Jed's Bets

[CubinNY]

At the beginning of the offseason, all the smart people talk on NSBB was about how much money the Cubs have and how much they'd go over teir 1 of the luxury tax. Then they fired Ross and maybe sort of appeared to be in on Ohtani. And all the smart people were talking about how much money the Cubs had to spend to get other targets too. Then when Ohtani did what everyone expected him to do, the focus switched to waiting in the cue for the mythical rank order of free agents to get their deal to see who fell to the Cubs. 

In the meantime, Jed apparently has done nothing. But it's not nothing. He staying true to his philosophy and his and the Ricketts long-term plans for the Cubs. The idea that the Ricketts are giving Jed a pile of money to use and he's not using it is to me ridiculous. The Ricketts would not have him in that position if their ideas and behaviors were not in alignment. They can say whatever they want to placate the fans. They believe the way to winning is through the draft and development process. They are not bothered by losing or mediocrity to the extent that it is going to take them away from their vision and mission. I do think Jed was disappointed in Ross and knew that they left several wins on the table through bad management. But I also think that Ross would still be managing this team if Counsel didn't become available. Counsel's availability is exactly the type of low-risk/high-reward bet that Jed loves. It's his MO and can be seen in every part of this team.

They do not care that they are not spending, because they think spending is not related to winning long term. Or perhaps secondary to it. They are spending on R&D and spending on the draft. They want to be the Dodgers, except they don't want to be the Dodgers as much as they want to be some hybrid mixture of Tampa and I don't know, Toronto?  

Jed is about value. He's betting value is the path to winning. He's betting that they have many of the pieces to the next great Cubs team in place in the minor leagues. It's a low-risk high-reward bet. The reason for that is that it's what the Ricketts want and expect. If he fails, he can get new development people. But there is always another draft or veteran to flip. 

I do not ever expect them to regularly be in the running for the best free agents. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

There's a couple things happening here.  One is about the Ricketts/Jed relationship and who bears responsibility for spending levels.  I think the facts on the ground are pretty clear.  Ownership is going to have a healthy payroll, but they do not expect to live above the luxury tax or blow it out like the teams who dwarf them in revenue(Dodgers, Yankees) or those with more carefree spending ownership(Mets, Padres).  Ownership does not appear to care about how that payroll is distributed, and I have no reason to think that within that bucket of spending that Ricketts is vetoing or exerting influence to steer towards or away from particular players.  

 

Some will say that ownership steering is by hiring Jed who is ideologically aligned with Ricketts.  I don't think this is objectively wrong, but I think it gets used as a cynical framing that doesn't really match the points being made.  Yes, Ricketts would not hire Jed if he was constantly going to argue with him about spending.  At the same time, that's kinda obvious about any working working relationship and not representative of *additional* ways that Ricketts might suppress payroll.  Ricketts doesn't have to play 4D chess to hire a GM who will spend less than he says is available if that's what he wants.  He can just say that less is available to spend.

 

Which leaves what Jed's actual philosophy on spending is, which I agree is on the conservative end when it comes to making large long term commitments, and most focused on having a consistent pipeline of player development.  The first point I'd make on this is that this is not necessarily a permanent state of being.  @Bertz has made the point before, but a lot of the criticisms of Jed you could've made of Friedman for the first ~5 years of his Dodgers tenure, it was true until it wasn't.  Jed's aggressiveness may change as the team's level(one of expected contention) and composition(one with sustainable contributions from the farm) changes.  Another point to make on the player development focus is that *this is the correct focus to building a consistent winner in the current environment*.   There are at most 3 teams that can reasonably spend their way out of poor player development, the Cubs are not going to be one of them, and one of those is the Dodgers who have made player development the bedrock of their success.  

 

But you also can't be the Dodgers without spending, then you're the Rays, and that leads to a final point, which is about making sure we're clear about the specifics.  Setting aside whether it comes to fruition, it seems abundantly clear that Jed has the green light to add one of the remaining Boras clients if he'd like, which is likely to push them into the luxury tax.  Prior to Counsell most of us thought they'd be in that first band of LT spending, not exceeding 20 million over, and this would be living up to that expectation.  I think many of us think that the payroll ought to be capped at a higher point than that, but I think it's also helpful to be clear on what that looks like.  For me that's mostly about being at roughly the level the Phillies are now, and while that difference is real(~15 million if they add a Boras FA), it is not a chasm, nor does it make sense to me to spend a bunch of time hand wringing how much ownership is holding them back.  Others might think it's clear that they can run Dodger/Met payrolls, and while I understand and can sympathize with that in solidarity with those who have justified grievances with the billionaire class, I have a hard time seeing the math that leads to that being something that they can pull off without balance sheet losses.  And while I can also sympathize with those who want sports teams run purely in service of winning as opposed to spendthrift businesses, I also can't find it in myself to treat that as a moral failing worthy of so much animosity.

[CubinNY]

16 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

There's a couple things happening here.  One is about the Ricketts/Jed relationship and who bears responsibility for spending levels.  I think the facts on the ground are pretty clear.  Ownership is going to have a healthy payroll, but they do not expect to live above the luxury tax or blow it out like the teams who dwarf them in revenue(Dodgers, Yankees) or those with more carefree spending ownership(Mets, Padres).  Ownership does not appear to care about how that payroll is distributed, and I have no reason to think that within that bucket of spending that Ricketts is vetoing or exerting influence to steer towards or away from particular players.  

 

Some will say that ownership steering is by hiring Jed who is ideologically aligned with Ricketts.  I don't think this is objectively wrong, but I think it gets used as a cynical framing that doesn't really match the points being made.  Yes, Ricketts would not hire Jed if he was constantly going to argue with him about spending.  At the same time, that's kinda obvious about any working working relationship and not representative of *additional* ways that Ricketts might suppress payroll.  Ricketts doesn't have to play 4D chess to hire a GM who will spend less than he says is available if that's what he wants.  He can just say that less is available to spend.

 

Which leaves what Jed's actual philosophy on spending is, which I agree is on the conservative end when it comes to making large long term commitments, and most focused on having a consistent pipeline of player development.  The first point I'd make on this is that this is not necessarily a permanent state of being.  @Bertz has made the point before, but a lot of the criticisms of Jed you could've made of Friedman for the first ~5 years of his Dodgers tenure, it was true until it wasn't.  Jed's aggressiveness may change as the team's level(one of expected contention) and composition(one with sustainable contributions from the farm) changes.  Another point to make on the player development focus is that *this is the correct focus to building a consistent winner in the current environment*.   There are at most 3 teams that can reasonably spend their way out of poor player development, the Cubs are not going to be one of them, and one of those is the Dodgers who have made player development the bedrock of their success.  

 

But you also can't be the Dodgers without spending, then you're the Rays, and that leads to a final point, which is about making sure we're clear about the specifics.  Setting aside whether it comes to fruition, it seems abundantly clear that Jed has the green light to add one of the remaining Boras clients if he'd like, which is likely to push them into the luxury tax.  Prior to Counsell most of us thought they'd be in that first band of LT spending, not exceeding 20 million over, and this would be living up to that expectation.  I think many of us think that the payroll ought to be capped at a higher point than that, but I think it's also helpful to be clear on what that looks like.  For me that's mostly about being at roughly the level the Phillies are now, and while that difference is real(~15 million if they add a Boras FA), it is not a chasm, nor does it make sense to me to spend a bunch of time hand wringing how much ownership is holding them back.  Others might think it's clear that they can run Dodger/Met payrolls, and while I understand and can sympathize with that in solidarity with those who have justified grievances with the billionaire class, I have a hard time seeing the math that leads to that being something that they can pull off without balance sheet losses.  And while I can also sympathize with those who want sports teams run purely in service of winning as opposed to spendthrift businesses, I also can't find it in myself to treat that as a moral failing worthy of so much animosity.

This take is absent from almost everything that has happened this offseason. 

[Bertz]

I don't have a throughline for all of this, but some generally related thoughts:

- Except for at the very beginning with the last core when half the team was making league minimum and putting up 3+ WAR, and in '21 coming out of the COVID shutdown, the team has otherwise always hung out at minimum just below the luxury tax.  I think that is, even at the most pessimistic, where you should expect payroll to be in any given year

- The team right now is ~$30M below the tax.  I 100% expect additional moves, and at least one of some consequence.  Maybe instead of Bellinger it's Ryne Stanek and JDM or Brandon Belt and Brandon Woodruff, but I would be floored if payroll is below like $220M on April 1st

- Given that the team has gone above the LT (unlike say, the Giants), and that they took such great pains to stay under last year (when the marginal value of another ~$10M was quite high), I do think it was reasonable and not some rose colored glasses moment to expect them to exceed the tax this year.  I would currently put it below 50/50 but I do still think there's a decent chance it happens, most likely scenario being Bellinger at ~$25M while also adding $10-15M in additional pitching depth

- If the team does not exceed the tax this year, I do think you have to seriously consider the possibility that PTR might just be done with allowing that.  Or maybe it has to be a very special circumstance to allow for it.  For example this year, which looks like a potential last hurrah for the Astros, is going to be their first year ever over the tax

- The glass half full explanation to staying under the tax this year would be that Jed has to dip under one of the next three years and some combo of the crappy FA market beyond Ohtani, the crappy division, or bullish internal projections made them decide last minute to do this year.  It retroactively makes some decisions from last year worse, but it's reasonably likely and not nearly as catastrophic as a blanket "No LT" mandate from ownership

- I don't think ownership doesn't care about winning or is cool with 84 wins in perpetuity or anything like that.  Not because Tom's a swell dude (he very much is not!), but because the pendulum is swinging back towards revenue being tied directly to wins and attendance.  The RSN implosion means you need to have incentive to get people to buy direct Marquee subs and watch Marquee ads.  You can't just survive on a bunch of $6/month carriage fees from cable subscribers who don't even watch sports anymore.  Similarly, the value of all the real estate Ricketts has bought around Wrigley is maximized by getting asses excited to trek up to Lakeview on game days

- I think we should clearly expect Jed to be measured and conservative and weight the next year less than the three after it.  HOWEVER, I don't think it's smart to make definitive declarations about what he will or won't do in specific circumstances.  Like TT mentioned, I've made this point before but if you read stuff from Dodgers fans many said a lot of the same stuff about Friedman as Cubs fans do about Jed.  It required some dumb mental gymnastics about Mookie being a "right place right time" sort of aberration, but otherwise they weren't wrong.  He gave Greinke a legitimate top of market deal way back in 2013, and otherwise did mid sized extensions to guys like Taylor and Muncy or short high AAV deals to guys like Bauer.  Freddie Freeman's deal was a bit of an exception, but while huge by 1B standards it wasn't really in absolute terms (less than Dansby got).  We all saw what happened this winter.  These narratives are only accurate until they're not, and specific circumstances can impact team behaviors significantly 

- Even as someone who mostly likes Jed, he is CLEARLY part of the ultra annoying class of baseball execs who can't do a damn thing without a deadline.  Everyone was worried he was gonna not get a SP in '21 and he pulled Stroman last minute, everyone was worried he was going to miss all the shortstops last winter and he got Swanson, the most likely outcome is he comes down with one of the Boras guys this winter.  Going forward, we should hope the Cubs have overlapping interests with Preller or Dipoto because that's probably the only way we won't have to wait interminably long for Jed to make moves and save our sanity

 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

44 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

This take is absent from almost everything that has happened this offseason. 

It is not.  I made some mild assumptions that I think you have to be unreasonable to disagree with about where the remainder of this offseason may play out and what options are at Jed's disposal, but there's nothing that's invalidated by the current state of play.  Even if they don't land one of the Boras guys, I think it takes an excessively cynical view to think that Jed's spending to the current ceiling of payroll, and that simply becomes something Jed has to own from a roster building perspective and he better be right about the bets he did make and the prospects coming through.  Nothing changes about the history of the team's spending and any of the ownership-related stuff.

[CubinNY]

I don't think it is necessarily an indictment of the Ricketts or Jed as much as I think they really believe that they can get trapped in bad contracts and that the way to win is to stay flexible and develop players. 

It's easier to live with a bad deal if you have cheap talent elsewhere. I think Heyward scared them silly. 

[Bull]

On 2/15/2024 at 2:01 PM, CubinNY said:

I don't think it is necessarily an indictment of the Ricketts or Jed as much as I think they really believe that they can get trapped in bad contracts and that the way to win is to stay flexible and develop players. 

It's easier to live with a bad deal if you have cheap talent elsewhere. I think Heyward scared them silly. 

I’ve held a rather extreme version of this view. I stated here occasionally that I don’t think they were spending big until the Heyward contract was gone. And that even when they did they’d stay under luxury tax.

It’s gone now (except the deferred money). I don’t think they want to get into another one like it with Belli.

[Brock Beauchamp]

There are at least three very good blog posts in this thread. Use our blogs section, please!

You cantankerous old coots. 😃

https://northsidebaseball.com/blogs/

[Stratos]

On 2/15/2024 at 2:01 PM, CubinNY said:

I don't think it is necessarily an indictment of the Ricketts or Jed as much as I think they really believe that they can get trapped in bad contracts and that the way to win is to stay flexible and develop players. 

It's easier to live with a bad deal if you have cheap talent elsewhere. I think Heyward scared them silly. 

Swanson is a very similar contract as Heyward's, and in fact we could argue more risky given Heyward was far younger.  They also have a similar profile as elite glove, so-so offense players.

So I think the FO philosophy is based on data, rather than Heyward regrets.  If your team has a payroll under the tax limit then being eager to sign some 29 y/o player to a 10/300 contract is absolutely illogical, and unless you're spending Dodgers or Padres money on payroll I think any team doing it is really stupid and evidence-illiterate.  Last season I believe something like only 3 out of the top 40 position players in WAR were over age 32.  You'd have to be insane to assume you're going to be the team to beat those odds when signing a star to a mega contract through his 30's.

The Cubs aren't exactly the Rays, they spend a lot more.  The Rays are a very good team and I wish the Cubs had won as many games as they have the last several years.  They make teams like the Mets and Padres look like fools.  Now imagine having a philosophy of value like the Rays but also having a payroll of $230m.  My assumption is that any team like that is going to be better than the Rays because of that significantly extra payroll.  I'd rather be the Dodgers but we don't have their revenues or spendy owners so if our payroll is going to sit around the LT then I think the philosophy of this FO is very likely to be effective.

Edited February 19, 2024 by Stratos

[Wilson A2000]

I find it frustrating that the Cubs spending doesn’t correspond to revenues. If you are a top-5 revenue team most every year, why can’t you be top-5 spending team most every year? 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

52 minutes ago, Wilson A2000 said:

I find it frustrating that the Cubs spending doesn’t correspond to revenues. If you are a top-5 revenue team most every year, why can’t you be top-5 spending team most every year? 

Are they Top 5 in revenue?  Post-covid they've been 9th, 11th, 9th in attendance, and their TV deal ranks ~8th by a recent estimate(for reference, LT payroll was roughly 10th).  What else differentiates them up to that level?

[Wilson A2000]

17 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Are they Top 5 in revenue?  Post-covid they've been 9th, 11th, 9th in attendance, and their TV deal ranks ~8th by a recent estimate(for reference, LT payroll was roughly 10th).  What else differentiates them up to that level?

High ticket prices and concessions and the hotel and the sports book and everything else the Ricketts own near Wrigley. I’ve seen differing numbers, but the Cubs are usually right near the top of those lists.

Edited February 20, 2024 by Wilson A2000

[CubinNY]

15 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Are they Top 5 in revenue?  Post-covid they've been 9th, 11th, 9th in attendance, and their TV deal ranks ~8th by a recent estimate(for reference, LT payroll was roughly 10th).  What else differentiates them up to that level?

We don't know how much revenue they bring in through advertisements all over Wrigley, their concerts, the Winter Festival, the bars, apartments, and hotels, and the list goes on. I suppose one could say that those are not Cubs related, one would be obtuse in saying that, but it could be said. 

[squally1313]

1 minute ago, CubinNY said:

We don't know how much revenue they bring in through advertisements all over Wrigley, their concerts, the Winter Festival, the bars, apartments, and hotels, and the list goes on. I suppose one could say that those are not Cubs related, one would be obtuse in saying that, but it could be said. 

Those aren't unique to Chicago/Wrigley though, right? 

[CubinNY]

5 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Those aren't unique to Chicago/Wrigley though, right? 

I don't know. I don't know many teams that own city blocks from which to derive revenue. I suppose the Red Sox and I'm not sure maybe St. Louis. But the network stuff seems fishy to me as well. They are basically paying themselves to broadcast games. So I guess if we want to do accounting tricks with the money. 

Edited February 20, 2024 by CubinNY

[CubinNY]

This is a quote about Dave Dubmbrowski from an AL executive:

 

Quote

FROM AN AL EXEC: “No one is going to write his name on his Hall of Fame plaque and say: ‘He made great surplus-value trades.’ They’re going to say: ‘He won X number of World Series. His teams have won this many divisions. He won Executive of the Year this many times.’ I just think that’s really admirable, the lack of fear of people saying, ‘Dave just makes reckless trades.’ I don’t think he cares. It’s just: Did I give my team the best chance to win the World Series?”

This will never be written about Hoyer. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

Think Biitner will appreciate this pic and fits thread

[LBiittner]

HECTOR