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WSJ: Why Wrigley Is Suddenly So Empty


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But Epstein and the brainy cohort he has hired to help run the team have aggressively set out to build a winner by investing in the minor-league system and unabashedly letting the major-league team sink.

For three years running, the Cubs have traded several of their best players for prospects in midseason. The 2012 team was the fourth-worst (.377) in Cubs history, which is saying something. Tribune fielded some terrible teams but, with an eye toward attendance and TV ratings, rarely let the payroll fall below the middle of the pack. Though the Ricketts family has spent significantly on training facilities and in building the organization, the team's major-league payroll is dropping fast: At $89 million, the 2014 club came in 23rd out of 30 teams on opening day.

The Cubs talk regularly about patience—channeling funds toward some golden future, still years away. But every story about the future is a reminder that the current team woefully lacks talent.

For a minute there, I wasn't sure if they were talking about the Cubs or the Astros.

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Lance Berkman summed up Wrigley nicely:

It's one of the worst places in baseball for, well, just about anything. I really don't like it. I read where they got approval for some more upgrades. Count me in the group of people extremely happy to see that. I guess I'm just spoiled. There is a tremendous history associated with it and there is something special about playing on the same field that guys like Babe Ruth did. But really, what kind of history is there? It's not like there has been one championship after another. It's mainly been a place for people to go and drink beer.

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I'm no Cubs fan, but they are said to have assembled perhaps the best group of young prospects in modern baseball history:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2149568-re-ranking-chicago-cubs-top-10-prospects-after-the-trade-deadline

There is a plan in place and being executed, and that's to be consistently good and win the World Series ASAP, which would be a novelty for the Cubs. Of course they've traded away "several of their best players for prospects in mid-season" this year and last because those players wouldn't be here anyway when/if the team gets good. No guarantees that GM Theo Epstein's plan will work, but it's better than the old one, which amounted to patching leaks in a rowboat.

I wish the White Sox (my team) could/would do much the same thing that the Cubs are doing. They made a start yesterday by trading Gordon Beckham to the Angels.

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It's very odd to see a large market team go that route. They usually just buy whoever they like.

That's what the Cubs tried to do for many years, e.g. tying up $136 million in Alfredo Soriano:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2668465

Can't recall a single pricey Cubs free-agent signing that worked out very well, if only because there were so many holes to fill.

IIRC, buying "whoever they like" has in recent times only worked for the Yankees, some of the time, and they have had the backstop of a productive farm system. The Cubs farm system for decades has been pretty awful -- thanks to a history of inattention, short-range thinking, bad drafts, would-be phenoms who flopped, and plain old bad luck (e.g. Mark Pryor and Kerry Woods' arms falling off while they were still young). The only way to turn the whole thing around, GM Epstein feels, is to rebuild/re-stock the farm system with lots of quality prospects, some of whom can be traded down the road to fill in whatever remaining holes there are in the major league roster. According to a good many outside reports --e.g. see the link in post #8 -- he is doing just that. Particularly exciting is the acquisition in a trade this season with Oakland of Addison Russell, who is said to be the best SS prospect, defensively and offensively, in a long time. We gave up two goodish pitchers -- Jeff Szmardia and another guy whose name I can't recall -- but Szmardia was close to 30 and will be a free agent next year, and the other guy has been a bust for the A's to this point.

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Ten worst free-agent signings in modern Cubs history:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/723320-a-waste-of-money-the-10-worst-signings-in-chicago-cubs-history

I would say that problem with every one of those signings was that even if all those guys had done just what the Cubs had hoped they would, the team still wouldn't have been good enough to win. Either management was honestly over-estimating the overall talent on the roster or rather cynically throwing the fans a "Hey, we're really trying here" bone. I suspect a bit of both.

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I can't say Epstein's way is bad. Seems to me that modern baseball free agency is the ultimate real-world application of the behavioral economics concepts of "winner's curse" and "buyer's remorse". To sign a marquee (position) FA, a club has to spring for 10 years at Brobdingnagian salary level (see Pujols and Cano deals), and the back end of the contract's certain to be dead wood with the player around 40. For top FA pitchers, the base salary is no less (see Kershaw deal), contract years are fewer, but injury risk (see the rash of elbow reconstructions) is much higher.

OTOH, to have sustained success the Epstein way, the club has to be really smart, because the young players developed tend to leave as free agents after five years (see Tampa Bay Rays). So there has to be a constant flow of top prospects. Maybe Epstein plans to make the club a contender with young home-grown players, and then fill out the roster / stay at the top level with judicious FA signings.

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Here's a follow-up from today's Sun-Times that pretty much reiterates what has been said here.

http://www.suntimes.com/m/29402134-773/the-cubs-a-franchise-stuck-in-the-mud.html#.U_fS2qPlr1I

Rick Telander wasn't always a professional idiot, but he has become one. No guarantees that the Epstein regime will succeed, but it's quite different (in tone and baseball smarts; Epstein did put together the Red Sox team that won the Series) from any of its predecessors. Ricketts the owner seems to be something of a doofus, but at least he has had the good sense to leave Epstein alone to make the baseball decisions.

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Two observations/corrections, Larry:

1. The Yankees have mostly not been "backstopped" by a productive farm system. Aside from key members of the group that won championships in the latter part of the 1990s (Jeter, Williams, Rivera, Pettitte) their farm system has been really quite barren with very few impact players.

2. Theo did not "put together" the team that won in 2004. He became GM after the 2002 season, when Pedro Martinez, Manny, Varitek, Lowe, Nixon and others were on the roster. Theo signed Foulke to close, after he learned in 2003 that "bullpen by committee" doesn't work, and of course Schilling was a key addition. He gets credit for Ortiz, too of course. But Dan Duquette had fingerprints all over that roster, too and never really gotten much credit.

Theo doesn't even get all credit for 2007 because two of the biggest contributors on the roster, Beckett and Mikey Lowell, came in a trade made after Theo walked out of Fenway in a snit (and a gorilla suit).

That being said I do think Theo is on the right track and the Cubs could contend a lot sooner than anyone thought after 2013. What they have to be willing to do is to pay for some impact starting pitching. Lester and Scherzer, maybe?

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Two observations/corrections, Larry:

1. The Yankees have mostly not been "backstopped" by a productive farm system. Aside from key members of the group that won championships in the latter part of the 1990s (Jeter, Williams, Rivera, Pettitte) their farm system has been really quite barren with very few impact players.

2. Theo did not "put together" the team that won in 2004. He became GM after the 2002 season, when Pedro Martinez, Manny, Varitek, Lowe, Nixon and others were on the roster. Theo signed Foulke to close, after he learned in 2003 that "bullpen by committee" doesn't work, and of course Schilling was a key addition. He gets credit for Ortiz, too of course. But Dan Duquette had fingerprints all over that roster, too and never really gotten much credit.

Theo doesn't even get all credit for 2007 because two of the biggest contributors on the roster, Beckett and Mikey Lowell, came in a trade made after Theo walked out of Fenway in a snit (and a gorilla suit).

That being said I do think Theo is on the right track and the Cubs could contend a lot sooner than anyone thought after 2013. What they have to be willing to do is to pay for some impact starting pitching. Lester and Scherzer, maybe?

About 1) -- Haven't the Yankees had a lot of prospects that they included in trades to get some of the players that helped them to win championships? If so, that's part of what you use a farm system for, and if those prospects didn't become stars for the teams that acquired them from the Yankees (or even if they did), that's part of how the game is played. In any case, I need more info there.

About 2) -- I defer to your knowledge of the Red Sox, which is far more detailed than mine. Ortiz was a BIG piece though.

As for Lester or Scherzer, I'd say that next year might be too soon for the Cubs to make such moves.

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Larry, the Yankee roster is littered with aging free agents, and has been since the "last night of the Yankee Dynasty" which ended in Arizona in 2001.

The only Yankee trade of note I can think of was Soriano to Texas for A-Rod. That resulted in zero championships (A-Rod re-signed as a free agent with the Yankees after 2007, before the 2009 championship run). Other prospects were failures in NY (the trio of pitchers led by Joba Chamberlain) and traded for no impact players or allowed to leave via free agency. I can only name David Robertson and Brett Gardiner as players of note developed by the team and on the major league roster and being better than league-average.

As for Lester/Scherzer, you can't time free agency to when the team is ready to compete. They have fantastic position prospects some of whom are already performing at the major league level. Who knows what 2015 will bring? What we do know is that two excellent starters will be free agents and I am quite sure Theo will be bidding on both. Should they really wait until the next season to try to acquire an ace? The only ace I know of who will hit the market then is David Price and whose to say that the Tigers, if they lose Scherzer, don't lock him up before he hits the market?

Theo needs to act when he has the chance. So what if they aren't ready to contend for a season or two with Scherzer/Lester? They'll be much more likely to contend with them than without them. They are better bets than any pitching prospects.

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Larry, the Yankee roster is littered with aging free agents, and has been since the "last night of the Yankee Dynasty" which ended in Arizona in 2001.

The only Yankee trade of note I can think of was Soriano to Texas for A-Rod. That resulted in zero championships (A-Rod re-signed as a free agent with the Yankees after 2007, before the 2009 championship run). Other prospects were failures in NY (the trio of pitchers led by Joba Chamberlain) and traded for no impact players or allowed to leave via free agency. I can only name David Robertson and Brett Gardiner as players of note developed by the team and on the major league roster and being better than league-average.

As for Lester/Scherzer, you can't time free agency to when the team is ready to compete. They have fantastic position prospects some of whom are already performing at the major league level. Who knows what 2015 will bring? What we do know is that two excellent starters will be free agents and I am quite sure Theo will be bidding on both. Should they really wait until the next season to try to acquire an ace? The only ace I know of who will hit the market then is David Price and whose to say that the Tigers, if they lose Scherzer, don't lock him up before he hits the market?

Theo needs to act when he has the chance. So what if they aren't ready to contend for a season or two with Scherzer/Lester? They'll be much more likely to contend with them than without them. They are better bets than any pitching prospects.

You make good points. Wouldn't be surprise if Epstein does what you think he should do. OTOH, if you can't precisely "time free agency to when your team is ready to compete," you can and probably should devote some careful thought to that matter. In particular, I think that determining the shelf-life of talented veteran pitchers is darn tricky -- e.g. look at Verlander's drop off this year. One would hope that there are stats freaks who are not in fact freaks who are sifting through all the available tea leaves for possible clues.

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Sorry, but buying a high priced free agent and then building a team around him is lunacy. It simply doesn't work. You build the team first, THEN you add the final piece/s to the puzzle.

I agree, but if you were also referring in passing to my post above about Curtis Granderson, he was not a free agent but was acquired by the Yankees in a trade:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/granderson-goes-yankees-three-team-193000780--mlb.html

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