A steam locomotive could be ahead of schedule, barreling down the tracks, only to miss the sign that the bridge over the next mountain pass is out of order. But Cubs president Theo Epstein and General manager Jed Hoyer are filtering the message to the press that the Cubs will be competitive sooner than they had expected (in their previous non-committal time line).
In a column in the Boston Globe, Epstein takes a the long-range view by "an all-out gutting and rebuilding," as opposed to the Dodgers’ approach of buying up the best players.
But the writer, Nick Cafardo, states that Epstein has surprised some people by bidding for Anibal Sanchez and Edwin Jackson to a four-year deal. Most people thought Epstein would hold off on big free agent expenditures until the time was right.
“We’re certainly farther along than we were last year at this time,” said Epstein. “When we got here, we identified one core player [Starlin Castro] and now we can look around and see Anthony Rizzo, Darwin Barney, Jeff Samardzija , and others. We do have more positional prospects than pitchers, so we felt Jackson will be with us for many years to come.”
Cafardo writes that Epstein is hoping his top prospects — namely outfielders Jorge Soler (a Cuban
defector), Brett Jackson, and Albert Almora, shortstop Javier Baez , and pitcher Arodys Vizcaino — will all be in the majors together by 2015.
Epstein claims that he always wanted to build a team from the ground up. “I think, initially, what I’d been through in Boston was of interest to our fan base,” he said. “But I think they have bought into our plan and our vision. People are excited about good young players and we hope to keep adding to it and get to the point where we’re an exciting contending team year in and year out.”
The problem with Epstein's evidence that the Cubs are ahead of schedule in rebuilding the team so he can sign free agents is that his mentioned core is small and unproven. Barney is a weak .250 hitter, a utility player on most championship teams. Castro is a hitting star, but his defense is still a long term liability. Rizzo has only been in the line up for a half season. He could have a sophomore slump like All-Star Bryan LaHair, who is now exiled to Japan. And Samardzija has only started one full season in the majors, so his skill set is still unknown. It also means that Epstein has to admit that the rest of his roster (84%) is not really that good. So how can the Cubs truly believe they will be competitive in 2013?
In a team webpage interview, Hoyer kept the ahead of schedule theme in the forefront of the off-season message. Hoyer's message is that the Cubs could be one of the most improved teams in the baseball in 2013.
"It's a line we're committed to walking," said Hoyer, on building the talent core. "Our goal here is to build a consistently good team ... and
hopefully a team that wins a championship. In order to do that, we're
not going to sacrifice the future now for wins. But at the same time,
every season is precious, and you never know when that team might catch
lightning in a bottle. You never want to sacrifice that season
entirely."
The challenge for the front office of a rebuilding team -- to
keep bringing in talent for the next contending team while also putting a
competitive team on the field in the short term.
"We just weren't deep enough [in 2012]," Hoyer said. "That's been our
biggest focus, especially pitching-wise. We just [didn't] have the
pitching depth in the system to withstand injuries, and we've worked
hard to build a pitching staff where we feel like we have some depth."
Hoyer notes a desire to teach a selective approach in Cubs hitters,
leading to greater on-base percentages (and as a result, more power
too).
It appears that now the
Nationals are the Cubs rebuilding model. Washington had a series of dreadful seasons, leading to number one draft picks. By drafting "can't miss" players, the Nationals quickly turned over their roster with young quality players in a span of three seasons.
"We know we can't transform this organization in one year, so every year
we should be able to stop and look and say we have a lot more assets, a
lot more talent than we had before," Hoyer said.
"We just have to keep on adding to it. There's plenty of examples of
teams that have done a good job of that, the Nationals being the
clearest. It wasn't a gradual, five-wins-per-year improvement. They
struggled, they had a decent season in 2011 and they exploded in 2012.
That's probably the model more than anything. At some point you get a
critical mass where you become a talented team."
Hoyer is preaching a Nationals style turnaround in two years based upon high prospects reaching the majors quickly. But Epstein contradicts this statement, stating that his new core of top prospects, Soler and #1 pick Almora, won't be in the majors until 2015.
So why the disconnect? The message that the Cubs need to send to their eroding fan base is this: we will be competitive sooner than our system will develop talent. The team will be improved in 2013. The message is to keep season ticket holders from bolting and stem the bloody tide of no-shows in the latter third of last season season. Wrigley Field in August and September was not a ball park but a seagull sanctuary. So the business side of the Cubs is pushing the "ahead of schedule" mantra in order to keep fan interest for what appears to be another 100 loss season in 2013.
