Jesse Rogers on Cubs Future

[Transmogrified Tiger]

9 hours ago, Stratos said:

That's exactly what they're doing.  Trading out assets for cost savings because Ricketts won't spend at the level the 3rd highest revenue team should.

During Theo's run we could have held onto Cease or Torres if the team spent a bit more money to acquire a quality SP or closer instead of lacking serious talent and surplus the last few years because our farm system sucked.  If we had Cease alone we'd have been in the playoffs in 2023 and probably 2024.  Torres would have also given us 2-3 more wins at 3B each of the last couple of years as well, not to mention an upgrade on Russell in 2018-19.  Might have nabbed us the NL Central in 2019 too.

Thanks Tom.

The Cubs rank in CBT payroll from 2016 to 2020 was 4th, 9th, 5th, 2nd, and 3rd.

[chibears55]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

The Cubs rank in CBT payroll from 2016 to 2020 was 4th, 9th, 5th, 2nd, and 3rd.

They spend, it just that they're spending on some bad contracts and not getting the performance for the money.

[Tryptamine]

3 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

The Cubs rank in CBT payroll from 2016 to 2020 was 4th, 9th, 5th, 2nd, and 3rd.

As a percentage of revenue they're in the bottom half of the league now.

[Statyllus]

It appears in the last paragraph of the article

On 12/24/2024 at 7:42 AM, Rex Buckingham said:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/43127317/mlb-2024-2025-chicago-cubs-offseason-kyle-tucker-cody-bellinger-spending-plan

I'm not sure I remember any discussion of PE buying into the Cubs... and this is not optimistic on Tucker re-signing

[Rex Buckingham]

23 minutes ago, Statyllus said:

It appears in the last paragraph of the article

yes I know, that's why I brought it up. This is the first mention I know of. 

[Statyllus]

Jesse politely nailed it including such Cubisms as “the marginal value of a win” and “overachieving our projections is the way we win” in business one is welcome to have any hair brained schemes you like but eventually accountability comes knocking. Jed is never held accountable for failures of his nutty strategies.

[Statyllus]

More broadly MLB allowed teams to have PE investments dating  back to around 2019.  It’s tightly regulates but Ricketts likely could not resist the investments with the infrastructure debt they reportedly carry. Guarantee there are investor slides explaining how to maintain and grow revenue while making so-called intelligent investments  Fan base bring the suckers. 

[Bertz]

50 minutes ago, Statyllus said:

Jesse politely nailed it including such Cubisms as “the marginal value of a win” and “overachieving our projections is the way we win” in business one is welcome to have any hair brained schemes you like but eventually accountability comes knocking. Jed is never held accountable for failures of his nutty strategies.

All 30 teams are operating based on basic concepts like the marginal value of a win.  The differences between teams are the specifics of their models and how much they use that kind of language publicly.  But it's more or less settled science.

[Statyllus]

Yes EVERYBODY understands that the 90th win has more marginal value than the 62st win so why are these failing knuckleheads spouting it like some new info that they just discovered? They are failing and they should be concentrating on that rather pretending they launching some new concept.  Focus on results. Either Hoyer has them or he doesn’t. I hate an highly paid excuse maker. 

[Bertz]

5 minutes ago, Statyllus said:

Yes EVERYBODY understands that the 90th win has more marginal value than the 62st win so why are these failing knuckleheads spouting it like some new info that they just discovered? They are failing and they should be concentrating on that rather pretending they launching some new concept.  Focus on results. Either Hoyer has them or he doesn’t. I hate an highly paid excuse maker. 

So you'd like less transparency into the team's decision making?

[CubinNY]

That Bellinger money is burning a hole in Jed's pocket, lol. 

[thawv]

On 12/29/2024 at 11:05 AM, Transmogrified Tiger said:

The Cubs rank in CBT payroll from 2016 to 2020 was 4th, 9th, 5th, 2nd, and 3rd.

How much of that was FA signings?  Without looking back, I think that it was much more arb raises.

[KCCub]

36 minutes ago, thawv said:

How much of that was FA signings?  Without looking back, I think that it was much more arb raises.

Here's the main guys that had non Arb contracts that overlapped in that time period. I'm sure I'm missing a few and there are guys like Quintana that had team options exercised, etc. 

Heyward 8/$184m
Lester 6/$155m
Darvish 6/$126m
Zobrist 4/$56m
Chatwood 3/$38m
Lackey 2/$32m
Rizzo 7/$41m
Kimbrel 3/$43m
Jason Hammel 2/$20m
Cole Hamels 1/$20m
Marrow 2/$21m
Fowler 1/$13m
Wade Davis 1/$10m

 

[Rcal10]

33 minutes ago, KCCub said:

Here's the main guys that had non Arb contracts that overlapped in that time period. I'm sure I'm missing a few and there are guys like Quintana that had team options exercised, etc. 

Heyward 8/$184m
Lester 6/$155m
Darvish 6/$126m
Zobrist 4/$56m
Chatwood 3/$38m
Lackey 2/$32m
Rizzo 7/$41m
Kimbrel 3/$43m
Jason Hammel 2/$20m
Cole Hamels 1/$20m
Marrow 2/$21m
Fowler 1/$13m
Wade Davis 1/$10m

 

I think the point is the payroll was higher those years after 2016 due to the commitments made prior to that year. Not much was brought in after that, with the exception of Darvish. And he replaced Arrieta. Guys like Davis and Morrow were acquired because the Cubs didn’t want to go long term with an elite closer. Soler was traded for one year of Davis. Morrow was a long shot closer signing. Even Kimbrel was only signed after Zobrist has some unpaid leave during the first half year the Cubs had Kimbrel. Quintana was traded for because of his inexpensive contract. Pretty much and move after 16’ to add salary had to be offset with a move to reduce payroll. And all moves had one eye on the payroll. They may have been a higher payroll team, but they watched every dollar they spent and never aimed for top guys after 2016. 

[Michael Busch Light]

Brandon Morrow.  I’m still waiting for that guy to return in the second half.  He just stole our money.

[thawv]

1 hour ago, KCCub said:

Here's the main guys that had non Arb contracts that overlapped in that time period. I'm sure I'm missing a few and there are guys like Quintana that had team options exercised, etc. 

Heyward 8/$184m
Lester 6/$155m
Darvish 6/$126m
Zobrist 4/$56m
Chatwood 3/$38m
Lackey 2/$32m
Rizzo 7/$41m
Kimbrel 3/$43m
Jason Hammel 2/$20m
Cole Hamels 1/$20m
Marrow 2/$21m
Fowler 1/$13m
Wade Davis 1/$10m

 

This is my point.  They weren't adding payroll.  It was either there already, or arb raises were happening.   Or both. 

[Andy]

1 hour ago, Michael Busch Light said:

Brandon Morrow.  I’m still waiting for that guy to return in the second half.  He just stole our money.

I've never hated a signing more and been proven so correct. The Cubs had just gone through 2 postseason runs in which they rode their closer like a rented mule and then they signed this guy and said right off the top that he'd never pitch back-to-back days because they were scared of him getting hurt. And then he got hurt anyway 2 months into a 2-year contract, and before July was out he'd thrown his last pitch in the major leagues. What a stupid decision that was.

[BKHoo]

I think the payroll component is getting overly focused on - it’s not like we are even close to bottom in the league. The Cubs were 7th last year.  You could make a case they should be 3-5 based on their market but a lot of teams won more games than them and spent less. 
 

2024 payrolls

[chibears55]

5 hours ago, thawv said:

How much of that was FA signings?  Without looking back, I think that it was much more arb raises.

Arb raises, paying players no longer with team, extensions, 1-3 yr deals

Cubs will always have a couple players making around 25 per, and the rest of payroll will be spread out amongst other different situations that adds up.

 

[thawv]

8 hours ago, BKHoo said:

I think the payroll component is getting overly focused on - it’s not like we are even close to bottom in the league. The Cubs were 7th last year.  You could make a case they should be 3-5 based on their market but a lot of teams won more games than them and spent less. 
 

2024 payrolls

That speaks volumes about what a poor job Jed has done.

[Bull]

On 12/31/2024 at 1:29 PM, BKHoo said:

I think the payroll component is getting overly focused on - it’s not like we are even close to bottom in the league. The Cubs were 7th last year.  You could make a case they should be 3-5 based on their market but a lot of teams won more games than them and spent less. 
 

2024 payrolls

A few months ago stratos said:

On 9/24/2024 at 12:18 AM, Stratos said:

3rd in revenue, 7th in payroll, 16th in wins, 1st in our hearts.

and I replied:

The gap between the first two is Rickett's fault.

Second gap is Hoyer's fault.

The last one is all on me.

[Stratos]

3 hours ago, Bull said:

A few months ago stratos said:

On 9/24/2024 at 12:18 AM, Stratos said:

3rd in revenue, 7th in payroll, 16th in wins, 1st in our hearts.

 

and I replied:

The gap between the first two is Rickett's fault.

Second gap is Hoyer's fault.

The last one is all on me.

I was wrong, Cubs were 7th in payroll but 9th in luxury tax payroll haha.

[Stratos]

If Tom gave Theo more payroll in 2017+ after being showered in World Series cash Theo could have afforded a quality FA SP and kept Cease instead of feeling the need to trade him for a cost-controlled SP like Quintana.

[squally1313]

14 hours ago, Stratos said:

If Tom gave Theo more payroll in 2017+ after being showered in World Series cash Theo could have afforded a quality FA SP and kept Cease instead of feeling the need to trade him for a cost-controlled SP like Quintana.

I mean, the Cubs went into 2017, fresh off a World Series win driven by pitching and defense, needing to replace Jason Hammel and his all of 1.3 fWAR from a 103 win 2016 team. We could have done better than the assorted nonsense we went through pre-Quintana, but going out and getting some top line free agent to slot in behind Lester/Hendricks/Arrieta/just above Lackey would certainly not be at the top of the list. 

They made a lot of mistakes in those years after (most of them, in my opinion, in the lower levels of the system), but throwing this particular one on the Rickett's pile seems a bit excessive. 

[BKHoo]

On 12/30/2024 at 3:32 PM, Statyllus said:

It appears in the last paragraph of the article

 

This part of the article bothers me:

 

That means Tucker could be one-and-done at Wrigley Field. After Soto helped set the market when he signed for $765 million, the soon-to-be free agent has likely already priced himself out of Chicago.