Wrigley Renovation Thread

[Guest]

From the comments on this stupidity:

http://sports.yahoo.com/video/park-same-problems-cubs-011500203.html

 

Lehnerd • 48 minutes ago Report Abuse

Well yeah renovation of dugouts the locker rooms of both teams and brand new urinalstoilets (lol).And get players who can play and field...what mess is Ryne sandberg help team all those years in 2nd base fieldin and what do cubs do for his sweat n hard work..Nothin zippo just let go coach AAA level never be Manager of club that what mess up them if Ryne Sandberg been name manager they be contenders not pretenders!

 

It's amazing how well stupid opinions and incoherence correlate.

[NewUserName]

From the comments on this stupidity:

http://sports.yahoo.com/video/park-same-problems-cubs-011500203.html

 

Lehnerd • 48 minutes ago Report Abuse

Well yeah renovation of dugouts the locker rooms of both teams and brand new urinalstoilets (lol).And get players who can play and field...what mess is Ryne sandberg help team all those years in 2nd base fieldin and what do cubs do for his sweat n hard work..Nothin zippo just let go coach AAA level never be Manager of club that what mess up them if Ryne Sandberg been name manager they be contenders not pretenders!

 

It's amazing how well stupid opinions and incoherence correlate.

 

Comments on internet news/sports stories are pure gold. Hours of great laughs if you are bored and almost every story delivers..especially on Yahoo

[Sammy Sofa]

Ugh, Yahoo comment sections...able to make everything and anything into something horribly racist.

[KingCubsFan]

I don't begrudge a team owner the right to make a profit, but I think that intelligent team owners understand that the vast majority of that profit is going to come in the resale value of the team.

 

Slashing payroll to maintain that profit, or even to break even, is a losing game. Payroll isn't just an expense, it's an investment in the success that sustains both revenue and brand value.

 

I cut off the majority of your post, but I think you equate payroll too much with success. As someone who has followed the Cubs, you should know that the previous regime's strategy of allocating most of the dollars to expensive major league talent while spending little on the farm system is not really a recipe for success. But that has been argued ad nauseum on this board, and probably isn't worth rehashing.

 

I still find it hard to blame Ricketts for a lot of what went wrong with the stadium deal. Some of the things, particularly Illinois's financial situation and attitudes towards public funding of private stadiums, were completely out of his control. The fact that it took so long to get approval of a deal he is completely funding himself only further illustrates some of the idiocy he's had to deal with. Wrigley's situation is completely unique to all other stadiums.

 

Since he's taken over the team, he's hired one of the most highly-regarded general managers in the game, made a commitment to improving player facilities that lagged behind every other major league team and opened up the purse strings for amateur talent. These are the type of things intelligent Cubs fans were yearning for years before he took over.

[SouthSideRyan]

Why do people keep trying to discount the enormous advantage a high payroll gives you?

[SouthSideRyan]

Let's say the team continues to be a dumpster fire through 2014. How many millions do we lose on our TV contract due to this "winning the right way"

[Guest]

I don't begrudge a team owner the right to make a profit, but I think that intelligent team owners understand that the vast majority of that profit is going to come in the resale value of the team.

 

Slashing payroll to maintain that profit, or even to break even, is a losing game. Payroll isn't just an expense, it's an investment in the success that sustains both revenue and brand value.

 

I cut off the majority of your post, but I think you equate payroll too much with success. As someone who has followed the Cubs, you should know that the previous regime's strategy of allocating most of the dollars to expensive major league talent while spending little on the farm system is not really a recipe for success. But that has been argued ad nauseum on this board, and probably isn't worth rehashing.

 

I still find it hard to blame Ricketts for a lot of what went wrong with the stadium deal. Some of the things, particularly Illinois's financial situation and attitudes towards public funding of private stadiums, were completely out of his control. The fact that it took so long to get approval of a deal he is completely funding himself only further illustrates some of the idiocy he's had to deal with. Wrigley's situation is completely unique to all other stadiums.

 

Since he's taken over the team, he's hired one of the most highly-regarded general managers in the game, made a commitment to improving player facilities that lagged behind every other major league team and opened up the purse strings for amateur talent. These are the type of things intelligent Cubs fans were yearning for years before he took over.

 

How is not having a high payroll better than having one? It absolutely correlates positively with your ability to put a successful product on the field. It certainly doesn't make things worse.

[jersey cubs fan]

I cut off the majority of your post, but I think you equate payroll too much with success. As someone who has followed the Cubs, you should know that the previous regime's strategy of allocating most of the dollars to expensive major league talent while spending little on the farm system is not really a recipe for success.

 

Every teams spends most of the dollars on expensive major league talent and comparatively little on the farm.

 

The teams that consistently win consistently spend more on payroll than the others.

[Guest]

I cut off the majority of your post, but I think you equate payroll too much with success. As someone who has followed the Cubs, you should know that the previous regime's strategy of allocating most of the dollars to expensive major league talent while spending little on the farm system is not really a recipe for success.

 

Every teams spends most of the dollars on expensive major league talent and comparatively little on the farm.

 

The teams that consistently win consistently spend more on payroll than the others.

 

And now they don't even have a choice but to.

[jersey cubs fan]

Since he's taken over the team, he's hired one of the most highly-regarded general managers in the game, made a commitment to improving player facilities that lagged behind every other major league team and opened up the purse strings for amateur talent. These are the type of things intelligent Cubs fans were yearning for years before he took over.

 

He took way too long to make the decision about management and the team has gotten worse and worse under his ownership. Those are the things intelligent Cubs fans didn't want to see happen.

[Backtobanks]

It goes back to not having the balls and/or foresight to make the very easy decision to fire Hendry on day one. Put a competent management team into place from day one and this team isn't in this position today.

 

So true.

 

I wonder what the excuse will be in 2015 when we're still struggling to field a decent ML team.

[Sammy Sofa]

I don't begrudge a team owner the right to make a profit, but I think that intelligent team owners understand that the vast majority of that profit is going to come in the resale value of the team.

 

Slashing payroll to maintain that profit, or even to break even, is a losing game. Payroll isn't just an expense, it's an investment in the success that sustains both revenue and brand value.

 

I cut off the majority of your post, but I think you equate payroll too much with success. As someone who has followed the Cubs, you should know that the previous regime's strategy of allocating most of the dollars to expensive major league talent while spending little on the farm system is not really a recipe for success. But that has been argued ad nauseum on this board, and probably isn't worth rehashing.

 

This doesn't make any sense; just because some people don't know how to spend a big payroll doesn't mean having a big payroll is automatically a bad thing.

[Guest]

It goes back to not having the balls and/or foresight to make the very easy decision to fire Hendry on day one. Put a competent management team into place from day one and this team isn't in this position today.

 

So true.

 

I wonder what the excuse will be in 2015 when we're still struggling to field a decent ML team.

 

Here we go again.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I cut off the majority of your post, but I think you equate payroll too much with success. As someone who has followed the Cubs, you should know that the previous regime's strategy of allocating most of the dollars to expensive major league talent while spending little on the farm system is not really a recipe for success. But that has been argued ad nauseum on this board, and probably isn't worth rehashing.

 

It's always worth rehashing.

 

It's not an either/or. Would an extra couple of million in the draft budget at the expense of an Aaron Miles been a bad thing? No. But even with what they spent, they should have done better in the post-Prior drafts. Scouting skill, development skill and luck seem to have been marginalized when discussing organizational drafting and development in favor of an obsession with overslotting and total draft budget. Signing bonuses are only a small part of the picture.

 

Post-Prior, the Cubs were absolutely horrible at drafting for a long time. The MLB spending didn't cause the problems, but it did save us from a decade of losing. When the farm system isn't producing and you stop spending, you get the 61-101 Cubs of last year. Expensive free agents weren't the water sinking the boat, it was the pump keeping the boat afloat.

 

I still find it hard to blame Ricketts for a lot of what went wrong with the stadium deal. Some of the things, particularly Illinois's financial situation and attitudes towards public funding of private stadiums, were completely out of his control. The fact that it took so long to get approval of a deal he is completely funding himself only further illustrates some of the idiocy he's had to deal with. Wrigley's situation is completely unique to all other stadiums.

 

I have trouble calling it idiocy when the city is getting so much out of the deal for essentially nothing. Ricketts came to them asking for $300m and they talked him down to him buying a bunch of stuff for them. They took him to the cleaners. Who is the idiot in that scenario?

 

Since he's taken over the team, he's hired one of the most highly-regarded general managers in the game, made a commitment to improving player facilities that lagged behind every other major league team and opened up the purse strings for amateur talent. These are the type of things intelligent Cubs fans were yearning for years before he took over.

 

It's kind of a monkey's paw situation. When I wished for those things, I didn't think to specify that I didn't want it to come with lowered payroll, lowered attendance and lowered winning percentage every single year.

 

And honestly, I could do without a bit of the amateur spending. I'm still trying to find a reading of Armando Rivero's scouting report that justifies $3.1 million. After Gerardo Concepcion, they kind of lost the benefit of the "maybe their scouts see something different" with me, and it's starting to feel like amateur spending just for the sake of it rather than with an eye toward ROI.

[Sammy Sofa]

I have trouble calling it idiocy when the city is getting so much out of the deal for essentially nothing. Ricketts came to them asking for $300m and they talked him down to him buying a bunch of stuff for them. They took him to the cleaners. Who is the idiot in that scenario?

 

It's not an either/or option. It's mostly bad timing (much like the TV situation); the city and the state have no money. They were never going to get anything.

[jersey cubs fan]

I have trouble calling it idiocy when the city is getting so much out of the deal for essentially nothing. Ricketts came to them asking for $300m and they talked him down to him buying a bunch of stuff for them. They took him to the cleaners. Who is the idiot in that scenario?

 

It's not an either/or option. It's mostly bad timing (much like the TV situation); the city and the state have no money. They were never going to get anything.

 

Right, but governmental insolvency was an issue prior to him purchasing the team.

[Sammy Sofa]

I have trouble calling it idiocy when the city is getting so much out of the deal for essentially nothing. Ricketts came to them asking for $300m and they talked him down to him buying a bunch of stuff for them. They took him to the cleaners. Who is the idiot in that scenario?

 

It's not an either/or option. It's mostly bad timing (much like the TV situation); the city and the state have no money. They were never going to get anything.

 

Right, but governmental insolvency was an issue prior to him purchasing the team.

 

So what? Nobody "took anybody to the cleaners;" you either have to fix your shithole stadium or let it fall down. It's not like they were "talked down" into doing something they don't want to do.

 

If your issue is with them asking in the first place, fine. I agree, it was always a waste of time.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The Cubs are buying the city more than $5 million worth of stuff.

[Sammy Sofa]

The Cubs are buying the city more than $5 million worth of stuff.

 

Yeah, because they play in a dump that's a local landmark. To sit back and think they get "fleeced" because of $5 million dollars given the crappiness of the timing and the situation is beyond naive. Nobody should be congratulation the Ricketts on doing a good job, but it's hardly the calamity you so desperately want to portray it as.

[Andy]

Let's say the team continues to be a dumpster fire through 2014. How many millions do we lose on our TV contract due to this "winning the right way"

I doubt we'd lose much. If the Cubs' value was contingent on them having a good team, it wouldn't be as high as it is (obviously).

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Didn't the Rangers get their TV deal before they started their good run?

[Guest]

Didn't the Rangers get their TV deal before they started their good run?

 

They won the division the year they signed it

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/texas-rangers/headlines/20100927-Rangers-new-20-year-2344.ece

[sneakypower]

Why do people keep trying to discount the enormous advantage a high payroll gives you?

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/PayrollWins3.png

 

 

However, the evidence is pretty striking – even in an era of expanding television contracts and ever-growing payrolls at the high end of the spectrum, you simply cannot determine which teams are going to be competitive simply by looking at money spent on the Major League roster. There are still inefficiencies to be exploited and ways to create value beyond simply chasing the shiny new toy being auctioned off at the winter meetings.

 

Spending money isn’t a bad thing, of course, but it certainly isn’t the only thing, and this year, it hasn’t even been that important of a thing.

Edited April 18, 2013 by sneakypower

[jersey cubs fan]

Let's say the team continues to be a dumpster fire through 2014. How many millions do we lose on our TV contract due to this "winning the right way"

I doubt we'd lose much. If the Cubs' value was contingent on them having a good team, it wouldn't be as high as it is (obviously).

 

If you spend 5 years eroding your television ratings it is going to have an effect. The same way the Cubs value would have been effected if they never had 2003/2008 to show owners how much of a cash cow this team could be even with just a glimmer of hope.

[crazycooter]

Not being good at baseball didn't seem to hurt the deal the Mariners just signed. They got $2 billion and at least a part of it is apparently going to be exempt from revenue sharing.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2013/04/16/seattle-mariners-sign-estimated-2-billion-network-deal-with-directv/

 

 

I feel like this Deadspin article is fairly relevant to this discussion, too. It helps explain why attendance is becoming less relevant.

 

http://deadspin.com/5789875/no-ones-going-to-baseball-games-but-heres-why-mlb-isnt-concerned