Cubs Sound Like They Were a Third World Team in 2010

[scs_paradise]

Interesting article about how bad the administration of the Cubs was when Ricketts took over

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-cubs-emerged-from-the-stone-age-1445014187

 

The office Tom Ricketts inherited when he took over the Chicago Cubs in 2009 was a windowless room beneath the upper deck of Wrigley Field. A closet just outside his door contained all of the team’s computer servers, which were covered by a cafeteria tray to shield them from the water that would leak through the ceiling when it rained.

[Guest]

this is not news, but i will read it anyway. i remember the excuse for our front office being so small being that there wasn't enough office space in wrigley field.

[scs_paradise]

this is not news, but i will read it anyway. i remember the excuse for our front office being so small being that there wasn't enough office space in wrigley field.

 

You are right, I knew they always had issues but some of the stuff in that article I had never heard before. The sheer inefficiency of the previous administration is astounding. Comparatively, the use of new tools like that from the field of neuroscience and sports psychology in addition to the sabermetrics probably has as much to do with the success they are seeing. I'm also sure that the Cubs have not shared everything they do, which makes me encouraged about the science that they aren't sharing.

[Sammy Sofa]

A closet just outside his door contained all of the team’s computer servers, which were covered by a cafeteria tray to shield them from the water that would leak through the ceiling when it rained.

 

David reading about this horror:

 

[Guest]

great read

[jersey cubs fan]

Booooooooo the Trib into oblivion

sure, go ahead.

 

But let's not pretend that isn't the way Andy and Jim wanted it. Neither of those goobers would have been pressing for upgraded servers.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

There are times the "Epstein changed everything!" narrative gets out of hand, but this isn't one of them. The organization was at least 10 years out of date and suffering from some serious neglect when Ricketts and then Epstein came along, and they've fixed that.

[Guest]

There are times the "Epstein changed everything!" narrative gets out of hand, but this isn't one of them. The organization was at least 10 years out of date and suffering from some serious neglect when Ricketts and then Epstein came along, and they've fixed that.

 

with $6M on technological upgrades, maybe they really did get those diamond encrusted laptops.

[Guest]

Booooooooo the Trib into oblivion

sure, go ahead.

 

But let's not pretend that isn't the way Andy and Jim wanted it. Neither of those goobers would have been pressing for upgraded servers.

 

I did see an interesting perspective that the size of the Cubs front office people-wise worked against Hendry. Having limits on scouting personnel hurt him as much as a lack of analytics infrastructure would hurt Theo's front office if it weren't built. Not that they'd be comparable performance-wise if both got what they wanted, but it's something I had never really thought about.

[jersey cubs fan]

Booooooooo the Trib into oblivion

sure, go ahead.

 

But let's not pretend that isn't the way Andy and Jim wanted it. Neither of those goobers would have been pressing for upgraded servers.

 

I did see an interesting perspective that the size of the Cubs front office people-wise worked against Hendry. Having limits on scouting personnel hurt him as much as a lack of analytics infrastructure would hurt Theo's front office if it weren't built. Not that they'd be comparable performance-wise if both got what they wanted, but it's something I had never really thought about.

Jim and Andy set up the entire front office in the 90's. They constructed the thing. They couldn't fit 100 people in their office but their scouts were all in the field and they were all about seeing and not computin'. I'm sure it was allowed to rot from the mid 2000s when Andy paved his way out the door by handing Hendry a going away contract, but it's not like they did anything from the mid-90s to that point to keep up with the Joness.

[RammyFanny]

All the dong.gif's for Cubs Twitter that this new infrastructure is going to have to save is going to send it crashing down in a few years.

 

Or weeks.

[CubInOK]

Speaking of building the team, remember how we were all putting together dream lineups while our dongsmiths were in the minors? Theo did too!

 

http://nypost.com/2015/10/15/how-theo-epstein-rebuilt-cubs-on-a-hotel-bar-cocktail-napkin/

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Good read. It appears that things were exactly how I imagined them to be, in a "[expletive] me, we are so horrible that we probably have cafeteria trays shielding our computer servers from leaking water because this is such a hellhole" kind of way. It just confirms that, yes, we really were that far behind the times. Other than, you know, all the dongsmiths, the one thing I have been most happy about is the stuff like this. We've made a ton of great hires. We've updated so much. This is what it takes to build a Cardinals-like dynasty that just keeps chugging along.