2021 Chicago Cubs September IGT Thread

[Stratos]

Hard disagree with most of this.

This season was trash. Making the playoffs is always better than winning 71 games. They didn’t choose this route for baseball reasons, they chose it for financial reasons. They absolutely should not have done this 2 years ago.

The Cubs don’t have to choose between tanking and not having a solid future.

I agree the Cubs should never have to tank. But if guys aren't going to sign extensions they usually should be traded in the offseason. Circumstances beyond the control of the FO, like bad performances last year compounded by a COVID-shortened season, Bryant grievance etc., made that difficult. 5 or 6 seasons of a good young player who costs little is more valuable than 1 or 2 seasons of a good established MLB player that costs a good chunk of money in arb, and it's not even close. It's very hard to consistently contend and consistently have a good farm system (unless you're lucky), and it's very hard to consistently contend without a consistently good farm. You have to trade some MLB assets at some point to reload on young surplus value.

I know you don't like the Rays trading Snell but it's not a bad trade. They have a winning formula, the proof is in the pudding. They seem to use the money they have and put it into their scouting and development. They got 5 seasons out of Snell, they got to recycle him and recoup value. Longterm it makes sense for them.

Everyone agrees Ricketts was cheap last offseason. Worst case scenario since opening day was Cubs contending, getting knocked out early in the playoffs, and their FA's leaving and getting nothing for them minus a couple of compensation picks. They'd be left with hardly any MLB talent and a mediocre farm. Had the Cubs kept Darvish the farm would have been even worse. The Cubs weren't going to buy their way out of that.

[Stratos]

Yep. The Dodgers last top 10 pick was Kershaw in 2006. The Cardinals last top 10 pick was JD Drew in 1998. The Yankees last top 10 pick was Jeter in 1992. 2022 will be the Cubs 6th top 10 pick in the last 12 years.

Since the cubs decided to lose on purpose again, I’m glad they got a high draft pick. They should be able to draft a great prospect at 7, but losing on purpose is not the only way to build a winner.

I agree with this, but it's also easier said than done. Hoyer got stuck between a rock and a hard place, nobody would extend and guys were not very tradeable last offseason due to bad 2020 years, and I assume teams hanging onto prospects partly due to COVID and spending fears.

I would have supported taking on a bad contract to reload rather than trade Darvish for sure.

[Stratos]

I’m saying if being competitive is as simple as flexing their wallets, then we’re not the biggest bully on the block. Honestly, I’m not sure if the Cubs ownership would even be in the top 10.

If the answer is just to spend, it’s not our organization that would be winning.

CP is right it's not about how rich an owner is being not relevant, it's about the amount of team revenue put back into the team. Ricketts sucks.

[CP_414]

I agree the Cubs should never have to tank. But if guys aren't going to sign extensions they usually should be traded in the offseason. Circumstances beyond the control of the FO, like bad performances last year compounded by a COVID-shortened season, Bryant grievance etc., made that difficult. 5 or 6 seasons of a good young player who costs little is more valuable than 1 or 2 seasons of a good established MLB player that costs a good chunk of money in arb, and it's not even close. It's very hard to consistently contend and consistently have a good farm system (unless you're lucky), and it's very hard to consistently contend without a consistently good farm. You have to trade some MLB assets at some point to reload on young surplus value.

It’s a hard sport. The owners job is to give them a competitive payroll every year. The front offices job is then to build a competitive team. If they can’t do that, they should be replaced. I don’t really care about specific players being traded or not being extended. I never really cared about that. I care about them not trying to win. As you said we agree, the Cubs should never tank…yet they do.

I know you don't like the Rays trading Snell but it's not a bad trade. They have a winning formula, the proof is in the pudding. They seem to use the money they have and put it into their scouting and development. They got 5 seasons out of Snell, they got to recycle him and recoup value. Longterm it makes sense for them.

Snell was one of the examples I gave but it’s also all the moves the Rays don’t make. They never go in to win. Never make an aggressive add to get over the top, because they deal with no fan expectations. It’s easier to just keep reloading the farm and keep extending the run instead of trying to win it all when you have zero expectations. Major market teams don’t live in that world. The Cubs should not try to be the Rays. They should try to be the best version of the Dodgers that they can be.

Everyone agrees Ricketts was cheap last offseason. Worst case scenario since opening day was Cubs contending, getting knocked out early in the playoffs, and their FA's leaving and getting nothing for them minus a couple of compensation picks. They'd be left with hardly any MLB talent and a mediocre farm. Had the Cubs kept Darvish the farm would have been even worse. The Cubs weren't going to buy their way out of that.

As I said, once they made the decision to slash payroll like they did, the season was basically over. At that point they had to make trades. They had to lose on purpose. But the better course of action would be to have tried to win. I’ll always take an 88 win playoff team over a 70 win team. This year was not “ideal” to me.

[CP_414]

I agree with this, but it's also easier said than done. Hoyer got stuck between a rock and a hard place, nobody would extend and guys were not very tradeable last offseason due to bad 2020 years, and I assume teams hanging onto prospects partly due to COVID and spending fears.

I would have supported taking on a bad contract to reload rather than trade Darvish for sure.

Sure, it’s not easy. Maybe they’ll fail more than the Dodgers, Yankees, and Cards have over the last few decades and end up with some too 10 picks. I can deal with that better than them intentionally failing over and over again. Of these 6 top 10 picks in the last 12 years at least 5 of them are intentional.

[Crusader]

Again, the owners net worth doesn’t matter. They aren’t spending their own cash or selling stock to sign starting pitchers. It doesn’t matter that they are worth $5 billion and it doesn’t matter where that ranks among owners. People are so happy to point out that it isn’t liquid wealth when fans complain about them being worth so much money and not spending on payroll. It’s also not liquid wealth for the other owners and they aren’t signing players using personal cash. These multi-billion dollar businesses bring in revenue. Then owners decide how much of that revenue should go back into their product each year, how much of that revenue should go into investments/property/etc, and how much should go to themselves. The Cubs choose to put a below average percentage of that revenue back onto the field compared to other owners.

Nobody is asking them to outspend the Dodgers every year. They should spend in line with their revenues. They don’t do that.

Nobody is even saying that spending is the only thing they need to do to be competitive, but it’s the advantage they have as a top 5 revenue club. The other top 5 revenue clubs don’t lose on purpose over a third of the time. That’s a choice that the Cubs keep making.

They were 10th in payroll in 2021, 6th in 2020, 2nd in 2019, and 4th in 2018. We've had far bigger issues than owners not spending these last couple of years.

If the Cubs don't go out and spend this offseason, this will be one of the few years where such criticism would be warranted. It's sad when people like Frank Schwindel, Patrick Wisdom, Rafael Ortega, and Matt Duffy are putting up more WAR in fewer at bats than Rizzo, or other members of our old "core".

[CP_414]

They were 10th in payroll in 2021, 6th in 2020, 2nd in 2019, and 4th in 2018. We've had far bigger issues than owners not spending these last couple of years.

If the Cubs don't go out and spend this offseason, this will be one of the few years where such criticism would be warranted. It's sad when people like Frank Schwindel, Patrick Wisdom, Rafael Ortega, and Matt Duffy are putting up more WAR in fewer at bats than Rizzo, or other members of our old "core".

What about all the other years?

It’s always funny when the Ricketts defenders want to give him credit for a few years of decent to good spending while ignoring all the years when they had weak payrolls and ignoring how they refused to add talent in some of the years with good payrolls despite all the years of losing on purpose.

Over the last dozen years or so, the Cubs are around 10th overall in payroll spending. They are a top 4 estimated revenue team in that same period. Compared solely to other mlb franchises (who are also spending less and less of overall revenues on players) the Cubs don’t spend on payroll in line with revenues. I highly doubt they will have a top 5 payroll in 2022, too.

I know certain people will never say a critical word about ownership, but it’s ok to expect more from the people who own the organization. It’s a lot more expensive to be a Cubs fan than it used to be. Cubs fans should have high expectations of players, the front office, and absolutely of ownership too.

[ILMindState]

What about all the other years?

It’s always funny when the Ricketts defenders want to give him credit for a few years of decent to good spending while ignoring all the years when they had weak payrolls and ignoring how they refused to add talent in some of the years with good payrolls despite all the years of losing on purpose.

Over the last dozen years or so, the Cubs are around 10th overall in payroll spending. They are a top 4 estimated revenue team in that same period. Compared solely to other mlb franchises (who are also spending less and less of overall revenues on players) the Cubs don’t spend on payroll in line with revenues.

I know certain people will never say a critical word about ownership, but it’s ok to expect more from the people who own the organization. It’s a lot more expensive to be a Cubs fan than it used to be. Cubs fans should have high expectations of players, the front office, and absolutely of ownership too.

Going to a Cubs game is also the most expensive game day experience in all of sports

[CP_414]

Going to a Cubs game is also the most expensive game day experience in all of sports

Yep. It’s even more expensive to watch on TV than it used to be. They went from being on free TV not long ago to cable to now needing specific cable companies to get their channel (unless you use a Reddit stream or something).

All of that is fine by the way. I don’t have a problem with them trying to maximize the revenue for the organization. I don’t have a problem with a sportsbook or the hotel or all the property they have bought. My problem is that while they find ways to maximize the cost on each fan they put teams on the field that they know will be non competitive.

[CP_414]

https://twitter.com/fansidedmlb/stat...907352582?s=21

Makes sense since he was brought back due to his relationships with a lot of the guys they moved.

[Crusader]

What about all the other years?

It’s always funny when the Ricketts defenders want to give him credit for a few years of decent to good spending while ignoring all the years when they had weak payrolls and ignoring how they refused to add talent in some of the years with good payrolls despite all the years of losing on purpose.

Over the last dozen years or so, the Cubs are around 10th overall in payroll spending. They are a top 4 estimated revenue team in that same period. Compared solely to other mlb franchises (who are also spending less and less of overall revenues on players) the Cubs don’t spend on payroll in line with revenues. I highly doubt they will have a top 5 payroll in 2022, too.

I know certain people will never say a critical word about ownership, but it’s ok to expect more from the people who own the organization. It’s a lot more expensive to be a Cubs fan than it used to be. Cubs fans should have high expectations of players, the front office, and absolutely of ownership too.

Let me start this off with the obvious. I'm not a big Ricketts fan. I'd be much happier if we had a wealthier ownership group, rather than a family that sees the Cubs as one of their families biggest cash making schemes. Most of my posts on these points aren't because I'm trying to defend the Ricketts honor, it's because this place becomes an echo-chamber. Everyone wants to take the easy way out and point at the owners, and identify them as the primary problem. I don't think it's that simple.

You want to talk about the other years? Okay, in 2017 the Cubs were 8. In 2016, when they won it all, they were 14. We had a cost controlled teamed because most were still on their rookie contracts, and before that we were intentionally tanking for draft picks.

When they started winning, the fact is the money was there. Lots of other crap just went wrong. The money likely would have been there this year too if the team wasn't crap, but they traded Darvish reading the tea leaves in the water, and we still ended up at 10th for payroll even after that trade.

Going to a Cubs game is also the most expensive game day experience in all of sports

I haven't been to Wrigley in a while, but my impressions were that the stadium is electric. It literally feels like you're at a party on the field. It's fun. It's exciting. Draped in history and traditions. It's iconic.

However, it also smells like piss. Parking is tragic. Everything was old and outdated, some seats literally had obstructed views. The tribune ran it into the ground. My mind was blown when I went to law school in Milwaukee and I saw what Miller Park was. How good all the seats are, how cheap they are, how much parking there is, how easy it is to get in and out of the stadium, how the stadium, doesn't, you know, smell like pee. Why can't the Cubs have better?

The Ricketts appear to be buying up the surrounding neighborhood to upgrade the surrounding facilities and to attempt to make it a complete, family-friendly experience, almost like Disney World, and they're passing the price tag off to the fans.

Is it a dick move? Yes. Is it something that will make Wrigley an even more enjoyable experience when it's all completed, yes, most likely. If we're able to have sustained success, and it's a big if, it could be great for the franchise. Let's be clear, the Rickett's primary goal here is to get richer off the fans, they aren't altruistic where they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, but the end result is still going to be good for the organization.

Ultimately, they get a lot of unfair criticism for the teams short comings, rather than people identifying and complaining about the main reasons for our lack of success.

[CP_414]

Let me start this off with the obvious. I'm not a big Ricketts fan. I'd be much happier if we had a wealthier ownership group, rather than a family that sees the Cubs as one of their families biggest cash making schemes. Most of my posts on these points aren't because I'm trying to defend the Ricketts honor, it's because this place becomes an echo-chamber. Everyone wants to take the easy way out and point at the owners, and identify them as the primary problem. I don't think it's that simple.

That’s trash. They are plenty wealthy and there are plenty of Ricketts bootlickers here. It’s not that people are even pointing to them as the only problem. It’s that anytime anything mildly critical of ownership is said some bootlickers runs to their defense. It’s ok to criticize them. They literally own the team and decide how much to spend on players every year. That’s a big deal.

You want to talk about the other years? Okay, in 2017 the Cubs were 8. In 2016, when they won it all, they were 14. We had a cost controlled teamed because most were still on their rookie contracts, and before that we were intentionally tanking for draft picks.

When they started winning, the fact is the money was there. Lots of other crap just went wrong. The money likely would have been there this year too if the team wasn't crap, but they traded Darvish reading the tea leaves in the water, and we still ended up at 10th for payroll even after that trade.

You say 10th like that’s a good thing. Lol. This logic is so flawed. “Yeah they lost on purpose for a bunch of years but the years they weren’t losing on purpose the payroll was ok sometimes and not great other times.” Raise your expectations man. They tanked in 12, 13, 14. They had a weak payroll in 15 with a good team. They won it all 16 and went into the lux tax. Then they cut payroll significantly in 2017 immediately after winning it all. The Dodgers spent a ton after winning it all last year and then went out and added Scherzer and Trea Turner mid-season because Bauer is a turd. In 18 the Cubs made some additions but stayed under the tax again. In 19 and 20 they spent well but refused to fix obvious problems because it would have cost additional money. In 21 they tanked again. Overall that comes to borderline top 10 player spending despite top 4 revenues. It’s highly unlikely they spend to a top 5 payroll in 2022.

If you don’t think the Ricketts are a big part of the problem, I couldn’t disagree more.

I haven't been to Wrigley in a while, but my impressions were that the stadium is electric. It literally feels like you're at a party on the field. It's fun. It's exciting. Draped in history and traditions. It's iconic.

However, it also smells like piss. Parking is tragic. Everything was old and outdated, some seats literally had obstructed views. The tribune ran it into the ground. My mind was blown when I went to law school in Milwaukee and I saw what Miller Park was. How good all the seats are, how cheap they are, how much parking there is, how easy it is to get in and out of the stadium, how the stadium, doesn't, you know, smell like pee. Why can't the Cubs have better?

The Ricketts appear to be buying up the surrounding neighborhood to upgrade the surrounding facilities and to attempt to make it a complete, family-friendly experience, almost like Disney World, and they're passing the price tag off to the fans.

Is it a dick move? Yes. Is it something that will make Wrigley an even more enjoyable experience when it's all completed, yes, most likely. If we're able to have sustained success, and it's a big if, it could be great for the franchise. Let's be clear, the Rickett's primary goal here is to get richer off the fans, they aren't altruistic where they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, but the end result is still going to be good for the organization.

Disagree on your opinion of Wrigley too. There’s still obstructed seats by the way, and I’m not sure the smell has changed, but I never thought it smelled like piss. I don’t see how building a luxuary hotel and a sportsbook and a ton of new bars is for a “family-friendly experience.”

As I said already, I don’t care if they want to invest in other things that will increase revenues from the organization. The end result will be good for the Ricketts family. The problem is that they are investing in those things instead of putting competitive teams on the field. They are choosing what to do with cubs revenues and they are choosing to put less and less of it on the field and more and more of it into investments that leads to “non-baseball” revenue.

Wrigley is a much better place to watch a game than Miller Park, but to each his own I guess.

Ultimately, they get a lot of unfair criticism for the teams short comings, rather than people identifying and complaining about the main reasons for our lack of success.

Nonsense. They earn their share of criticism and the owners are a significant part of the reason why the Cubs will have 6 top 10 draft picks over 12 years. If you try to lose almost half the time then you will lose a lot. It’s ok to criticize them. They deserve it. It’s embarrassing to see how some fans will defend anything that this entirely replaceable family does.

[thawv]

Yep. The Dodgers last top 10 pick was Kershaw in 2006. The Cardinals last top 10 pick was JD Drew in 1998. The Yankees last top 10 pick was Jeter in 1992. 2022 will be the Cubs 6th top 10 pick in the last 12 years.

Since the cubs decided to lose on purpose again, I’m glad they got a high draft pick. They should be able to draft a great prospect at 7, but losing on purpose is not the only way to build a winner.

When this kind of stuff is pointed out, it's absolutely disgusting how this franchise is!

[CP_414]

When this kind of stuff is pointed out, it's absolutely disgusting how this franchise is!

Pretty wild, right?

Credit to the Dodgers, Cards, and Yankees. They are the outliers for sure, but the Cubs should be able to limit the terrible seasons to a much more rare occasion than they’ve experienced.

[Stratos]

Sure, it’s not easy. Maybe they’ll fail more than the Dodgers, Yankees, and Cards have over the last few decades and end up with some too 10 picks. I can deal with that better than them intentionally failing over and over again. Of these 6 top 10 picks in the last 12 years at least 5 of them are intentional.

How do the Cards do it? Have have the Dodgers done it? The Cards seem to spend wisely on good players and will develop a good player here and there.

The Yanks seemed to do it with fat wads of cash and just bought people, but they don't behave like they used to 15-20 years ago, I assume due to new CBA rules like luxury taxes and maybe ownership is different too.

The Dodgers seemed to have been able to keep a lot of their good players and buy more.