For the second time in less than 4 months, the Twitterverse has exploded with confirmed reports of a confirmed trade involving the Cubs, only to have it fall apart within hours of being confirmed.  The first, back at the trade deadline at the end of July, involved Ryan Dempster being sent to the Braves for one of their top pitching prospects.  Word broke on Twitter after someone in the Braves front office leaked the news, but before Dempster had been told of the trade.  He got angry and ultimately witheld his approval despite previously agreeing to waive his no-trade rights if a deal was made to the Braves.

The second occurence went down Friday night, when Twitter exploded with reports that Carlos Marmol was being traded to the Angels for Dan Haren.  This time, the source was Marmol himself, who had waived his no-trade rights and was giving interviews in his native Dominican Republic about the trade.  The only problem was that the trade was not completed and was eventually scrapped, with the Angels ending up not picking up Haren’s option, making him a free agent and leaving Marmol as a member of the Cubs.

In both cases, the Cubs were not to blame for the trade details leaking before the deal was complete, but they did still come out of both situations with a little egg on their face.  They eventually ended up trading Dempster to the Rangers, but got a worse return than what they were going to get from the Braves.  Time will tell if they will eventually end up moving Marmol this winter and if they can get anything close to Haren.