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The thing about Valbuena's season so far is that it's not a BABIP fluke or anything like that (his BABIP is actually pretty low at .278 (before today)).  He's hitting for power, he's walking often, his strikeout rate isn't excessive...there isn't really anything about the peripherals that says he's definitely a fluke.  He'll regress some...but I don't see any reason he can't maintain a .750 or better OPS going forward. 

And he's also a really good defender at 3B.  That gets lost with his strong offensive performance. 

... it is pretty well accepted at this point that these peripheral measures are more representative of true talent level than actual win/loss record...

Yes, it is pretty well accepted by you, that you are right about the significance of run differential and its elevation above actual W/L records.

Not many others share that view, but it is pretty well accepted that you do agree with yourself.

Nice to still have him around, although he's not really all that good to begin with.

He was part of the body count in the good number of arms.

Mostly the Cubs traded crap and got crap back in return.

And historically that has tended to be the approach a lot of Cub fans supported.  They would oppose even the idea trading players when those players had real value (such as trading Derek Lee after his big season in 2005), and instead only want to trade the guy after he was truly washed up or his contract was an albatross, and somehow think that other teams at that time were supposed to cough up major value in return.

I wonder if the Cubs not getting anything of consequence in an in-season trade might be related to a lot of the good players that they wanted to trade recently having no-trade rights/clauses.

Aramis Ramirez flat out refused to be traded.
Derrek Lee refused a trade to the Angels and then accepted a trade to Atlanta weeks later.
Greg Maddux would only accept a trade to a West Coast team.
Ryan Dempster got his panties in a wad because he didn't like hearing about being traded via the Twitter.

Also, their front office sucked.

Meanwhile, other teams were making significant deals:

Scott Rolen for Edwin Encarnacion, Casey Blake for Carlos Santana, Mark DeRosa for Chris Perez, Matt Capps for Wilson Ramos, etc.

There are impact trades to be made if your front office isn't in love with the players on their team.  Also, you don't need to acquire Hall of Fame players but if you can get someone that becomes a starter on your team for 6-8 years and gives you league average or better, you come out ahead.
 

Ian Stewart can rot in Iowa for all I care.

Who?

Agree with Strike and CuBlue.  The Cubs rarely traded anybody with any value, and Maddux/Aram/Dempster dictated the possibilities.   So, little surprise they didn't get much.  Plus, whatever limited value they did trade was commonly divided up over lesser prospects.  Instead of one B prospect for Lilly, Hendry got three C prospects.  Instead of getting one B prospect for Dempster, Hoyer got two C prospects.   

Still, Hoyer is like Hendry (until late) in that he's got money for anybody they want to keep.  If he wants to extend Feldman or Garza, it's not like his budget has capped out.  And it's not like he needs to move Castro or Samardz because he can't afford them.  Late, Hendry was trading Lilly and DeRosa because his budget was maxed, but for the most part anybody he wanted for next year he could and did keep.  He was only trading guys who he didn't think were good enough to be useful on next year's team.  Well, if they weren't good enough to have a place on next year's Cubs team, how valuable can they be?  Looking through JR's trade list, it was interesting how many weren't even July trades, but were actually August cleared-waivers trades.  Many of those were salary dumps; build a roster hoping for a playoffs season with playoffs revenue; then try to clear a few weeks of salary if possible when that isn't going to happen. 

I just don't think you get huge value for a 2-month rental of a non-star.  Nobody's giving a guy who's currently one of their 10 best prospects for 2 months of Feldman.   

The only guys we talk about trading with more than 2 months of club control is Vizcaino and DeJesus, right?  Maybe Russell, but most don't want to trade him either because we've still got him under control for a few years.  Maholm got a more interesting, high-ceiling return because he wasn't a rental.  But Garza, Feldman, those are 2-month values.  Maybe you can get 2 or 3 top-30 guys; or one top-20 guy; or one guy who at one time was viewed as a top-10 but who isn't holding serve.  (Bobby Hill....) 

I can easily see Hoyer figuring that he's got money to spend but few FA's dying to join us.  So that he's just as well off keeping Feldman and Garza, and extending both.  Keep those guys, hope that maybe next year Vizcaino will emerge, or Appel/Gray, and that by this time next summer we might feel very good about rotation.   

In a sense, he's in kind of a good position.  If he keeps those guys, he'd be happy to extend them.  But if somebody makes a good trade offer, he can move them.  I just don't think a lot of teams will make good enough offers to make it worth trading, when it's really just a 2-month rental for reward.

Can hardly wait to see who claims Burnett next.

On the bright side, he's piling up flight miles.