Are the Cubs Really Going to Ignore Their Window for Contention?
It’s early in the offseason, but the Cubs look to be in pretty good shape for next year. Our Depth Charts currently have the team set to produce 41 WAR next season, which translates to around 85-90 wins. Even better for the Cubs, they are about six wins ahead of last year’s division-winning Cardinals and seven wins ahead of the Wild Card-winning Brewers. On paper, the Cubs have the best team in the division. That’s a pretty good spot to be in; the problem comes in trying to improve and win with the greatest core of players the franchise has produced in decades.
Over at The Athletic, Shahadev Sharma has a comprehensive look at the Cubs’ plans for the winter. The title gives a little away: “Cubs seem ready to make big moves, but don’t count on them spending big money.” Todd Ricketts’ comments on local radio station 670, The Score provides further insight:
But ultimately, now I think we can stop talking about windows. We should be consistent, and we should be looking toward building a division-winning team every year.
Theo Epstein sort of agrees. From Sharma’s piece:
“Next year is a priority,” Epstein said, before quickly looking ahead. “We have to balance it with the future. That’s probably more important now than it was even a year ago, because we’re now just two years away from a lot of our best players reaching their end of their period of club control with the Cubs. I think the goal is to do everything we can to win the World Series next year, but we also have to pay attention to the long term. Maximize this window while also putting in a lot of good work to open a new one as well.”
The problem for the Cubs is the near-impossibility of pulling off what Epstein proposes. To get a sense of how the Cubs are positioned, let’s look at the 40.6 WAR for which the Cubs are projected, and how long the players making those contributions are set to remain with the team:
| Year | 2020 WAR Remaining | % of 2020 WAR | Payroll* | Key Losses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 40.6 | 100% | $218.1 M | Jon Lester, José Quintana |
| 2021 | 35.2 | 86.7% | $173.7 M | Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Báez, Kyle Schwarber |
| 2022 | 17.9 | 44.1% | $106.2 M | Willson Contreras |
| 2023 | 16.2 | 39.9% | $97.1 M | NA |
The Cubs are very well-positioned for the next two seasons. While losing two key pieces of the rotation at the end of the year isn’t ideal, if Lester has a good season, the team can exercise a $25 million club option, which is only $15 million more than his $10 million buyout. After next season, however, the Cubs’ future looks pretty grim. The WAR figure is actually even worse when you factor in that Jason Heyward and Kyle Hendricks will be 32 years old, while Yu Darvish will be 35 years old; they make up about half of the remaining WAR from 2020 and their performance is likely to decline. The Cubs have some decent younger players in Contreras, Nico Hoerner, Ian Happ, and maybe Albert Almora Jr., but those players don’t come close to making up for the potential losses. Add in a below-average farm system, and there isn’t a massive influx of major league talent on the horizon, at least not by 2022. The team will certainly have the payroll room to keep some players in 2022, but Rizzo will be on the decline and Bryant seems likely to take the best offer in free agency, and the Cubs aren’t likely to have internal replacements for those two players’ production by the time it’s needed.
They could trade one or more of those players, but they couldn’t do so without causing a pretty severe decrease in their playoff chances over the next two seasons. Bryant and Báez would fetch the biggest returns, but Bryant might be nearly impossible to trade with his service-time grievance pending, and given his status as the Cubs’ best player, any trade would make the team significantly worse in 2020 and 2021 and maybe only marginally better in 2022 even if they received a high-end prospect in return. Similarly, Báez would be very difficult to replace as a starting shortstop. Rizzo seems unlikely to be traded given his stature with the club and with very little of equal caliber on the first base free agent market, the Cubs would find it difficult to replace him.
Schwarber seems like the most likely player to go, but as an offense-first corner outfielder, he’s only put up a 118 wRC+ over the last two seasons. A great second half last season might make him slightly more interesting to a trade partner, but he still seems unlikely to net a huge return. Teams looking to win now aren’t going to give up a major league-ready starting pitcher or impact position player for Schwarber when Nicholas Castellanos, Marcell Ozuna, and Yasiel Puig can be had for reasonable prices on the free agent market. And teams that aren’t looking to win now likely aren’t seeking a hitter who will be a free agent in two seasons.
If the Cubs are looking to extend their window, trading away stars, moving current contributors for small returns, or trading away more prospects accomplishes little. Dealing Schwarber for a slightly cheaper pitcher and then bringing back Castellanos would be more expensive for the Cubs and only make them slightly better. The same is true with Bryant and Báez, except the team will probably end up worse. Attempting to remain a postseason contender beyond 2022 is a reasonable goal for the Cubs, but if that means decreasing the team’s playoff odds over the next two seasons while their championship core is in its prime and under contract, then that goal becomes unreasonable. If the Cubs want to keep their window of contention open now and beyond 2021, the simple answer is just to keep the roster intact and look to the free agent market to address the glaring need in their rotation.
With Lester and Quintana likely gone at the end of this season, that need will only grow, and signing one of the better starters in this free agent class provides an easy way to get better this year and next year without sacrificing prospects, and buys the team more time to develop younger talent. The Cubs doesn’t need to get Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg to cement their status as favorites in the Central. In looking at our Top 50 Free Agents, Madison Bumgarner, Zack Wheeler, Dallas Keuchel, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Kyle Gibson, Jake Odorizzi, Michael Pineda, or even bringing back Cole Hamels would all do a better job keeping the Cubs’ window open than trying to maneuver around artificial payroll restrictions.
The Cubs spent 2011-2015 with a mid-market payroll, averaging 12th in baseball over that time. They bumped payroll up above $200 million in 2016; few cared when it dropped by $20 million the following year due to the championship that preceded it. The team took a small jump in 2018 before taking a sizable leap last season as their young, cheap stars got a bit more expensive. As they begin their own cable network to broadcast all of their local games without sharing the profits with the Blackhawks, Bulls, and White Sox, the Cubs revenues are set to soar beyond those that have already made them the most profitable team in baseball over the past three years, per Forbes. The Cubs can talk about future windows, but they’ve got a big one open right now, and even a mid-range addition could prove hugely beneficial as they try to make it back to the postseason.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
So we’re just gonna pretend like they didn’t already win a World Series?
Just like we are pretending that Theo knows how to build a consistent contender.
Epstein didn’t kill himself
Theo’s problem is that in 20 years he’s never figured out how to develop pitching.
Cool downvotes guys. Last time I checked the point of the sport was to win. The Cubs made the playoffs 4 years in a row including a championship, including making aggressive trades and FA moves to make it happen, and now look to be steadily in a decline phase. The “window” for the Cubs has come and may well have ended, but they did the thing. They won the World Series, I can’t really see how you can then claim they’re “ignoring the window.”
Send me some more downvotes from all the “years of control” armchair GMs out there who have forgotten that winning is the point.
Are you daft? We’re at now now.
Craig’s post might have made sense in 17 had they not won a championship, but yes, we’re at now, now. The window is a millimeter above closing if it hasn’t already. He’s not writing this as if they’re some 100 win internally developed juggernaut all in their prime, because that has come and gone.
This confirms that you did not actually read the article so continuing this discussion is pointless.
This article very clearly laid out that the window isnt closed – hence how they’re currently projected to be the best team in the division next year. Maybe you didn’t actually read the article, that would explain a lot. So a team projected to win the division is going to tear it down despite being flush with cash when they could probably support this core for at least two more years with an influx of money? That seems like the opposite of trying to win.
You said the goal is to win, and then you support the cubs not doing their best to do that today. It’s an odd thing to do.
nopedout
Projecting the Cubs to suddenly leapfrog both the Brewers and Cardinals seems irresponsible at best and ignorant at worst. Cubs win totals have dropped every year and now they have two possibly contenders to deal with as opposed to the mediocre division they did when they won the WS.
The goal is to win and they did. I’m not a Cubs fan, so I certainly would prefer them not trying balls-out to win every year, as any scenario of hegemony in baseball in boring (see the Dodgers).
They had a BaseRuns record of 89 wins, and neither the Cards or the Brewers can be described as juggernauts. This isn’t like they’re trying to beat out the Dodgers or the Astros for the division title. And even if they were, do we think their chances of winning a championship are better or worse than when they still have Bryant, Baez, and Rizzo all under contract and productive? If the goal is to win, why are you arguing against it?
Gotta save all that sweet Ricketts money for (checks notes) funding senate candidates in Nebraska and stuff
Actually, the Cubs have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Wrigley Field and the surrounding area, but it’s the time of year to ignore that, plus the massive debt and interest payments they took on to purchase the team.
I, too, enjoy being a baseball fan and defending the owners who refuse to make my team better because it would cost them money.
Lol I love how he talks about it as if the Ricketts’ did all that out of the goodness of their hearts or as if these were high risk investments
Who cares what Ricketts’ motivation was? If a person does something admirable, why focus on their reasons?
Because they’re wholly self-serving?
Heroes don’t wear capes; they spend hundreds of millions of dollars gentrifying a neighborhood surrounding a baseball stadium and then pretend to only have enough money to sign Daniel Descalso.
Right, because the Cubs haven’t spent money on payroll.
I never said anything of the sort. Reading comprehension isn’t your strength is it?
As opposed to the millionaire players with little to no loyalty to the towns they play in? Who is going to do more for Chicago and be here longer? The Cubs/Ricketts, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the city or Kris Bryant? I root for teams. I don’t care what the owners make or what the players make.
Well it would seem that you’re a pretty shitty person!
The team is worth $2 billion more now than when they bought it. I don’t think they’re struggling. Find a bank that will lend against the franchise value. I’m sure there’s one that will do it. They can even ask their buddy Trump to have Putin put in a good word for them at DeautschBank
Trump has been harder on Russia than Obama was. But this isn’t the place for me to educate you on politics. If you are ever in Chicago maybe, since my family and their friends have been involved with unions, government jobs and local politicians here in Chicago for the better part of a century.
Making a statement as ignorant as the one you just made, I doubt there’s anything you could teach me
Nothings says cracking down on a country more than offering to attend that country’s propaganda military parade. Putin has to be terrified at the notion that the person who holds the title that used to be associated with the leader of the free world will appear to be paying homage to his military’s might.
Tough on Russia indeed
Yes, and they did this out of the kindness of their heart… nothing to do with generating more revenue. They invested all of this money, grew revenue and now are claiming to be too poor to spend money on the actual team.
Budgets are a thing. Who claimed they were doing anything out of the goodness of their heart? Are you a mind reader? The fact is they are doing it. The fact is they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Chicago. I have no time for ignorant straw man arguments.
They invested hundreds of millions into Chicago?
Um, not they didnt.
The Cubs should sign all the FA’s and run a $600M payroll. That’s a sure guarantee of winning a WS next year.
But wait… didn’t Craig just publish an article implying that the Yankees should do that? Can’t be both!
I don’t know why Craig bothers to remove the Boras Corporation letterhead from the top of these articles before he publishes them under his own byline.
I’m not sure why you feel the need to defend the billionaires against the millionaires. It’s really odd. But isnt it the american way to attempt to depress everyone’s salary while allowing the richest to hoard their money?
I dont know about you, but I usually don’t buy tickets to watch the owner in the owners box. Maybe that’s the entertainment for you.
Username does not check out.
For the record, my viewpoint is not about “defending billionaires.” Nice strawman, though.
If anything, I’m interested in defending *baseball* against the greedy agents (and their mouthpieces) who add nothing to the sport while extracting as much $$$ as they can get away with. They somehow manage to convince useful idiots like you that it’s all for the players, but wiser people know that guys like Scott Boras couldn’t care less about the players. It’s all about the Boras Corporation. If you don’t believe that, then tell me why Boras fails so many of his own clients in the interest of pushing up revenue ceilings to the max. It’s all about paving the way to the next big deal for Boras Corporation. If that leaves a Mike Moustakas or a Jayson Werth or a Dallas Kuechel twisting in the wind, well that’s the cost of doing business for him.
The owners don’t need defending, because the losers in a race to run up payrolls would *not* be the owners. The owners would continue to get their revenue, or otherwise they’d just sell the franchise and get their billions out.
The losers would be the fans, as costs go up and get passed along to the consumers. This is what happens in *any* business–costs go up, and they get passed to the consumers. Baseball is no different. There are folks who say end user costs like ticket prices and cable bills have nothing to do with team payrolls, but that assertion so flies in the face of basic economics that it’s incredible on its face.
And so many fans are *already* priced out of going to games, and are *already* cutting the cord on expensive cable bills. So let’s keep trying to kill the golden goose. If a reckoning ever comes with the broadcast revenues in light of all the cord cutting, where will the dollars come from to overpay Bryce Harper and Manny Machado in the 10th seasons of their albatross guaranteed contracts? Even higher ticket prices, maybe?
And none of this even mentions the competitive balance problems that come with telling wealthy, large market teams they have some kind of obligation to run 300, 400, 500 million dollar payrolls, just because they can. That’s great if you want to kill the small markets, who won’t be able to compete with that. How is that good for the sport?
Higher costs to participate as a fan, and less likelihood that the local team is able to compete (unless you live in one of the top 5 media markets). Sounds like a recipe for a healthy national pastime! Good thing there aren’t any *other* professional sports out there to compete for that fan attention! Stay rational, my friend.
Wait, so agents are greedy but owners arent despite getting more of the revenue than the players who actually create the product we all want to view?
This is one hot take.
I wonder if when you find out your companies revenues are soaring but salaries arent escalating at the same rate you tell them “no problem, keep those revenues for yourself, we don’t deserve more money? Remind me never to have you negotiate a raise for me.
The owners take all the risk. The owners create tax revenue and jobs. The fans make everything possible by spending large amounts of money on the product. The players are winners of the genetic lottery and are compensated. Maybe they should be paid more. I don’t really care how much the owners make or the players. I care about winning and the cost to me in supporting the teams I follow. I don’t even like the Cubs. I am a White Sox fan from the south side of Chicago. My first job was for the city and my second job was selling hot dogs at New Comiskey. I am even in the game 2 of the 05 WS game. Podsednik’s HR landed about 10 rows in front of me. I have travelled the country to see White Sox games and even non White Sox games. I can’t believe I am defending the Ricketts. hahah
Talk about a weird take… and another b.s. talking point straight from the agents and the union: owners are greedy because players get less than half of all total revenue?
Who do you think pays the team executives, employees, coaches, scouts, etc.? Who do you think pays all of the business and operating expenses of the team? Do you think any of this comes from the players’ share of the revenues? Do you think these expenses are tiny? Owners pay all the expenses out of their share of the revenues, and only then do they get what’s left, after taxes. And unlike so many of the class warfare guerrillas I’m seeing around here, I don’t have a problem with owners making profits, particularly if they happen to own a business I want to see stick around.
The only thing that comes out of the player’s share is the part of baseball revenue that goes to the leeches, i.e., the agents, who do nothing except try to drive up the player share—to the detriment of the game and even to the detriment of some of their own clients—in order to maximize their own overall revenues.
The bit about my employer or your raise is beyond weird and unworthy of response, as it’s unlikely that either of our employment situations are comparable to the situation at hand here, where, as you say, it’s nothing but millionaires and billionaires.
Best post in the whole thread.
Regardless of what they said, the Cubs have a bleak future given the lack of player development the last few years. Free agency isn’t going to save them. However, how do you not mention the debt issue? It’s been reported the Cubs took on $425m in debt and were paying $30m in interest every year. Also, due to tax purposes they formed a partnership with Tribune that had to be maintained for 10 years. I believe 2019 was the year they could dissolve said partnership and pay off the remaining debt. On a lesser note, the Ricketts have also invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Wrigley Field and the surrounding area. Granted the goal is to increase revenue, but all of this is a factor in spending.
The narrative only allows for talking about team revenues vs. player salaries. Expenses related to improved facilities and infrastructure shall not be mentioned.
This whole thing about giving owners a pass for debt-servicing rubs me the wrong way, because the reason so many of these teams are loaded down with debt is because they’re essentially doing leveraged buyouts. This happened with the Nationals and the Cubs and the Dodgers (twice) and the Marlins and the Astros. And then the team says, “oh, but we have all this debt” and doesn’t spend (well, not the Dodgers on the second time around, or the Nationals), when the real problem is that the various parties involved have figured out a way to inflate the value of their purchases without actually paying more money. There’s a certain amount of “don’t hate the player, hate the game” that can be directed at this but at the same time when the “player” here cries poor it’s also a situation of their own making.
Most people can’t afford to buy a house, let alone a company, all cash. They have to use debt financing, ie, a mortgage. If a home is rented out and thus has cash flows, the interest expense is deducted from the property income not from the owner’s personal income. Same in interest expense being a company expense not the buyer’s personal expense.
The Cubs have the 4th highest payroll in the game, so I don’t think they’re “crying poor.” I agree with you and Craig that since they have 2 years left in the window with a good team, they might as well try to add a Wheeler and go for it. If things don’t work out, Bryant/Rizzo/Contreras/Baez have a lot of trade value.
Maybe they can trade for Sale from the Red Sox.
There’s probably a broader (although milder) critique of the way home-buying, as it is currently structured, increases home prices beyond the means of many people. But the biggest difference is that when people do buy a house for themselves (as opposed to a company buying it), they personally go into debt as opposed to “the house.” In the present case, leveraged buyouts like the ones the Ricketts family executed tend to harm the long-term competitive ability of the entity purchased. But because MLB teams are insulated from financial competition, teams don’t really fail unless the people running the team are straight-up looters like the McCourts.
And the Ricketts family is behaving rationally because, frankly, they will continue to make oodles of money no matter what they do with the team. Debt-servicing is a perfectly rational thing for investors to do under the current rules, but especially here because the fanbase is extremely supportive and they’re in a huge market. They do need to spend just enough to make the fans think they’re trying, but that’s not what they would do if they wanted to maximize their competitive window.
It would be dumb to limit MLB team sales only to buyers who can buy all cash especially if financial institutions are perfectly willing to lend the money, so leveraged buyouts are the way regardless of your preferences. (Have no idea what you’re referring to on home-buying when 68% of American households own their homes.)
I’m starting to see the roots of your rage at the Cleveland Indians’ off-season now.
The Cubs just decreased their average prices to season ticket holders by about 2% AND were one of only three teams who went over the luxury tax threshold in 2019 (along with the Yankees and Red Sox).
What is all this talk of refusal to spend based on? Add to this the complete renovation of a beloved ballpark and the makeover of an entire neighborhood (at a cost of hundreds of millions if not a billion). What exactly do the owners have to do to catch a break from the 60 some odd snowflakes who down vote the opposing view?
If you’re going to ding a rich team for not spending money, the Cubs are certainly the one I would go after first. Yeah, they’re spending a lot already, and they’re not a great fit for Rendon or Donaldson because their infield is stacked, but they’re going to largely be starting over after 2021 or spending a huge amount of money on an aging core. I’d much rather try and win it all the next two years than any other course of action.
Perhaps the problem is that they have some hangups over the fact that while they could really use another top pitcher, the team has spent a huge amount in prospects and money to get their current rotation and it’s underwhelming. I don’t know whether it’s ego or feeling burned or what, but we saw the same dance last winter too. And they don’t need to worry about blocking Alec Mills or Adbert Alzolay because we all know pitchers are going to get hurt.
Bullpen needs help, too.
Neither problem will be easy/cheap to address.
This all dates back to how they focused too much on hitting and not enough on pitching during their rebuilding years. A balanced approach would’ve been best, but even being unbalanced in favor of pitching would’ve been a better idea than what they did. Relying almost entirely on free agency and trades to build their pitching staff was always going to catch up to them, as it did starting in 2018, and it’s only going to continue to drag them down, especially compared to the Cardinals’ near constant stream of quality pitching prospects.
I agree that they should focus on winning over the next two years, simply because the team is going to crash and burn once it starts losing its offensive core in addition to its now constant pitching issues.
Well, they did win a world series this way. They got a ton of value out of Baez, Bryant, and Schwarber, and with the Cashner for Rizzo deal. When the argument comes down to “they should have picked Max Fried instead of Albert Almora and done everything else the same way and Aaron Nola instead of Kyle Schwarber” that’s how we know we’re engaging in hindsight bias.
Sure, they won a flag before their lack of pitching development caught up to them, so it’s still been a successful window, but they could’ve had a real dynasty and a much longer window of contention if they had been more balanced. As it is, they got an outstanding 3-year window (2015-17) where they won a title, 2-4 years of being good to very good but not great, and then they’ll start to suck again.
The argument is that they should’ve drafted and traded for more pitching in general while they were rebuilding, not just two specific examples of things they could’ve done differently. It’s never a good thing when you only have one promising pitching talent (Hendricks) come through a highly regarding farm system over a course of several years!
The Cubs are so broke, Clark the Cub can’t even afford pants
I have a theory the Cubs were going to add a similarly pantsless female mascot named Addison, and then the Russell scandal wrecked the name for them.
This isn’t even an article based on anything Ricketts said but what another sports writer believes he meant based on what was said. The entire premise completely ignores the one quote from that interview even thrown in. Seriously like wtf….Why are sports writers so willing to take up the owners’ cause for them? Answer: The owners own the news and the narratives
That Ricketts interview as about as team and fan friendly as an owner can be in 2019 *if you actually listen to it* and *every single sports writer* has decided to take the most negative angles on it (for the players and fans, very positive for the owners) with chunks missing, context missing (the question on FA spending is literally something along the lines of “so how do the Cubs not over rely on FA moving forward” or so)…It’s f’n gross to watch the coverage of that interview unfold because it really just seems like an automatic/systematic reaction and response designed to drag down expectations and get people in the mentality that the Cubs have limited options so spending would be bad anyway…Just gross gross grosss…Guess we’re in for an OwnersGraphs offseason
Sir, this is a Wendy’s
I guess that explains the generic coverage of the interview!
Apologies to Craig Edwards but I *hate* how I’ve seen this interview covered deeply and see it as a typical example of sports coverage in general. So much gets left out and it’s fully intentional…Just seems like a bunch of people reacting to a sensationalist and definitive reaction for the clicks and to get through the day. The daily grind on us proles is the owners’ greatest cover
This post is making the opposite point you seem to think it’s making, at least insofar as I could discern a point from your garbled and rambling comment.
Sounds legit, good talk
The article is criticizing the owner. You are seemingly criticizing the owner. Commenters are validly pointing out that your post is difficult to understand. Since I’ve seen you post in all corners of the internet, I know that you’re capable of being coherent so instead of being defensive why don’t you go ahead and take another stab at this?
“You are seemingly criticizing the owner.”
Yeah, you haven’t read the presently relevant posts at all. Not a good look when you’re claiming to frequently read my comments man!
Again, said post is completely incoherent. That’s why I used the qualifier “seemingly” and it’s what everyone here is trying to tell you. Just explain your point better, Christ.
There is no way in heck a person reading or trying to read that post comes out with “yeah, clearly just an attack on the owners.” I get that it’s not a masterpiece message board post but yeesh, lazier reading than writing there
Honestly I’ve read your post like 10 times trying to understand it (I’m in this for the long haul) so I’m not sure I’d call myself lazy. The best I can come up with is that you believe that Fangraphs is helping Ricketts by misinterpreting his comments, thereby lowering expectation that Ricketts will spend, even though Ricketts never said he wouldn’t spend. Am I in the ballpark?
Here is a trade that if I where the CHC I would propose: Trade Contreras to the LAD for Julio Urias, Will Smith and MiLB Joshia Gray. LAD gets a must need RHB and control . On the downside for Contreras, he is a little bit of an injury concern. The CHC get Urias,& Smith who have MLB experience and tremendous upside. At this point, both are not at the caliber as Contreras, so LAD would have to add in Gray. I would consider this a win for both teams
Pass on trading for guys with domestic violence histories. The Cubs have had enough of that to deal with the last few years.
Isn’t Smith equally valuable or even more valuable than Contreras at this point? Contreras may have a little more track record but that comes with 3 more years of service time. Don’t see how that’s a win at all for the Dodgers
Yeah, hard to believe the Dodgers deal Smith for Contreras straight up, let alone adding Urias and Gray in as well.
Here is another trade for the CHC. I would trade Nico Hoerner to KCR for Witt Merifield. KC keeps saying that they are not trading Merifield. KC won’t win anything with Merifield so they would be smart to trade him for the future.
KC asks for more.
A lot more. KC supposedly was asking for “three MLB-ready pieces.” There’s a wide range of value in the “MLB-ready pieces” thing but at the lowest I could imagine it’s probably something like Hoerner, Happ, and Alzolay. And it’s probably something better than that.
I’m a Cubs fan. What I like to do when trying to think of fake trades is ask myself “would this make any sense to me if I were a fan of the other team?” I think you should take this advice.
I like to do this too, but my second-favorite thing to do is ask “what terrible trade could I get the blinkered GM of the other team to agree to?” This game is suddenly much harder without Jack Z and Dave Stewart around, though.
I suppose in the OPs defense he did pick the right current GM to go after with that strategy.
The Indians tried to extend the window and still be contenders in the weakest division and *technically* succeeded…in being a wild card contender. Not a playoff team. The odds were with them but injuries happen. And slumps happen. And *they* had a decent farm, graduating three, maybe four.
The Cubs are in a tougher division and coming off two disappointing seasons.
With a weak farm.
The odds aren’t with them.
If there ever was a team that needed to go all in, darn the torpedoes, it’s the 2020 Cubbies.
Oh, scenarios exist where the Cubs do little or nothing and still win the division. But even tben they’d have to get past the Dodgers, Braves, etc.
Little to nothing isn’t likely to get them back to the WS.
Because injuries happen. Because slumps happen.
They need a frontline pitcher and a reworked bullpen.
And they’re not the only ones. Might not even be the ones that want them badly enough.
“arm” the torpedoes? Cause I would rather have the torpedoes than not
Craig is a very talented writer but I’m not sure this “naming-and-shaming” teams for not spending more on free agents is a useful hobby-horse for him. 1 year ago he lamented the Cubs-Sinclair partnership as one that would alienate younger viewers and presumably drive down revenues because Sinclair previously pulled broadcasting from carriers like AT&T and Comcast to get a better share of cable revenues. Here he says that the partnership will increase revenues so now the Cubs should have even more to spend on FA’s. So his view of the partnership seems to change depending on the point he wants to make.
He even wrote a fantastic article on baseball’s labor model 2 months ago explaining how MLB’s access to more young players globally puts downward pressure on the salaries of 30yo free agents. That’s not the conclusion that appeals to him, however, so he’s going to “naming-and-shaming”. Even this is cyclical since teams who have peaked like the Cubs may slow their spending as they fall into mediocrity. Teams like the Padres, Phillies, and White Sox will increase their spending as their rebuilds come to fruition.
It’s a shame too since in his Chat today, he mentions the Gleyber-for-Aroldis trade in 2016 as a big cause of the Cubs’ predicament today but doesn’t mention that at all in this article.
Here’s the Cubs-Sinclair article:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-cubs-sinclair-partnership-may-be-cause-for-concern/
Can’t find the labor model article link right now.
I don’t really agree with you in the specific case, because I do think the Cubs should be spending more, but there are a number of holes in the argument that teams in general should be spending more on guys who have probably already peaked. And there are a ton of these articles that have been written.
One thing that I really wish we had a more thorough examination of, instead of this endless parade of “teams should be spending more” type of articles, is whether it is possible to actually have a model that generates both teams spending more and resource parity. Because from a competitive point of view, the ideal situation is one where teams all have the same motivation and resources to spend more money on players. The resistance to this sort of critical examination is usually something like “all teams are hoarding money and there are no excuses,” but clearly not all teams have the same motivation and/or resources to do that. We know that the current system of resource distribution and team control is generating this sort of outcome, and saying that it isn’t what should be happening is pretty thin considering that we know that it is happening.
The NFL has much heavier revenue-sharing and thus, payroll parity. In a given year, certain teams don’t use all their cap space and teams have different philosophies on how much “dead-money” they want on their payrolls which drives their player acquisition philosophies. Belichick keeps his rookies the full five-years, lets them go when they reach FA or trades them before they hit FA, and is able to get good deals on former stars since he’s made the Patriots a desired destination. This seems to be a SABR-GM’s model under a full payroll-parity structure. And guess what — NFL teams are debt-financed too!
If MLB wants to go that way, fine with me, but I think it’s neat to see how the small market Rays find success differently than the Red Sox and Yankees, and they’re all in the same division! I can see how fans of small market MLB teams get frustrated that they just can’t sign that last player or two who might get them to the WS.
Not sure why “pay the players more!” and “sign all the FA’s!” mantras are so important as long as MLB achieves a 50/50 split of revenues between the Owners and the Players. They’re at 52/48 now, so maybe simply moving arbitration eligibility to a player’s 3rd year rather than his 4th is enough in the next CBA.
The problem with asking for a 50/50 split is that the owners have “shadow” revenue streams and ways of mitigating expenses that don’t really show up on the books and are hard to track since they are different for every team and every sport. Like publicly funded stadiums where the team gets all the parking revenue or similar scams. Or the various TV deals. Parsing out the exact numbers gets to be very hard.
The most current data I’m aware of is from Ben Lindbergh’s article in the Ringer from Feb 2018 which stated it was a 50-50 split. If you have better data on the “shadow” revenue streams, then provide it. Of course you’ll just say they’re”shadow” and imagine some other split so you can blame the owners, cuz “Capitalists Bad!” Players have their own “shadow” streams in endorsements and lending their names to video games, etc. Should we count those too?
And what’s wrong with publicly-funded stadia? Cities freely decide they want these amenities, so they build the stadia, and charge the teams rent and then also use the facilities for concerts and other events.
https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/2/21/17035624/mlb-revenue-sharing-owners-players-free-agency-rob-manfred
The Cubs stamped out any remaining good will for them with the Russell garbage. I hope they mess this up and some team with a better story replaces them at the top of the standings.
That was before or after Joe Ricketts said “Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy” and no one really did anything about it?
To be “replaced” implies they were already there. Last I checked, the Brewers and Cardinals won the division these past two years.
41 war seems quite high. And, I will absolutely take the under on that any day of the week. The rotation is dramatically overated and can generously be called a collection of # 2 starters but is more accurately called a collection of has beens. Lester had his dead cat bounce this year despite the x#s not really supporting it. When 2020 Yu Darvish is your projected ace, you’ve got problems. Heyward was basically accidentally not terrible.
While Baez is a joy to watch, you can’t win a world series with 4 good to great players, a collection of garbage masquerading as your other position players, a half rotted rotation that you forgot to refrigerate like a steak which has been on the counter since last Sunday’s shopping trip, and a pile of random debris pulled from your couch that you’ve decided to call your bullpen.
That seems a little dramatic… Hendricks and Darvish will probably put up between 6-10 WAR by themselves (hedging low a little bit due to age and the wildcard that has been Yu Darvish’s Cubs career), but that alone is a solid 1-2. Obviously it’s not elite, but that’s enough to survive the NL Central (see 2018 MIL).
That Heyward comment is completely off base. His splits outside of the leadoff spot (147 PA) were very, very good. You don’t “accidentally” luck into 442 PA of .286/.373/.471. Seems like he just didn’t fit leadoff and had a great year otherwise. You take a 119 wRC+ any day of the week from Heyward.
The back end of the rotation and the bullpen will need adjusting, but the bullpen isn’t as bad as everyone thinks. A regular-routine Kimbrel, Kyle Ryan, Rowan Wick, and even Brad Wieck are not a bad start. If they can bring in a Will Harris or Daniel Hudson type arm to offer a veteran presence, that’s not a bad bullpen at all. Obviously counting on those two last guys is a bit of a stretch, but it’s not unreasonable to expect them to offer positive contributions.
Imo the cubs need to make a decision. Slow playing the window is good at the start of a 4-5 year window of a young team but at the end of it you don’t gain much by doing it because you are just extending future value/control into a mediocre period.
At this point cubs the cubs either should be pushing in hard or do a 15/16 yankees style mini rebuild. Full tear down is not an option with such a good team but you could trade 2-3 guys with less than 2 years of control like the yankees did with Chapman and Miller and keep the longer term assets.
So either push all in or do the yankees style mini rebuild and trade Bryant and 1 or 2 other guys this off season already or early in the season.
That’s an option for some teams, but the Cubs would find it very difficult to pull off that kind of “mini rebuild” with their barren farm and almost no quality young pitching (even on the MLB roster) to speak of.
When all else fails, click bait.
These four baseball teams did this and you won’t believe the results!
Do they really have one? They overachieved in 2016 and now don’t look like a contending team.
I haven’t read all the comments, so I’m probably repeating someone else’s thoughts. The problem is the Cubs have a short window and the potentially difference-making free agents will likely want 5-to-10 year contracts. Sure, the Cubs might be able to trade those free agents to boost a rebuild, but who knows what their value will be in 2022 or 3. I’m not sure what I would do in their position, except hope to improve the farm system so I’m not as reliant on outside help.