The Cubs opened their shiny new Mesa facility last week.
In the opening press conference, Theo Epstein made comments on the state of the franchise.
“In the two previous off-seasons, we’ve spent every dollar
available to us,” Epstein said. “This is the first winter where we ended
up keeping some in reserve to be used on players — hopefully prime-age,
impact-type players down the road. But it certainly gives us a bit of a
leg up as we look towards next winter — or an in-season move that might
make the present and the future better.”
This begs the question: if you spent every available dollar in the previous off-seasons to rebuild, why stop in 2014? First, Ricketts has begun to acknowledge that the debt load as part of the team purchase is a factor in spending. Second, Epstein has acknowledged that the team is overly dependent on gate receipts as the key revenue source, which was down again last season - - - and trends for 2014 look worse. Third, money "in reserve" is money not spent, or not available to spend. The Cubs are gearing up for expensive litigation costs so the baseball budget has to get cut. Fourth, the new CBA put the Cubs in the penalty box for overspending last year for international signees. The Cubs can't give a bonus of more than $250,000 which severely limits the kind of talent that can be acquired by that procedure. Fifth, fans don't believe it when president of business operations Crane Kenney says “We have resources. And when we need them, they will be there.”
“Rather than just spend the money to spend it,” Epstein said,
“if we can book that and have that available to us, maybe (we can) sign
that international free agent who comes along in the middle of the
summer. Or (use it to) acquire a player in a trade who carries a
significant salary but fits for the long-term. Or just start out next off-season knowing that we can be a
little bit more aggressive on the guys we really want early, because
that money will be available to us. That made more sense than just
spending it now to spend it.”
Except the Cubs have not been going after the major league ready international free agents like the White Sox did in signing Cuban slugger Jose Abreu. The reason is clear: those players cost more money than pure prospects. And, the Cubs are steadfast in their plan to use teenagers as the foundation for the organizational rebuild, at the cost of fielding a replacement level major league team.
“The people in this organization really believe that we’re on
the verge of something special,” Epstein said. “We understand that we’re
perceived otherwise, and that’s our fault, because we’ve been a
last-place club. We’re not protesting, but we need to earn our way into a
position where we’re championship contenders on an annual basis. We
feel like that is certainly moving in the right direction.”
Fans and the media are getting flummoxed by the same stock answer for the third year in a row. With no strict time table for results, and the opinion that despite overdrafting pitching the last two years, the organization's greatest weakness is in quality arms, the perception is that the Cubs are all talk.
