“Damn!”

That was my first reaction to the news that the Cubs had traded promising young first baseman Hee Seop Choi to the Florida Marlins for very good-and-getting-better, older-but-still-only-28 Derek Lee.

But upon reflection, it seems like a good deal for the Cubs, especially if they can sign Lee to a longer-term deal (2004 is the last year of his current contract) and the player to be named later is not a top prospect, which it is unlikely to be since this was mostly a salary dump for the Marlins.

The Cubs organization may, as a whole and especially given Dusty Baker’s temparement, lost patience with Choi. A better way to phrase what has happened is that their 2003 season sped up their timetable for success.

A .500 team still developing its young pitching and young position players in a stronger dvision would have let Choi play regularly after coming back from his concussion. Certainly, the Cubs had enough confidence in Choi’s long-term future to politely say no to Jim Thome’s come-ons in the 2003 off-season. He was old and expensive.

Lee brings power, speed, defense and a good eye at the plate, in spite of more than 140 strikeouts. He’s an offensive upgrade at first base on a team that needs as much offense as it can get and couldn’t afford to hope that Randall “Sausage King of Chicago” Simon wouldn’t descend into his usual mediocrity.

The other below-average positions are tough to fill because of already existing contracts. Moises Alou has one year left at $9.5 million, Alex Gonzalez has a year left at $4.5 million and Damian Miller has another year at $3 million. None of them is worth the money, and it’s unlikely anyone else will take on that salary.

As far as second base goes, the most that can be hoped for is someone who has a little speed, gets on base and can field OK. The pickings this off-season are slim and likely to be overbid. It’s not the position to spend a lot of money on in terms of investing in offense.

So Hendry had to upgrade somewhere, and in spite of Choi’s enormous talent and potential, his gamble was that for 2004 at least Lee would be a big upgrade. That’s probably right. He may hit 40 home runs playing in Wrigley Field instead of the Fish Bowl.

The Cubs may yet get Javy Lopez or Ivan Rodriguez at catcher and be willing to bit the bullet on Miller’s $3 million salary as a backup. Ironically, the Lee trade puts the Marlins in a better position to sign Pudge.

We shall see.