Brett's take on Cubs finances

[Sammy Sofa]

this really is a big issue. we dumped several years so we could get good draft picks and improve the farm system. the farm system has improved, but this is the easy part. even if this guys work out to some extent, it's not like we're a big market team that can start buying guys. the front office is going to have to show that they can put together a good farm system without high draft picks.*

 

 

*the fun part here is that if they do so, it proves that we shouldn't have bothered to tank over and over again since a smart group can build up the farm even without picking at the top of the draft every year.

 

Plus overall we're still in a position where things HAVE to go really, really, really right or else they're fucked. The farm basically HAS to produce multiple stars/above average players in short order, and regardless of the FO's reputation that is hardly an ideal position to be in. I'm not kidding when I talk about how my hopes are basically hanging on Olt right now, because a working Olt gives them at least somewhat of a cushion if Castro and Rizzo don't bounce back like they essentially need them to.

 

I recognize a huge part of this is because I'm a giant pessimist towards this team right now and I don't really expect more than two of the Big Five or whatever they are to actually pan out. Maybe it's Battered Fan Syndrome, but the idea of a farm system actually producing multiple impact players in rapid succession just doesn't seem all that likely to me.

[Elwood]

Just a reminder.

 

http://m.mlb.com/video/v31593231/chccol-baezs-solo-homer-trims-the-deficit-to-two/?query=baez

 

http://m.mlb.com/video/v31580411/chctex-olt-hammers-tworun-homer-to-rightcenter/?query=olt

 

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/26271672/v31404685/chclaa-bryant-goes-deep-in-the-seventh-for-two-runs/?query=kris%2Bbryant

[Sammy Sofa]

Oh, well; glad that's settled.

[Guest]

 

this really is a big issue. we dumped several years so we could get good draft picks and improve the farm system. the farm system has improved, but this is the easy part. even if this guys work out to some extent, it's not like we're a big market team that can start buying guys. the front office is going to have to show that they can put together a good farm system without high draft picks.*

 

 

*the fun part here is that if they do so, it proves that we shouldn't have bothered to tank over and over again since a smart group can build up the farm even without picking at the top of the draft every year.

 

I really don't think this is a thing in the long run. The business issues need to be worked out, but they will be.

 

 

And, not that it's fully proven that they are the right guys yet, but it really can't be overstated that even with high draft picks it isn't necessarily easy to take the right ones. From most angles, it looks like none of these picks have been Colvin/Harvey/Jackson/etc. They might end up being that but so far, aside from MAYBE Soler (though I'd argue that he was pretty good where it counts when he played) and some health issues with Almora, there haven't been many signs of that at all. Plus, there's more really good stuff going on besides those 4 guys. I think it's obvious they know what they're doing in this department.

[Guest]

Oh, well; glad that's settled.

 

Yeah...that's just silly.

[Derwood]

Haven't the Cardinals pretty much shown that you can draft in the late 20's every year and still produce foundational talent at the major league level? This isn't the NBA draft where only the top 5-7 players are any good

[Guest]

Haven't the Cardinals pretty much shown that you can draft in the late 20's every year and still produce foundational talent at the major league level? This isn't the NBA draft where only the top 5-7 players are any good

 

Who are you arguing with?

[Derwood]

Haven't the Cardinals pretty much shown that you can draft in the late 20's every year and still produce foundational talent at the major league level? This isn't the NBA draft where only the top 5-7 players are any good

 

Who are you arguing with?

 

whomever approves of several years of tanking in order to build for the future

[Soul]

Just a reminder.

 

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/26271672/v31404685/chclaa-bryant-goes-deep-in-the-seventh-for-two-runs/?query=kris%2Bbryant

 

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/bryant_zps998b73aa.png

 

 

So awesome. Extremely excited.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Haven't the Cardinals pretty much shown that you can draft in the late 20's every year and still produce foundational talent at the major league level? This isn't the NBA draft where only the top 5-7 players are any good

 

Yes and no.

 

If you want elite talent, your odds of getting it in the first few picks are quite a bit higher than getting it anywhere else.

 

But with a great organization like the Cardinals, you can get a pretty steady stream of note-quite-elite but really useful talent.

[Guest]

Just a reminder.

 

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/26271672/v31404685/chclaa-bryant-goes-deep-in-the-seventh-for-two-runs/?query=kris%2Bbryant

 

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/bryant_zps998b73aa.png

 

 

So awesome. Extremely excited.

 

lol it's the angels

[SouthSideRyan]

 

this really is a big issue. we dumped several years so we could get good draft picks and improve the farm system. the farm system has improved, but this is the easy part. even if this guys work out to some extent, it's not like we're a big market team that can start buying guys. the front office is going to have to show that they can put together a good farm system without high draft picks.*

 

 

*the fun part here is that if they do so, it proves that we shouldn't have bothered to tank over and over again since a smart group can build up the farm even without picking at the top of the draft every year.

 

I really don't think this is a thing in the long run. The business issues need to be worked out, but they will be.

 

 

And, not that it's fully proven that they are the right guys yet, but it really can't be overstated that even with high draft picks it isn't necessarily easy to take the right ones. From most angles, it looks like none of these picks have been Colvin/Harvey/Jackson/etc. They might end up being that but so far, aside from MAYBE Soler (though I'd argue that he was pretty good where it counts when he played) and some health issues with Almora, there haven't been many signs of that at all. Plus, there's more really good stuff going on besides those 4 guys. I think it's obvious they know what they're doing in this department.

 

Come on, Colvin was like the 19th pick and Kackson was 30, they're not comparable. The problem is that thrye new projection for finances being not embarrassing is 2019, or "year 10." (Seriously what kind of buffoon uses that catchphrase while purposely tanking the team???)

[Guest]

 

this really is a big issue. we dumped several years so we could get good draft picks and improve the farm system. the farm system has improved, but this is the easy part. even if this guys work out to some extent, it's not like we're a big market team that can start buying guys. the front office is going to have to show that they can put together a good farm system without high draft picks.*

 

 

*the fun part here is that if they do so, it proves that we shouldn't have bothered to tank over and over again since a smart group can build up the farm even without picking at the top of the draft every year.

 

I really don't think this is a thing in the long run. The business issues need to be worked out, but they will be.

 

 

And, not that it's fully proven that they are the right guys yet, but it really can't be overstated that even with high draft picks it isn't necessarily easy to take the right ones. From most angles, it looks like none of these picks have been Colvin/Harvey/Jackson/etc. They might end up being that but so far, aside from MAYBE Soler (though I'd argue that he was pretty good where it counts when he played) and some health issues with Almora, there haven't been many signs of that at all. Plus, there's more really good stuff going on besides those 4 guys. I think it's obvious they know what they're doing in this department.

 

Come on, Colvin was like the 19th pick and Kackson was 30, they're not comparable. The problem is that thrye new projection for finances being not embarrassing is 2019, or "year 10." (Seriously what kind of buffoon uses that catchphrase while purposely tanking the team???)

 

For some reason I had it in my head that Colvin was a top 10er. But there are plenty of examples of early picks who by now would be showing serious warts. That's all I'm saying. That would REALLY suck.

 

And there's still hope of the finances being not embarrassing prior to 2019. I still think the TV contract is going to be worked out all at once (which means a large uptick from 2015 on, until a bigger one in 2019).

 

I'd mention the renovations but who knows how that is all going to work and whether all that new revenue won't go right into the construction costs (and, god forbid, if the new TV money will too).

 

The fact that the best players on the team are going to be cheap and that attendance should bounce back up as they get interesting should help the overall picture too.

 

All of that is to say I think the current embarrassing state financially is a bottoming out point.

Edited March 21, 2014 by David

[SouthSideRyan]

Well yes, and our financial situation could be the Astros, it doesn't reLly out a smile on my face though.

[Soul]

Just a reminder.

 

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/26271672/v31404685/chclaa-bryant-goes-deep-in-the-seventh-for-two-runs/?query=kris%2Bbryant

 

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/bryant_zps998b73aa.png

 

 

So awesome. Extremely excited.

 

lol it's the angels

 

I know :). I had to though, it just stuck out to me in the video. Might be better to show Bryant hitting one that matters a little more if he's trying to make that point.

[Guest]

Call me a Ricketts/Theo sycophant - I had a blast last year at Daytona and Knoxville. The team made a conscious choice to tank the season once again and trade serviceable veteran talent for excellent young talent, and to exchange face for draft position. I made a conscious choice to avoid in-person encounters with the big club.

See, I think this is a really good point. It's honest and not excuse ridden.

[mul21]

Haven't the Cardinals pretty much shown that you can draft in the late 20's every year and still produce foundational talent at the major league level? This isn't the NBA draft where only the top 5-7 players are any good

 

Yes and no.

 

If you want elite talent, your odds of getting it in the first few picks are quite a bit higher than getting it anywhere else.

 

But with a great organization like the Cardinals, you can get a pretty steady stream of note-quite-elite but really useful talent.

 

And you can then trade that really useful talent for a guy like Matt Holliday when they're on the block, making it unnecessary to develop your own superstars. It's certainly much easier to do that when you're filling a hole here or there instead of trying to put together an entire lineup from the suck that has been on the ML roster the last couple of years.

[Sammy Sofa]

Haven't the Cardinals pretty much shown that you can draft in the late 20's every year and still produce foundational talent at the major league level? This isn't the NBA draft where only the top 5-7 players are any good

 

Yes and no.

 

If you want elite talent, your odds of getting it in the first few picks are quite a bit higher than getting it anywhere else.

 

But with a great organization like the Cardinals, you can get a pretty steady stream of note-quite-elite but really useful talent.

 

And you can then trade that really useful talent for a guy like Matt Holliday when they're on the block, making it unnecessary to develop your own superstars. It's certainly much easier to do that when you're filling a hole here or there instead of trying to put together an entire lineup from the suck that has been on the ML roster the last couple of years.

 

It also doesn't help when you make a bad team even worse.

[NOLA]

Plus overall we're still in a position where things HAVE to go really, really, really right or else they're [expletive]. The farm basically HAS to produce multiple stars/above average players in short order, and regardless of the FO's reputation that is hardly an ideal position to be in. I'm not kidding when I talk about how my hopes are basically hanging on Olt right now, because a working Olt gives them at least somewhat of a cushion if Castro and Rizzo don't bounce back like they essentially need them to.

 

I recognize a huge part of this is because I'm a giant pessimist towards this team right now and I don't really expect more than two of the Big Five or whatever they are to actually pan out. Maybe it's Battered Fan Syndrome, but the idea of a farm system actually producing multiple impact players in rapid succession just doesn't seem all that likely to me.

 

This is essentially where I am at too. Olt's success almost signifies a reversal of fortune for us, and I don't just mean in a meatball-like way but in player development and seeing things (no pun intended) that might be fixable in a player. More optimism from me though about the big 5.

 

But with a great organization like the Cardinals, you can get a pretty steady stream of note-quite-elite but really useful talent.

Again, the Cards have great player development, which is something I am hopeful that we now have too. Argue about the means all we want, but the fact is that this organization desperately needed a serious influx of star talent and now it's there. These not-quite-elite guys coming up would supplement our big core. So yeah, that's a ton of things that have to go right, but I am still fairly optimistic.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

This is essentially where I am at too. Olt's success almost signifies a reversal of fortune for us, and I don't just mean in a meatball-like way but in player development and seeing things (no pun intended) that might be fixable in a player. More optimism from me though about the big 5.

 

When Olt actually has success, I'll follow you. Right now he has a decent spring training.

 

I want so badly to believe in this front office. I miss the feeling we got in the days after he was hired, and maybe even right up through the Wood trade.

 

But if I'm going to believe that all this The Cubs Way: When It Happens, three-hour-conversation-on-which-foot-to-hit-the-bag-with, super-computer-buying, hire-100-new-guys-for-baseball-ops stuff is actually going to mean anything in the long run, I need to see it on the field. Teams that smart, that good, shouldn't be losing 197 games over two years regardless of the payroll.

 

Almost all of their "success" in the last two years has been dumping assets to get prospects, basically emulating the Golden Generation strategy that small markets have been using for as long as I can remember. Trying to time a window of success around the graduation of a core of key stars. The Brewers did it. The Pirates might be doing it right now.

 

The difference between that brief window and true sustained success won't come from dumping at the deadline or tanking for top-5 picks, it will be when they consistently develop players and make personnel decisions better than other teams. And they haven't done that yet. There have been some successes (our draft picks have almost always gained status as they played, we've been good at finding cheap, short-term SPs, the Wood trade) and just as many failures (lol we broke Castro, our IFAs have been a mixed bag at best, we busted an entire offseason hoping for Tanaka only to get outbid by $40m). I'm not seeing much evidence that they can actually out-maneuver and out-develop teams in the long run to keep any success past the golden-generation window.

 

But it wouldn't take *that* much to make me see it. Imagine a 2014 in which Mike Olt becomes a useful 2-3 win starting 3b, Javier Baez comes up midseason and does Javier Baez-type things, the bullpen becomes a team strength and we have a surprising 79-win season. I'd be all over Theo's nuts at that point. That's not even that much. But if Olt sucks, Baez comes up in September and K's 35% of the time, the bullpen is blech and we lose 95+ games again, then I'm again asking myself why should I believe any of this hard work they talk about is really going to pay off?

[Sammy Sofa]

[expletive], I hate that I like that post so much.

[Banedon]

[expletive], I hate that I like that post so much.

 

I'd have liked it better if he'd left off the last sentence. It scared me.

[hawkeyecub]

you have an extremely low bar for what constitutes "an exciting time to be a cubs fan" if you think two weeks before the start of a season in which we have no real chance of going even .500 suffices.

 

Would going .500 feel substantially better to you than losing 90 games? Because at the end of the day, it wouldn't feel much different to me. Non-contention sucks, and that dissatisfaction is not assuaged by the pretense of "respectability".

 

I think the Cubs are a year or two from contention, and whether we lose 80 or 90 games this year doesn't make one iota of difference, imo. I am a lot more excited about the team than I was, say, in the second half of the 2011 season.

 

yes i would much prefer to win 81 games than 65. i like watching baseball, and if the cubs aren't a miserable sack of [expletive], i get to keep doing that for the whole season instead of willing myself to forget they exist by the second week of june.

 

No [expletive]. It also completely ignores that if they're an 81 win team, there's a good chance you're in contention for something late into the summer.

[XZero771679666304]

you have an extremely low bar for what constitutes "an exciting time to be a cubs fan" if you think two weeks before the start of a season in which we have no real chance of going even .500 suffices.

 

Would going .500 feel substantially better to you than losing 90 games? Because at the end of the day, it wouldn't feel much different to me. Non-contention sucks, and that dissatisfaction is not assuaged by the pretense of "respectability".

 

I think the Cubs are a year or two from contention, and whether we lose 80 or 90 games this year doesn't make one iota of difference, imo. I am a lot more excited about the team than I was, say, in the second half of the 2011 season.

 

yes i would much prefer to win 81 games than 65. i like watching baseball, and if the cubs aren't a miserable sack of [expletive], i get to keep doing that for the whole season instead of willing myself to forget they exist by the second week of june.

 

No [expletive]. It also completely ignores that if they're an 81 win team, there's a good chance you're in contention for something late into the summer.

 

At this point, in this division, hovering around .500 is keeping yourself in contention for fourth place. I guess that's something.

[jersey cubs fan]

If the cubs actually managed to win 81 games and not roll over for their opponents it wouldn't be so easy for the rest of the central to win 90.