The Ricketts Ownership

[Guest]

You're understating how bad the organization was...and the farm system would've been pretty [expletive] terrible if not for the 2011 draft propping it up.

 

The 2011 draft *did* prop it up though, as did the recent classes of IFAs graduating to the states. Those all had the farm system on the rise.

 

But they were as far away as prospects can be, so saying that the farm wasn't that bad when there was no impact talent anywhere near the major leagues is misleading considering what we're talking about (being able to consistently field a contending team and reload it with young players).

 

Isn't that statement itself misleading, when impact talent had just arrived at the major league level?

 

I suppose that's fair.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Even if you like the path this front office is taking, I am especially disappointed to have to hear the rumblings of "Trying to win with FA signings are why Hendry failed" on NSBB. That's some Kaplan-level ish right there, and it shouldn't fly here of all places.

 

The 2010-11 Cubs were in a bad shape because of this list:

 

Matt Clanton

Chadd Blasko

Luke Hagerty

Bobby Brownlie

Ryan Harvey

Mark Pawelek

Tyler Colvin

Josh Donaldson

Josh Vitters

Ryan Flaherty

Andrew Cashner

[Guest]

This team needs some positive variance in the first half of the season in the worst way so we can at least have different goalposts for this debate. The roster as currently constructed is better than given credit for in this thread.

 

I'm having a lot of trouble saying that right now. They never died fix the infield depth, they never clarified the outfield situation (we've still got DeJesus playing out of position), and we're already in a big variance hole with Baker and Garza combining to miss more than half a season worth of starts. Looks like a 75-win projection, which means a playoff spot is pretty much outside the reasonable error bars.

 

In 18+ months, the farm system has supported the MLB roster with Castillo, maybe a middle reliever, and hopefully Jackson in a few months. Not good enough, and the next 18 months don't look any more promising(the lack of pitching is especially galling).

 

Technically true, but that was after a pretty big wave that had just resolved. Barney became a full-time starter, Samardzija became a starting pitcher of some worth, Cashner became a guy who could be traded for Rizzo. We're loaded with cost-controlled talent right now, in part due to our front office's moves, but that doesn't negate that there was a path to get the cost-controlled talent to support a competitive team.

 

And especially since the farm system offered little currency to go get other young players, the main way to do that was to take the Kenny Williams/Jim Hendry route and perpetually play catch up by plugging those holes with decent but flawed players.

 

As long as you draft better than Jim Hendry and Kenny Williams, that's a fine path to take.

 

Not issues that make me question the viability of the front office.

 

I've got a pretty big laundry list, personally, that includes questionable prospect overpayments, terrible roster decisions and a general lack of ability to find useful replacement players.

 

- A 75 win projection with some positive variance is a lot different than the "tanking" rhetoric seen in this thread, which was my point. Especially in light of the following points about the state of the talent in the organization

 

- Samardzija and Barney were on the MLB roster, but that still wasn't enough to supplement the expensive veterans to success. I like Barney more than a lot of people, but he still shouldn't be one of two mentioned in a successful "wave" of prospects. Moreover, the point was to speak more to the lack of help coming, especially on the pitching side. When's the next SP prospect we can reasonably try to project to stick in the rotation? There's Vizcaino(added by Theo 9 months ago), and then what? Peralta if we squint? Johnson? Staggering. And Cashner was around, but turning his reliever self into Rizzo is much more a credit to this FO than to the talent coming through the system. Add Cashner to the bullpen and my point doesn't really change here, and even without hindsight we were thrilled to get Rizzo for him.

 

- Well yes, if you're a big market team and draft well, most approaches converge to a similar place 5 years down the road. My point was more for these intervening years before the farm system is restocked. We can spend hundreds of millions to try to claw to 85 wins in a best case scenario at the expense of draft picks/allotment, roster flexibility, and payroll flexibility. Or as Theo alludes to, at the end of the day no one cares if you win 80 games or 70, so make the best longer term decisions when that's the quality of your team at the time.

[Guest]

Even if you like the path this front office is taking, I am especially disappointed to have to hear the rumblings of "Trying to win with FA signings are why Hendry failed" on NSBB. That's some Kaplan-level ish right there, and it shouldn't fly here of all places.

 

The 2010-11 Cubs were in a bad shape because of this list:

 

Matt Clanton

Chadd Blasko

Luke Hagerty

Bobby Brownlie

Ryan Harvey

Mark Pawelek

Tyler Colvin

Josh Donaldson

Josh Vitters

Ryan Flaherty

Andrew Cashner

 

Having to compensate for bad drafting/developing with free agent signings are part of why Hendry failed. As well as the fact that he got the worst possible outcome on two of his three playoff teams.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

- A 75 win projection with some positive variance is a lot different than the "tanking" rhetoric seen in this thread, which was my point. Especially in light of the following points about the state of the talent in the organization

 

That 75-win projection is just for the roster they have now. They've got their finger squeezing so tightly around the fire-sale trigger that I'm surprised they haven't shot themselves in the foot.

 

Samardzija and Barney were on the MLB roster, but that still wasn't enough to supplement the expensive veterans to success. I like Barney more than a lot of people, but he still shouldn't be one of two mentioned in a successful "wave" of prospects. Moreover, the point was to speak more to the lack of help coming, especially on the pitching side. When's the next SP prospect we can reasonably try to project to stick in the rotation? There's Vizcaino(added by Theo 9 months ago), and then what? Peralta if we squint? Johnson? Staggering. And Cashner was around, but turning his reliever self into Rizzo is much more a credit to this FO than to the talent coming through the system. Add Cashner to the bullpen and my point doesn't really change here, and even without hindsight we were thrilled to get Rizzo for him.

 

 

I think we agree on the diagnosis, but not the treatment.

 

I honestly don't think we have a pitcher in the system that we can reasonably project to a rotation spot at any point in the future. Vizcaino has a lot of hurdles between him and sticking as a starter, reliever seems way more likely. All the more reason we needed an Edwin Jackson (at minimum) two years ago to go with the one we got this year.

 

(Digression: I know you never, ever draft for need at the top of the draft, but I can see why doing so with a near-ready college SP is such a focus this year.)

 

I don't want to downplay the job the front office has done getting guys like Rizzo or Travis Wood. But I think that just goes to show that this front office is good enough to have made the "parallel fronts" approach work.

 

Well yes, if you're a big market team and draft well, most approaches converge to a similar place 5 years down the road. My point was more for these intervening years before the farm system is restocked. We can spend hundreds of millions to try to claw to 85 wins in a best case scenario at the expense of draft picks/allotment, roster flexibility, and payroll flexibility. Or as Theo alludes to, at the end of the day no one cares if you win 80 games or 70, so make the best longer term decisions when that's the quality of your team at the time.

 

If it takes you hundreds of millions to get to an "85-at-best" scenario, you are doing a terrible job with how you spend the money.

 

The 2012 Cubs needed a 3b, a SP or two, a league-average bullpen (it's truly hard to believe how awful of a bullpen our front office managed to put together last year) and some luck. That shouldn't have cost hundreds of millions.

[Banedon]

Only bc good posters sometimes respond to you

 

We have like one of those. Every post I draw out of TT is my gift, personally, to you.

 

Pffft. I beat him in overtime. Just sayin. :-)

[SouthSideRyan]

People need to stop saying well we're projected to win 77 games if you sign A, B, and C, so why bother.

 

1. Projections have a lot of variance, you shouldn't go into every season thinking if everything breaks right we should be in the playoffs, BUT

 

2. Projections don't last for one season. It does matter if you win 70 or 80 games, because if you win 80 games, you have 10 less games to improve upon going forward.

 

If you only sign a guy when he puts your projection to 86 wins you are never going to get out of this black hole we're stuck in. Why do those of you who think it doesn't matter if we win 65 or 80 approve of the Baker and Feldman signings? Why is it ok to sign Navarro?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

People need to stop saying well we're projected to win 77 games if you sign A, B, and C, so why bother.

 

It's even worse than that. We'd be projected to win 90 if we signed A, B, and C, but we get:

 

"Why bother signing A? We'll only win 80 games with him, instead of 75. Not worth it."

 

"Why bother signing B? We'll only win 80 games with him, instead of 75. Not worth it."

 

"Why bother signing C? We'll only win 80 games with him, instead of 75. Not worth it."

[SouthSideRyan]

Even if you like the path this front office is taking, I am especially disappointed to have to hear the rumblings of "Trying to win with FA signings are why Hendry failed" on NSBB. That's some Kaplan-level ish right there, and it shouldn't fly here of all places.

 

The 2010-11 Cubs were in a bad shape because of this list:

 

Matt Clanton

Chadd Blasko

Luke Hagerty

Bobby Brownlie

Ryan Harvey

Mark Pawelek

Tyler Colvin

Josh Donaldson

Josh Vitters

Ryan Flaherty

Andrew Cashner

 

Having to compensate for bad drafting/developing with free agent signings are part of why Hendry failed. As well as the fact that he got the worst possible outcome on two of his three playoff teams.

 

Then bad drafting/developing is the reason Hendry failed, not that he signed free agents to what were pretty damn reasonable deals. (Soriano and Zambrano kind of excluded.)

[Hairyducked Idiot]

And even then, Soriano and Zambrano are sort of reluctant exclusions. We got a lot out of both players.

 

 

Relevant to the overarching point of this poll/thread:

 

Al Yellon has an article today showing that the Cubs are having serious trouble selling Opening Day tickets and are looking at their first non-sellout on Opening Day since 1997.

[SouthSideRyan]

To answer the original post, Ricketts has done a pretty good job at everything except for the product on the field, which is what's most important. We appear headed for 0 playoff appearances in the first 5 years of ownership for the 3rd biggest market in the NL. That is unacceptable.

[Guest]

People need to stop saying well we're projected to win 77 games if you sign A, B, and C, so why bother.

 

1. Projections have a lot of variance, you shouldn't go into every season thinking if everything breaks right we should be in the playoffs, BUT

 

2. Projections don't last for one season. It does matter if you win 70 or 80 games, because if you win 80 games, you have 10 less games to improve upon going forward.

 

If you only sign a guy when he puts your projection to 86 wins you are never going to get out of this black hole we're stuck in. Why do those of you who think it doesn't matter if we win 65 or 80 approve of the Baker and Feldman signings? Why is it ok to sign Navarro?

 

Because you're constantly chasing your tail when all your supporting cast declines and leaves in free agency. That's what happens when over half of your best players are over 30 and are nearing the end of their contracts. Free Agency is a part of MLB life, but you can't spend your way back to relevance when you're regularly losing your best players to FA and decline.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Because you're constantly chasing your tail when all your supporting cast declines and leaves in free agency. That's what happens when over half of your best players are over 30 and are nearing the end of their contracts. Free Agency is a part of MLB life, but you can't spend your way back to relevance when you're regularly losing your best players to FA and decline.

 

When that day comes, you replace the declining/expiring free agents with prospects from the awesome farm system your new guy from Boston spent the last five years putting together. Spending your way back to relevance is a bridge for years when you don't have impact prospects debuting.

 

It doesn't have to be a permanently viable solution for it to be the best one available to the post-2011 Cubs.

[jersey cubs fan]

We appear headed for 0 playoff appearances in the first 5 years of ownership for the 3rd biggest market in the NL. That is unacceptable.

 

Or, hear me out here, the right way.

[biittner77]

Even if you like the path this front office is taking, I am especially disappointed to have to hear the rumblings of "Trying to win with FA signings are why Hendry failed" on NSBB. That's some Kaplan-level ish right there, and it shouldn't fly here of all places.

 

The 2010-11 Cubs were in a bad shape because of this list:

 

Matt Clanton

Chadd Blasko

Luke Hagerty

Bobby Brownlie

Ryan Harvey

Mark Pawelek

Tyler Colvin

Josh Donaldson

Josh Vitters

Ryan Flaherty

Andrew Cashner

 

Having to compensate for bad drafting/developing with free agent signings are part of why Hendry failed. As well as the fact that he got the worst possible outcome on two of his three playoff teams.

 

Then bad drafting/developing is the reason Hendry failed, not that he signed free agents to what were pretty damn reasonable deals. (Soriano and Zambrano kind of excluded.)

 

All of the non pitchers on that list have actually played in MLB (not positive about Donaldson) Doesn't excuse anything Hendry did, just thought that when the philosophy changed from stockpiling pitching to BPA the success rate sort of went up.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I'm pretty sure I can rattle off failed 2000s Cubs prospects at a world-class level, but I have absolutely no memory of Matt Clanton.

 

Google comes up with this fascinating story:

 

http://cubs.scout.com/2/527823.html

[Guest]

Because you're constantly chasing your tail when all your supporting cast declines and leaves in free agency. That's what happens when over half of your best players are over 30 and are nearing the end of their contracts. Free Agency is a part of MLB life, but you can't spend your way back to relevance when you're regularly losing your best players to FA and decline.

 

When that day comes, you replace the declining/expiring free agents with prospects from the awesome farm system your new guy from Boston spent the last five years putting together. Spending your way back to relevance is a bridge for years when you don't have impact prospects debuting.

 

It doesn't have to be a permanently viable solution for it to be the best one available to the post-2011 Cubs.

 

That day is not synchronized to the day when the farm system is good. Ramirez is already gone. Dempster too. Zambrano declined, Wood retired. Improving the team by X + the value you lost to decline and free agency is not a realistic goal when so much of the MLB talent is concentrated in post-prime players. You sign Darvish to add value to a bad team, and now you need Buehrle too to replace the value you lost. Except now Buehrle isn't actually good so you're paying him 45 million more dollars to be mediocre or worse. To come back to a point from my original post, that money is coming from somewhere, so there's at least a small bit of opportunity cost. To speak nothing of the lost draft picks and draft allotment when free agency is the primary mode of acquisition.

 

There will be unintended consequences, free agency isn't an efficient enough mode of acquisition to pretend otherwise.

[jersey cubs fan]

I'm pretty sure I can rattle off failed 2000s Cubs prospects at a world-class level, but I have absolutely no memory of Matt Clanton.

 

Google comes up with this fascinating story:

 

http://cubs.scout.com/2/527823.html

 

 

When he was released, no one asked for his story. No one cared. They had no reason to. In a vineyard lined wall to wall with pitching prospects just ripe for the plucking, Clanton was yesterday’s wine – a once promising athlete long since forgotten by most and formally set free by the organization that awarded him almost $2 million from beginning to end.

 

That is awful writing. I will take yesterday's wine over grapes that are ripe any day of the week.

[jersey cubs fan]

To come back to a point from my original post, that money is coming from somewhere, so there's at least a small bit of opportunity cost. To speak nothing of the lost draft picks and draft allotment when free agency is the primary mode of acquisition.

 

There will be unintended consequences, free agency isn't an efficient enough mode of acquisition to pretend otherwise.

 

Who is pretending free agency doesn't have inefficiencies or that it should be the primary mode of acquisition?

 

The goal is not to have the most efficient roster, it is to have the best roster you can afford. The Cubs have not had the best roster they can afford in quite some time.

[Sammy Sofa]

Why do you keep engaging him?

 

Because I bring more relevant baseball content to this site in a day than you do in a year. We can't all be comic relief.

 

Only bc good posters sometimes respond to you

 

STOP TALKING TO HIM.

[mookie]

We appear headed for 0 playoff appearances in the first 5 years of ownership for the 3rd biggest market in the NL. That is unacceptable.

 

Or, hear me out here, the right way.

 

What is this 5 years of ownership crap?

[jersey cubs fan]

We appear headed for 0 playoff appearances in the first 5 years of ownership for the 3rd biggest market in the NL. That is unacceptable.

 

Or, hear me out here, the right way.

 

What is this 5 years of ownership crap?

 

It has been 3 years already. The assumption is they will not make the playoffs this year and every indication is they won't do much of anything to try and get good enough to make the playoffs next year. That is why he wrote, "we appear headed".

[Guest]

To come back to a point from my original post, that money is coming from somewhere, so there's at least a small bit of opportunity cost. To speak nothing of the lost draft picks and draft allotment when free agency is the primary mode of acquisition.

 

There will be unintended consequences, free agency isn't an efficient enough mode of acquisition to pretend otherwise.

 

Who is pretending free agency doesn't have inefficiencies or that it should be the primary mode of acquisition?

 

The goal is not to have the most efficient roster, it is to have the best roster you can afford. The Cubs have not had the best roster they can afford in quite some time.

 

In the instance that the Cubs have a terrible farm system and are committed to improving that farm system(as was the case post 2011), Free agency would be the primary mode of acquisition, especially for players who would make a substantial difference in the team's win total.

[mookie]

Getting pissed off about things that haven't happened yet is utterly ridiculous.

[jersey cubs fan]

To come back to a point from my original post, that money is coming from somewhere, so there's at least a small bit of opportunity cost. To speak nothing of the lost draft picks and draft allotment when free agency is the primary mode of acquisition.

 

There will be unintended consequences, free agency isn't an efficient enough mode of acquisition to pretend otherwise.

 

Who is pretending free agency doesn't have inefficiencies or that it should be the primary mode of acquisition?

 

The goal is not to have the most efficient roster, it is to have the best roster you can afford. The Cubs have not had the best roster they can afford in quite some time.

 

In the instance that the Cubs have a terrible farm system and are committed to improving that farm system(as was the case post 2011), Free agency would be the primary mode of acquisition, especially for players who would make a substantial difference in the team's win total.

 

That doesn't make any sense.