An Investigation Into Whether The Cubs Are Actually Broke Or Just Plain Stupid (Reader Emails)
This is a weird place to start a Cubs blog but I want to go back to the Bulls game last night and in particular this play from Alex Caruso
The hustle. The effort. The basketball IQ and emotion pouring from his soul as he makes a play for a teammate. That's the kinda shit you can get from a solid veteran free agent that can come in and immediately impact a team's culture. Everyone who knows anything about the 2022 Bulls knows that free agency completely changed the team's outlook. Jerry Reinsdorf and Arturas Karnisovas ponied up the cash and got the Bulls to the next level.
I start there because it's a good place to reflect on where the Cubs have landed and the current state of the roster. One of the most valuable sports franchises in the world operating below the 50% line of payroll commitments in a league filled with cheap owners. Last year they registered 13th out of 30 teams and now we're looking at an even 16th. There's still room to go sign some big name players, but with each day and move it looks more unlikely. Andrelton Simmons on a short cheap deal doesn't exactly mix with signing Carlos Correa to a $350M+ contract unless you wanted to take both of the best defensive shortstops off the market. Then that's a power move that I very much respect but again it seems unlikely given the state of things.
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Personally it's a balance of being extremely pissed off with Tom Ricketts while still trying to give Jed the time and patience to get things where they need to be. Truth be told the Cubs had been falling behind the rest of the NL with respect to scouting & analytics going back about 5 years now. There's a definite, objective gap in their player development system and the only people who know the extent are in the Cubs front office. I would very much like to believe that any type of stall tactic in free agency is because they simply don't have the framework to add a monster deal like Correa. I want to trust Jed that he knows more than our common sense suggests and that I can trust where he's taking this club in free agency. And I want that because I need it and I need it because the facts are ugly.
That's where I can't really move on. Good cases make good lawyers, and good facts make good cases. You can't outrun the story these facts tell. Tom Ricketts said he'd always spend at the top. There's a massive need for a superstar now that the Cubs have moved on from Bryant/Rizzo/Baez. Correa is about as perfect as a player comes on paper and there's plenty of room on the books to afford him. Those are the primary, simple straightforward facts.
Stretch it further and we can talk about the Ricketts interest in a multi-billion dollar deal for Chelsea FC. There's the disgusting MLB owner behavior during the lockout. The embarrassing collapse of the historic world series core. The overwhelming exodus of important people across the Cubs from the broadcasting booth to the president all the way down to the LigmaBallSacks of this world. Ticket prices soar and we're left holding the bag because of things like Marquee Network and short-sided operating cash flow management.
I'm giving Jed the benefit of the doubt but I can't overlook how brutal this is for Cubs ownership. Take another year on the cheap side of payroll and we're coming back in 2023 demanding 90-something wins and a division title or we riot. I will sit and wait if you make me but there will be exasperated consequences in our tolerance for substandard play where the standard is defined as The Best Team In The National League.
I will now take questions.
For reference:
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I don't want to rule out miracles or maybe just really solid team play that strikes every couple years. But knowing what I know, this team is soundly ahead of the Reds and Pirates and equally behind the Brewers and Cardinals. I don't want to say that but everything up to this point in time tells me it's hard for me to say otherwise. We've seen a lot from most of these guys. It's not like we're talking about the local high school football team taking on a new group of seniors. Some of these guys have been around for the better part of a decade.
Stroman will likely pitch at the top of the NL. I think he's going to feast day games at Wrigley and has the arsenal to navigate the weather patterns. He can spend one day getting grounders the next day fly balls the next day he can chase strikeouts. Hendricks is likely going to bounce back from the worst season of his career because that's the kinda stuff Bill James preaches and I'm going with the experts here. Wade Miley is probably not as good as he was but the pitching is at least improved.
I've always loved Madrigal which has been a long calling card on Red Line Radio. I think Ortega-Wisdom-Schwindel will get the peace of mind to play and start every day. Clint Frazier has nothing to lose. Simmons is one of the best to ever wear a glove at shortstop.
But Willson Contreras should probably get traded next two weeks because catchers aren't worth shit come the trade deadline. You move a guy now and the Cubs are probably waiting for teams to realize they need more depth or better talent behind the plate. Give it some time for an injury to pop up or those needs to really emerge. Then I imagine the Cubs would shop Willson because they've been trying to for years. That's a scoop from me to you and I want someone in an authority position to deny it without lying. I don't think they can do it.
That lineup probably wins 78 games but the pitching is better. I would love to be wrong.
If Mark Grace did that shit in the 80's then he'd be in the Hall of Fame and even more of a legend. Truthfully though we just all kinda took him for granted. He was so consistent and comparatively unremarkable to the monsters of his day. So in real time it was just a nice luxury to have a line drive bat in the middle of the lineup. Doing steroids and crushing bombs was significantly more important, so it's hard to redefine his legacy because we value what he did more in today's terms. Sucks because Mark Grace was sweet in all the nostalgic ways we love baseball. He played hungover, always smoked cigs in the dugout, loved chasing skirt at night and was generally in a grab ass, bullshitting kinda mood. I would love to have another Mark Grace in the league much less on my own team playing every day.
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1. Even if they just bring Sammy back to celebrate 1998 and nothing else, that's fine. The guy legitimately changed baseball alongside Mark McGwire and he did it wearing a Cubs uniform in front of millions of adoring Cubs fans. If the club leadership doesn't care for him then they can stay home that day. But almost all of the fans would love to spend at least one day celebrating Sammy Sosa. It's far worse to pretend those years didn't exist when he was quite literally one of the only reasons worth following the team.
2. Give me the pitching depth. The pendulum has swung back to having big time arms at the top of your rotation that can sit a lineup down 3-times without needing the bullpen. There's so many effective hitters now and the DH opens the door for a fresher bench. Correa is great but the impact of two more top end arms is so much bigger to me. And maybe I'm wrong according to experts so consider this more intuition. The game is definitely scaling back to limiting runs vs. scoring them which is probably worth it's own blog. For now just take my word for it.
I want to be wrong but it appears not as serious as we would like, which puts Jed in this weird spot. So again, I think we can mutually be upset with the Cubs being so relatively average in spending while still supporting the front office's decisions. It's a hard distinction but I think it's worth the effort if you can make it.
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Sroman is very, very good. I like to believe they want to build around him and make him a Cub for much longer than the initial deal dictates. He profiles very well to pitch at his level for a number of years. The next couple weeks will tell the rest of the story.
I just want to feel like there's a clear path ahead. So the Cubs go out and compete with some of these 28+ year olds and make it obvious that the $100M available in payroll would clearly put them in a position to compete for pennants. I don't think you can say that today because there's just not enough to work with.
The alternative is that the Cubs are stripping it down to the studs with the express purpose of immediately building it back up going into 2023 with a brand new 6 year window that objectively opens 2024. I hate saying that with how expensive and annoying Wrigley has become. And I hate saying that despite Ricketts express statements that they would operate otherwise. But that's still a decent proposition that a lot of teams would still accept.
The problem is you don't need to spend that much time to get back if you spend smart in free agency now. Which admittedly is something we are hesitant to talk about given Jason Heyward and a number of other infuriating, humiliating deals. I'm not ignoring Jon Lester I'm just pointing out the bad ones hurt more than the good ones feel good. That's life.
Hopefully not provided service time can still be manipulated. I have no problem saying I want maxmium control until it's completely eliminated from the game. I don't yet know how this works but let this guy destroy AAA and give Clint Frazier and Ortega a chance to do some damage before we start going to the well. Same time this one gets tough because you don't want Davis immediately going down the Kris Bryant route of feeling like he's getting screwed and never really bouncing back. That would be bad news. Thankfully it's not my decision because I would probably get it wrong. Let the best kids play and stick it Tom later also sounds great.
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I would love it if we lived in a perfect world but the reality is that the situation is just sad. The Cubs really burned some bridges in the waning time of the Theo-era and I just don't know how they can overcome it. One solution is $20M/year to Rizzo but they aren't going to pay 30% more per year than what they offered him last offseason. Another is to amicably reconcile without major compensation and that's also hard to imagine. It would be sad to see him come back if it was anything less than the Anthony Rizzo we know and love. Does he have that in the tank for the Cubs at a number that's going to be significantly less than the one he turned down 12-months ago? I say no but this is yet another time I want to be wrong.
Biggest takeaway is the thing about Rizzo being the best version of himself. I already put my emotions to bed on this and said goodbye. I don' know if I have round 2 in me in a few seasons under worse circumstances. Damn this imperfect world!
That's rich.
Absolutely not.
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It's so futile to think you can compete in the NL Central or for a pennant on that strategy without having awesome players. Like if you're banking on 85 wins then take me out back and just fucking shoot me. We've had so many seasons where we hoped for slightly above .500. I can't go back. I need to know that there's loaded prospects and young dynamic players that can win a division. And then you need to time your free agency spend around their emergence so that you can spread it out over time.
I like moving Nico to center and transitioning his profile to an offensive player. Too much is required for him to be decent at shortstop. I want the entire focus on him being a 110 OPS+ kinda guy, however the fuck we get him there. Otherwise it's not worth it because we already have two of the best defensive low-slugging middle infielders available.
Fortunately Hoerner is allegedly LOVED by teammates of all ages. Like literally everyone swears by this guy as being a very level headed, cool guy who was made to play pro ball. Everything points to him taking steps forward. To me I think that can happen in the outfield and specifically centerfield but also some left. If he's athletic enough to play ss then he should be good enough to figure out the outfield.
They still sell tall boy Old Style in the the center fielder bleachers on the left-field side of the big concession stand. I believe that's the only place you can get it.
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Stroman
At their very best, Derek Lee is probably a little better. But Rizzo is just so fucking consistent and tough and did it for so long. In a game that I need to win, give me Rizzo. I'm biased and I don't care. Rizzo has more juice to me.
Last question
9.5 which is a lot but still admittedly behind the 7-11 (1 overall) and the McDonalds (2 overall). Then there's the Taco Bell which was just such a marvelous, delightful place to crush late night food while your Uber comes. Long before ride sharing tough you'd hit the TB to rally and regroup. One of the best stops to make Wrigley into a two-part kind of day. Nothing extends the shot clock on Clark Street like a couple of baja steak chalupas and a cheesy gordita crunch. Now it's a fancy cantinas and by law fancy things in Wrigleyville suck. Stop treating us like we're sophisticated and bring back the OG Taco Bell. Do that and I guarantee 50% of the fan base will forget Carlos Correa is even on the market.
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