When Tom Ricketts overpaid for the Cubs from the bankrupt Chicago Tribune, he made several key mistakes, foremost was the retention of the current team management. Jim Hendry and his corporate overlords in the Tribune Tower viewed the Cubs as merely a production company to fill entertaining programming slots on the television or radio station properties. The plan was to spend money like a sit-com to be "competitive" enough to draw enough fans (ratings) to sustain The Brand.
It was okay to give Alfonso Soriano an insane player contract because the Cubs were drawing 3 million fans and had a national cable television audience. It wasn't the team executives money; it was just numbers on a conglomerate's balance sheet. It was just like the feasts and greed just before the Fall of the Roman Empire: quaint little Wrigley Field had been transformed into the largest yuppie spring break in the summer tavern. Baseball was secondary to the party atmosphere in the bleachers. As any saloon keeper will tell you, alcohol is more profitable than theater ticket sales.
The Tribune minions never used the term "rebuild" during its ownership tenure that began in 1981. The corporate executives brought in a baseball man, Dallas Green, to re-tool the organization. Green brought in the Phillies way, and was turning the team from the lovable loser label into a contender until he began to clash with the corporate executives in the Tower. It always seemed that someone outside of baseball circles knew better. The Tribune board used to stash near retiring executives to the kid's table called the Cubs to be the team president (which should have been merely an honorary title) to do little until retirement benefits kicked in. With no baseball knowledge, but a desire to keep the park filled, the Tribune kept writing checks for Hendry to spend on stop gap free agents to keep the team competitive. Meanwhile, the minor league system swelled with career minor leaguers blocked from an opportunity to be promoted or noticed by the team.
And that is what Ricketts inherited: an old minor league system of 28 plus year old AAAA talent and a serious amount of deadwood major league no-trade contracts for underperforming old veterans. Instead of sweeping clean the entire house on day one, Ricketts left the management crew in tact, which continued the same philosophy until the payroll budget burst the $150 million mark and the team crashed and burned in the playoffs and fell from grace in 2011.
Ricketts has slowly turned the corner (possibly by accident). Attendance fell, player production fell, losses mounted both in the standings and financially; change was on the horizon. Ricketts obsession with the Red Sox made him hire Theo Epstein and his band of merry young executives (Hoyer and McLeod) to remake the Cubs into the image of the Red Sox Way. Epstein was in charge when the Red Sox won two World Series for a starved fan base (even though the team foundation for the first championship was done by former GM Dan Duquette, now the Orioles new GM). Winning over the fan base with the reputation of Epstein & Company was a media coup.
The question is how long will be the media honeymoon.
It may not be as long as people would have hoped; the initial plan was to have Epstein "overpay" draft choices (especially those high schooler first round picks with signability issues) to bolster the number of prospects in the system. For example, the White Sox do the opposite and hardly spend on draft choices ($2-4 million) while last year the Cubs (under Hendry) spent nearly $12 million in signing bonus contracts, giving later round picks first round money in order to sign. This is what Epstein was going to do next June, until the new collective bargaining agreement effectively outlawed the practice.
The slow scramble to find a Plan B has been a cumbersome process for Epstein and Hoyer. It is clear they have no real affection for the Hendry prospects in the minor league system. It is also clear that they have little to work with on the major league roster. At the winter meetings, it was reported that the Cubs would not be big players in the free agent market because the Cubs "were out of money." There is probably great truth to that statement since when Daddy Ricketts spent the family money on the purchase of Tom's hobby horse, the Cubs, he said that no further money would be invested in the team. In other word, the Cubs had to pay for itself going forward. That was hard to do with a huge debt service on the purchase, a high payroll of $140 million, a bad economy, a fan base that turned to no-shows for the last two months of the season, and declining ratings to match the slide in the standings. So the old way of buying free agents to stem the tide and hover around a "competitive" .500 club was out the window, too.
So the snail crawl to find a Plan C was a mental gizzard grinder for Cubs fans in the first weeks of the hot stove league. The new young genius in charge of the Cubs was already painted himself into a corner with high expectations and little tools to change the situation. It is now apparent that the new Cubs three-headed-monster (Epstein-Hoyer-McLeod) are trying to turnover both the major league and minor league rosters as quickly as possible with their own "players." They have definitively gone to the bargain basement used player bin to patch together an ugly quilt for 2012.
The real anticipation for the new regime would be their first big move. It came as a dud in the minds of many fans: the signing of free agent OF David DeJesus. DeJesus was coming off a career WORST season. The team said they liked his defense, but he lacked power and RBI production throughout his career.
Then, some fans decided to give management a break and wait for the first big trade. It came as another dud: the Cubs sent Tyler Colvin and D.J. LeMahieu to the Colorado Rockies for Ian Stewart and Casey Weathers.
With the loss of Aramis Ramirez at third, Stewart's numbers are extremely weak. He only .156 with zero homers in 122 at-bats with the Rockies last season. He was sent to the minors during the season, and now says he had a wrist injury. (Cub fans know wrist injuries do not heal quickly and have multiple season issues; example, Derek Lee). It appears that the Cubs were looking at Stewart's inflated 2009 numbers (25 HRs) and hoping that he could rebound with a change of scenery. A change of scenery does not change a flawed swing or a wrist injury.
The same holds true for Weathers, who was a first round pick of the Rockies in the 2007 draft. The 26-year-old reliever has a 4.20 ERA and 1.47 WHIP in four minor-league seasons but showed potential before undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2009. He has a real control problem and is thought of by major league scouts as "a project."
Hendry used to collect injured pitchers in a MASH unit of "rehab" projects that never panned out. But it was a way to keep signing veterans with an alleged track record to keep the heat off poor talent evaluations and the lack of prospects contributing on the major league club.
So, the Cubs continued the roster turnover with a clear move of going cheaper and collecting bodies. The trade of Sean Marshall to the Reds for a starter with a severe sophomore slump and two minor leaguers shows that Epstein is now in full "rebuild" mode even though his owner is in complete denial. Marshall, who statistically the best left handed relief pitcher the last two seasons, goes to the Reds for left handed starter Travis Wood and prospects Dave Sappelt and Ronald Torreyes.
Marshall has emerged as one of the league’s elite relievers since moving to the bullpen full time in 2010, going 6-6, wth 34 holds in 150 innings of work with a 2.45 ERA and 169/42 K/BB ratio.
The key to the deal was financial. Marshall was set to make $3.1 million in 2012 plus an expensive contract extension. Wood is being paid the league minimum, and at age 24 is under team control through 2016. Neither Torreyes nor Sappelt were among the Reds’ top 10 prospects according to Baseball America. Sappelt is a short, scrappy player with some speed and is projected as a major league bench outfielder while Torreyes, at 5'9" 140 lbs, is a 19-year-old slick fielding second baseman looked good in Single-A last season. Some believe Torreyes could be a Dustin Pedoria type player; others think small compact gritty players like ex-Cubs Ryan Theriot or Mike Fontenot, for whom the Cubs let go for a reason: lack of production.
It is one thing to get a bunch of scrappy players, but another to field an entire major league team with scraps. Season ticket holders are already complaining that the 2012 club is going to be awful, and awful does not sell tickets.
This is acknowledged now by Epstein as Plan C. From finding bottom-out players like DeJesus and Stewart with the hope of a bounce back season, the Cubs are trying to "buy low" and get higher unexpected returns. The team is also now hellbent on trading any valuable "assets" into more "assets," i.e. trading a quality relief pitcher for three other players. As Epstein said at the winter meetings to other GMs, he'd listen to offers on "anybody," he meant it. Starting pitcher Matt Garza appears to be next in the conga line out the door in a three or four for one swap.
If the Cubs do nothing further this off-season, the 2012 payroll is projected to drop 28 percent to $98 million from $135 million. This is the beginning of a significant change in corporate philosophy; the Cubs were labeled as a big market, big spending club. Now, they are falling back to a small market value mentality.
Epstein is rolling the dice on out-of-favor players during his honeymoon period. He is hoping against hope that if he fills the roster with comeback of the year candidates, some will actually play well enough to surprise some people. But how surprised will fans be when they unwrap (player) packages bought at the dollar store?
And this is shaping up not to be a one season lull. The only upside prospect so far, Torreyes, is an A ball player. That means he will need three more years to get major league ready. And Epstein's first June draft will not yield a crop of players for at least two or three years. So the statements that the Cubs will be competitive in 2013 are misguided at best. Look at the Epstein way: stock piling A or AA players means that it is going to take three years to get to the major league roster fully turned over, if at all. That means 2015 and not 2013. And if you keep getting bottom feeder placeholder players at the major league level (Stewart, DeJesus) the club is not going to get progressively better at time soon.
Epstein & Company really need to find gold nuggets in the manure of other team's run-off. They have to act faster and with more desperation or they will lose out on chances to improve the stale product.
You really need to cull the wire to plug in guys with at least some POTENTIAL in the near term. Example, the A's just put on waivers AAA RF Jai Miller, who hit .276 with 32 HR 88 RBI and 14 SB last season. The Chronicle reports the team hopes he clears waivers so he can be back in spring training and make the team. (The A's had to make the roster move due to the players received in the Gio trade). This is the type of player the Cubs should claim - - - some one who has been blocked by his current team and who can be given an opportunity to win a job. And given the fact the Cubs current roster is like the Bears (no back ups at key positions), Miller would be insurance if DeJesus gets hurt or just plain sucks again. Reed Johnson or Sappelt are not full time starters. Plus, who else besides Soriano or LaHair can hit a home run on this team?
If Epstein is reincarnating the Go-Go White Sox of the late 1950s, defense and speed, that won't win at Wrigley when the opponent is blasting homers onto Waveland and the Cubs have no answer. None of the moves so far has excited the fan base.
Besides, signing a guy like Miller costs the team nothing but the major league minimum if he makes the club! That would make Ricky happy happy!!!
But there is nothing to make die-hard Cub fans happy. This rebuilding plan is going to be a long term struggle against the odds of having stop gap, fill in players hoping for career comeback seasons to field a competitive team. The Cubs are not better today by the mere subtraction of Pujols in St. Louis or Fielder or Braun (possible 50 game suspension) in Milwaukee. The free spending Tribune days are over. It is possible that the second coming of the P.K. Wrigley clueless and cheap era is here.
