There has been more buzz on the glacial speed of the Cubs rebuilding process than on hot stove rumors in this off-season.
Yes, Scott Baker and Dioner Navarro signing do not stoke the fires of fans as the darkness of winter falls upon the Cub collective.
Part of the problem with the Cubs is the bi-polar messages being sent by the team to its fans. When Ricketts purchased the Cubs, he said that the team was only one or two players away from winning a championship. When Epstein was announced as the new team president, Ricketts said that the team was one or two players away from championship caliber. Ricketts also promised to maintain a competitive team.
Maintaining a competitive team, in reality or in illusion, is the main goal of the business side of the Cubs: the marketing and ticket sales departments. The Cubs had the luxury of an almost guaranteed 3 million gate per season. The Cubs steadily increased ticket and concession prices because it was the "hot" place to be, especially for the Gen X party in the bleachers crowd. But after the financial meltdown of 2009-2010, the economy has not had a robust or even a dead cat rebound. Attendance is down, and season ticket renewals are no longer automatic. For the first time, there really was no viable secondary market for Cub game tickets. In order to maintain cash flow, the Cubs need people sitting in those Wrigley seats.
On the baseball side, Epstein said he believed in turning around a club through upgrading the minor league system with top level prospects. He poured resources into scouting and drafting players (mostly pitchers in his first draft) and overpaying international free agents (until the new CBA capped that loophole.) Loading up the minor league system with prospects is fine, but the way Epstein has gone about the process, most of his prospects began at rookie and Class A levels. That means that the normal promotion course leaves Epstein's prospects in the minors for at least four years. If everything goes perfectly well, an Epstein drafted major league roster would come to bear in 2015.
It is a small market mentality to rely almost solely on the farm system to produce major league talent. For every organization that drafts 50 or more players a year, the odds are that only 5 or less will ever hit a major league roster. The upside of home grown talent is that a team controls the prospects longer, and they are cheaper when they are promoted to the major league roster.
The downside of the focus on minor league players is that general managers hold on to their assets like their own children. Some become enamored with a prospect's "potential" even when the player is not developing as projected; and that is the real bear in the equation: do you trust your lower level instructors to actually develop talent.
The Cubs track record for developing their own talent is poor. In the playoff teams of the 2000s, the few pitching promotions were really off-set by the big spending, free agent moves that Jim Hendry made with the Tribune deep pockets. So there was a lack of emphasis on minor league development under Hendry.
For years, experts had scoffed at the White Sox as having one of the worst farm systems. Kenny Williams used trades and selective free agent acquisitions to build his teams. His trading mentality did bring the White Sox a World Championship in 2005. That veteran team was dismantled as contracts expired, leaving the White Sox in a small market position against the Cubs TV and fan base.
But an odd thing happened in 2012. The beleaguered White Sox farm system produced a great crop of pitching prospects: Quintana, Sale, Santiago, Reed, Axelrod, Jones, Omogrosso, Septimo. The roster also contained home grown fielders in Flowers, Morel (hurt most of the year) and Vicideo. This young White Sox crew out performed expectations. This off-season, Williams and new GM Hahn have re-signed Peavy and Floyd to add depth to the starting rotation, and to maintain their rich asset base in pitching.
The Epstein single fixation method of total focus on drafting and signing prospects is the new Cub mantra of the organization. Now, the front office is telling all fans to be patient, and their patience will be rewarded "years" down the road. But for some fans, this change is a bait and switch. They were promised by Ricketts that the Cubs would remain competitive, even during a re-building process.
And the bottom line is that the Cubs can rebuild the minor league system AND remain competitive through trades and free agent signings. There is no rule against having a balanced approached to roster building in major league baseball.
There is a growing excuse from the Cubs camp that the team cannot make
"good" trades because the farm system is barren. Well, that never
stopped Williams and the White Sox from making deals which are now
paying off. The Epstein trades have been expensive veteran talent for multiple prospects at the July trade deadline. But the other bottom 15 teams have the same blueprint in regard to rent-a-player deals for prospects. And more general managers guard their top prospects making those type of deals harder to complete.
The Cubs have given up on signing top tier free agents. One, those long term contracts tend to block their own prospects. (The example is Soriano's deal). Two, the Cubs know they will not be competitive so they are not willing to spend top dollar on free agents for another 100-loss team. Three, top free agents want to win and not babysit a journeyman roster for several years so that makes the Cubs a bad destination for most free agents.
The Cubs are plugging gaping holes with "caretaker" or stop-gap journeymen players, including career minor leaguers like Valbuena at third base. This does not sit well with the fan base who sees the White Sox with the same gaping hole at third last year, go out and get a Youkilis to play the position. So the Cubs are again painting themselves into a corner. They will have to promote position players quicker just to field a full roster - - - which adds to the risk of failure.
There is no reason why the Cubs cannot rebuild quicker than the current player development only game plan. A team can rebuild its franchise through a combination of good drafts, player development, trades and free agent signings.
