The 2018-2019 Cubs Offseason Rumors & Discussion Thread AKA The Rickettssss take a dump on EVERYTHING

[Wilson A2000]

I guess we'll see

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

How do you convince Heyward to drop his no trade clause?

[sweetpeteman]

From what I remember reading, Heyward only has a limited ntc this offseason. So I'd assume that the giants may be on the list of teams he can't block.

[Rynomites23]

That is your opinion and I have mine.

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

[CubinNY]

That is your opinion and I have mine.

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

Do you live in the early 90s?

[Tim]

That is your opinion and I have mine.

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

You're stuck on this concept of a "financial hole".

 

It is a fictional construct. There is no hole. It is an artificial barrier that league ownership has put in place in order to maximize their portion of the profits. The Cubs could easily run a $250M payroll, pay the associated luxury tax and still run a profit. They could probably run a payroll closer to $300M and be fine.

 

Rough numbers:

Ticket proceeds: $58 average face value ticket price * 3.18M in attendance = $184M in ticket revenue alone

TV Contract Revenue: $65M in local tv contract revenue in 2016

 

So right there, that's ~$250M. That ignores the $50M all mlb teams got from the online business. And their share of the national tv contracts. And the radio revenue. And the concession sales. And the concert revenues. etc. Now, from that they have to cover much more than just the 25 man roster payroll. But the Cubs bring in a ton of profit.

 

Is there an eventual limit to what they can spend and still make a profit? Of course. But they are not anywhere close to it.

[Bull]

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

You're stuck on this concept of a "financial hole".

 

It is a fictional construct. There is no hole. It is an artificial barrier that league ownership has put in place in order to maximize their portion of the profits. The Cubs could easily run a $250M payroll, pay the associated luxury tax and still run a profit. They could probably run a payroll closer to $300M and be fine.

 

Rough numbers:

Ticket proceeds: $58 average face value ticket price * 3.18M in attendance = $184M in ticket revenue alone

TV Contract Revenue: $65M in local tv contract revenue in 2016

 

So right there, that's ~$250M. That ignores the $50M all mlb teams got from the online business. And their share of the national tv contracts. And the radio revenue. And the concession sales. And the concert revenues. etc. Now, from that they have to cover much more than just the 25 man roster payroll. But the Cubs bring in a ton of profit.

 

Is there an eventual limit to what they can spend and still make a profit? Of course. But they are not anywhere close to it.

Yeah, but are they close to the limit to what they can spend and still make an obscene and ridiculous profit?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

;)

That is your opinion and I have mine.

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

 

The Red Sox, who spent into the luxury tax, won the WS last year. The cubs also were in the luxury tax when they won.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

;)

That is your opinion and I have mine.

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

 

The Red Sox, who spent into the luxury tax, won the WS last year. The cubs also were in the luxury tax when they won.

[17 Seconds]

That is your opinion and I have mine.

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

 

The yankees are good almost every year, wtf are you talking about

[Rynomites23]

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

 

The yankees are good almost every year, wtf are you talking about

Reading is a skill. Every response back failed to address the points i made. I’ll consider it simply the source and let you dorks carry on your business playing fantasy strat o matic in your mothers basement.

[NonProfitCow]

Reading is a skill. Every response back failed to address the points i made. I’ll consider it simply the source and let you dorks carry on your business playing fantasy strat o matic in your mothers basement.

Says the guy cosplaying as the Rickett's family accountant.

[17 Seconds]

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

 

The yankees are good almost every year, wtf are you talking about

Reading is a skill. Every response back failed to address the points i made. I’ll consider it simply the source and let you dorks carry on your business playing fantasy strat o matic in your mothers basement.

 

holy horsefeathers

[philosophizer75]

Personally, I'd rather see a strong farm system and a sub $100 million payroll ML squad than a World Series caliber team that has the gall to spend $250 million and acquire an overrated and cocky has been like Bryce Harper. /s

[Cubfanintheknow]

Reading is a skill.

 

So is comprehension. You have some work to do.

[KingCubsFan]

 

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes

 

Merry Christmas!

No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole

You're stuck on this concept of a "financial hole".

 

It is a fictional construct. There is no hole. It is an artificial barrier that league ownership has put in place in order to maximize their portion of the profits. The Cubs could easily run a $250M payroll, pay the associated luxury tax and still run a profit. They could probably run a payroll closer to $300M and be fine.

 

Rough numbers:

Ticket proceeds: $58 average face value ticket price * 3.18M in attendance = $184M in ticket revenue alone

TV Contract Revenue: $65M in local tv contract revenue in 2016

 

So right there, that's ~$250M. That ignores the $50M all mlb teams got from the online business. And their share of the national tv contracts. And the radio revenue. And the concession sales. And the concert revenues. etc. Now, from that they have to cover much more than just the 25 man roster payroll. But the Cubs bring in a ton of profit.

 

Is there an eventual limit to what they can spend and still make a profit? Of course. But they are not anywhere close to it.

I'm not really sure what that guy is talking about, but I disagree that a "financial hole" is a fictional construct. If a team blows its finite resources (yes, each team actually has a limit as to how much it can spend contrary to popular belief) on a bunch of 32 year old free agents on the downside of their careers, it limits flexibility going forward and the ability to spend money in the future to address needs. They've put themselves in a financial hole that they can't get out of until those contracts roll off or they are able to trade them.

 

And I see nothing in your post to indicate that the team makes a substantial profit. But I think the discussion on the difference between "profit" and "revenue" has been repeated ad naseum at this point.

[Tim]

That's playing with semantics a bit - I was calling the luxury tax an artificial constraint and even go on to acknowledge that there is a break-even number somewhere.

 

Okay - here's a more rigorous treatment after a solid sixty seconds of googling:

 

https://www.forbes.com/teams/chicago-cubs/

 

$457M in revenues (based on reading the article, I believe this ignores the $50M one time payout for the sale of the MLB online streaming company)

$102M in operating income

 

So, if Ricketts held up his promise from when he bought the team that they would reinvest every single dollar back into the team, the $300M+ estimated income from the past four seasons alone would pay for the majority of Harper's contract.

[KingCubsFan]

That's playing with semantics a bit - I was calling the luxury tax an artificial constraint and even go on to acknowledge that there is a break-even number somewhere.

 

Okay - here's a more rigorous treatment after a solid sixty seconds of googling:

 

https://www.forbes.com/teams/chicago-cubs/

 

$457M in revenues (based on reading the article, I believe this ignores the $50M one time payout for the sale of the MLB online streaming company)

$102M in operating income

 

So, if Ricketts held up his promise from when he bought the team that they would reinvest every single dollar back into the team, the $300M+ estimated income from the past four seasons alone would pay for the majority of Harper's contract.

Got it. I agree that the luxury tax threshold is largely an artificial constraint. No reason to not blow by it if you can afford it and are in a competitive window.

 

Looks like the $102m figure is an EBITDA figure. So in order to determine budget availability, you'd have to factor in roughly $25m in amusement taxes (roughly 12% of Forbes' gate receipts numbers), plus property taxes for Wrigley and the surrounding properties plus some additional taxes. Not sure what the interest expense is from the initial purchase plus additional interest paid in connection with the Wrigley renovations. If the Wrigley renovations were funded with equity investments, then that would slightly lower the figure. Revenue may have been lower this year due to no playoff run as well, plus the player cost was substantially higher this year compared to Forbes' $180m figure. I'm not trying to defend ownership at all costs, but I don't think it's as simple as saying "Of course they can afford Harper, the Cubs are rich." Until the new TV deal has been formalized, it seems likely that they really are at the upper bounds of what they can afford. With that said, if I were them, I'd take the one year hit and sign Harper.

[Bluescale]

plus the player cost was substantially higher this year compared to Forbes' $180m figure.

 

The player cost was at $186.2M last year, which is what the article stated:

 

https://www.apnews.com/245ac5e3fe864a94aa432359b2a5ce7a

 

Sure, that number is averaged out, but since we're not talking about a 1 year contract, it's a wash.

 

Since the Cubs don't give us their balance sheet, we can't say for sure how profitable they were, but as the 3rd most valuable baseball team per Forbes, it's hard to believe they're anywhere near the tipping point.

[Bertz]

That's playing with semantics a bit - I was calling the luxury tax an artificial constraint and even go on to acknowledge that there is a break-even number somewhere.

 

Okay - here's a more rigorous treatment after a solid sixty seconds of googling:

 

https://www.forbes.com/teams/chicago-cubs/

 

$457M in revenues (based on reading the article, I believe this ignores the $50M one time payout for the sale of the MLB online streaming company)

$102M in operating income

 

So, if Ricketts held up his promise from when he bought the team that they would reinvest every single dollar back into the team, the $300M+ estimated income from the past four seasons alone would pay for the majority of Harper's contract.

Got it. I agree that the luxury tax threshold is largely an artificial constraint. No reason to not blow by it if you can afford it and are in a competitive window.

 

Looks like the $102m figure is an EBITDA figure. So in order to determine budget availability, you'd have to factor in roughly $25m in amusement taxes (roughly 12% of Forbes' gate receipts numbers), plus property taxes for Wrigley and the surrounding properties plus some additional taxes. Not sure what the interest expense is from the initial purchase plus additional interest paid in connection with the Wrigley renovations. If the Wrigley renovations were funded with equity investments, then that would slightly lower the figure. Revenue may have been lower this year due to no playoff run as well, plus the player cost was substantially higher this year compared to Forbes' $180m figure. I'm not trying to defend ownership at all costs, but I don't think it's as simple as saying "Of course they can afford Harper, the Cubs are rich." Until the new TV deal has been formalized, it seems likely that they really are at the upper bounds of what they can afford. With that said, if I were them, I'd take the one year hit and sign Harper.

 

Yeah, I'd guess the break even point right now is somewhere around $250, but it will jump up next year with the new local tv deal plus MLB's re-ups on the national deals.

 

Also, they had years during the rebuild (or hell, just last year when they had a payroll only in the 180s/190s) where they were pocketing cash. If the Ricketts were honest about their dollars in dollars out policy, 2019 and 2020 should have been circled years ago as the seasons where payroll would be stretched and they ought to make up the difference. Instead, my guess is during those lean years they used the profits on the renovations (even though IMO that's not a baseball ops expense), and now payroll is still being capped at a number where they project themselves to be revenue neutral-ish.

[SouthSideRyan]

Or they were never being honest about dollar in dollar out, creatively accounting for McDonalds and hotels as dollars out

[Hunter]

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

I would rather give up Almora, but if true, do this yesterday.

[Banedon]

The Cubs letting Ian Happ get in the way of possibly getting Bryce Harper is the most ridiculous thing that guy has posted yet.

[d_money]

The Cubs letting Ian Happ get in the way of possibly getting Bryce Harper is the most ridiculous thing that guy has posted yet.

If true, Theo is one helluva negotiator.

[nowhereman]

There should be at least $30m in added revenue from the new clubs opening in 2019. This BS about needing to move salary or whatever to afford Harper is crazy and offensive.

[Post Count Padder]

This BS about needing to move salary or whatever to afford Harper is crazy and offensive.

 

It really is. I believe the Cubs could carry a $300 million dollar payroll if ownership allowed. I don’t mind trading weaker players, but not if they’re just dumping salary to make a one time splurge. If it’s to build the best roster $300 million can buy OTOH...oh, then they could probably handle a $350 million payroll

 

—

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/12/3-remaining-needs-nl-east.html

 

Who says no first in a Kintzler for D’Arnaud swap? Also, I still feel the Braves are a fit for Heyward and the Cubs can get a pitcher for him. Phillies too, but they have to lose out on Harper and Machado (which they probably will)

I'd be all for that trade.

 

I keep going back to the SFG rumor. I wonder if there's a way for a three-team deal to unload Heyward and one of Kintzler/Duensing on the Giants, and Chatwood to another team, with prospects involved. Something like

 

SF gets Heyward, Duensing, Happ, Mets prospect

 

Cubs get Cueto/Melancon, Watson, D'Arnaud

 

Mets get Chatwood, Kintzler, Cubs prospect, Giants prospect