Ugh. I swear, it's like Soriano has left Cubs fans with PTSD. The 2010 Cubs were the result of poor team construction from the top to the bottom. Blaming it on "bad big contracts" or whatever the [expletive] is a stretch to say the least. All I was alluding to is that it's hard to compete when players like Soriano and Zambrano make up roughly 25% of your payroll, and it's been that way for several years. It puts you in an unnecessary hole that's difficult to get out of. It does, but it's hardly insurmountable, especially when you're talking about 25% of a nearly $130 million dollar payroll. Look, signing Soriano for the years and money he got was a bad move from day 1, everyone knows that. It was not, however, an "albatross" contract for a team with the resources of the Cubs. Looking at the Soriano contract as being indicative of the main problem is looking backwards at how poorly the team was constructed overall. Soriano's deal didn't make or break the Cubs. Hell, Soriano's deal coupled with Zambrano's (and it's ridiculous revisionist and alarmist history to lump that in with Soriano's deal as if they're readily comparable) didn't make or break the Cubs. What broke the Cubs was crappy, crappy drafting and player development.