NL Central and I hear Lou Piniella also forgot to reorganize his Netflix queue and is now stuck with “Dear John” again after he just rented it from Blockbuster.

But much to the elation of the Cubs’ front office, Derrek Lee is hitting .292 this month after batting a crisp .237 in June. That’s good news for the soon-to-be-rebuilding Cubs because that makes Lee a little more attractive to potential trade suitors. He might still be hitting like Neifi Perez, but he isn’t Todd Hundley at the moment either.

I’m not around Cubs’ GM Jim Hendry enough (or at all for that matter) to know what his plans are at the trade deadline, but one can only assume that he’d like to unload Lee seeing as how the first baseman won’t be a part of the club’s future plans. His contract runs up at the end of the year, so if Hendry can acquire a couple of prospects in exchange for Lee, I’d have to imagine he’d pull the trigger.

That is, of course, unless Lee refuses to accept a trade, which according to ESPNChicago.com appears to be the case.

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