Chicago Cubs 2014 Season Thread (super-official)

1977Hawkeye said:
So I take it you're against the renovation.

The Cubs' facilities are garbage, and it's well known that it hurts them in the free-agent market. This has gotta get done. It's long past due. More revenue, better facilities = better chance to win.

If the renovations happen and the Cubs payroll remains low, and they still stink, then I'll start singing a different tune. Until then, I'm giving the guy a chance. Besides, I guess it's hard to have a huge payroll when you're trying for a $500M renovation that you are paying for privately.
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I am not sure I a going to buy this. The Cubs have one thing other teams don't and that is revenue and money! Players will go to Chicago I've never heard of Chicago losing out to the D-Backs because of facilities... If you can find examples I will listen.

This came from the forbs mag article this month explaining how much money the Cubs make and how much more they will make in the future. http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2014/05/08/chicago-cubs-baseballs-next-powerhouse/

Wrigley upgrades would be around $300 million and the cost of putting hotel and stores outside the ballpark would be about $200 million

The structural fixed to the Club house and Club house expanion could be done for probably $150 Million. The rest of this dang argument for $350 Million is about hotels, Signs, Restarunts, Parking Ramps, Bars all of which Ricketts would own.

People do not get the fact Ricketts is just trying to make a boat load of money and does not care about the Cubs winning at all. If get gets to be King of Wrigleyville he will be making money hand over fist. Why you think Warren Buffet is buying shares of the Cubs.... Its not for the Cubs to win a WS.

Ricketts is terrible for Chicago, The Cubs, The Fans, and Baseball
 
OakRaiders said:
I am not sure I a going to buy this. The Cubs have one thing other teams don't and that is revenue and money! Players will go to Chicago I've never heard of Chicago losing out to the D-Backs because of facilities... If you can find examples I will listen.

This came from the forbs mag article this month explaining how much money the Cubs make and how much more they will make in the future. http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2014/05/08/chicago-cubs-baseballs-next-powerhouse/

Wrigley upgrades would be around $300 million and the cost of putting hotel and stores outside the ballpark would be about $200 million

The structural fixed to the Club house and Club house expanion could be done for probably $150 Million. The rest of this dang argument for $350 Million is about hotels, Signs, Restarunts, Parking Ramps, Bars all of which Ricketts would own.

People do not get the fact Ricketts is just trying to make a boat load of money and does not care about the Cubs winning at all. If get gets to be King of Wrigleyville he will be making money hand over fist. Why you think Warren Buffet is buying shares of the Cubs.... Its not for the Cubs to win a WS.

Ricketts is terrible for Chicago, The Cubs, The Fans, and Baseball
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then root for a different team. He's the owner and I doubt he's going to fire himself anytime soon.
 
OakRaiders said:
I am not sure I a going to buy this. The Cubs have one thing other teams don't and that is revenue and money! Players will go to Chicago I've never heard of Chicago losing out to the D-Backs because of facilities... If you can find examples I will listen.

This came from the forbs mag article this month explaining how much money the Cubs make and how much more they will make in the future. http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2014/05/08/chicago-cubs-baseballs-next-powerhouse/

Wrigley upgrades would be around $300 million and the cost of putting hotel and stores outside the ballpark would be about $200 million

The structural fixed to the Club house and Club house expanion could be done for probably $150 Million. The rest of this dang argument for $350 Million is about hotels, Signs, Restarunts, Parking Ramps, Bars all of which Ricketts would own.

People do not get the fact Ricketts is just trying to make a boat load of money and does not care about the Cubs winning at all. If get gets to be King of Wrigleyville he will be making money hand over fist. Why you think Warren Buffet is buying shares of the Cubs.... Its not for the Cubs to win a WS.

Ricketts is terrible for Chicago, The Cubs, The Fans, and Baseball
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As for the first statement in bold, I'm not going to spend all day scouring the internet for links, but I know I have read about this issue time and time again. Bleacher Nation has had a lot of good articles about it the past year or two. But here's one quick link:

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/base...uilding-efforts-players-say.html#.U39Za_ldVUU

I'm sure Villanueva isn't the only player in the league that would prefer to play for a club that has better facilities. Nobody can tell me that modern facilities won't help to attract better free agents. You want Theo & Jed to spend more money? This will make it easier to attract players worth spending money on.

As for the second bolded statement, I'm not sure there's any evidence to support this. Yeah, obviously, Ricketts is going to try to profit by owning the Cubs, but show me an owner that doesn't want to make a profit. Who cares. Just because he wants to make a profit doesn't mean he doesn't care about winning. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Now if Ricketts doesn't take this extra revenue that is supposed to result from the renovations and put it back into the team (more payroll) then I'll start to agree with you that Ricketts is simply trying to cash in, and nothing more. Until then.. I'm gonna give it a chance.

I get that the current payroll is low, but with a $500M renovation coming, is there also money for a $200M+ payroll on top of that? From what I've read, the renovation is being paid for with private funds. I'm not that privy to the details of exactly how it is being financed, but if this means that Ricketts is paying for this out of pocket, then it's not surprising that the front office is holding off on big time spending until the reno is done, and the revenue starts to tumble in.

Yeah, I'm just an armchair Cubs fan and don't follow some of these details all THAT closely, but that's the way I look at this whole thing. But yeah, eventually, as a fan, I'm going to want to see the front office investing some money in players.
 
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GoHawks24 said:
I am torn as I can see both sides. I know the renovations need to get done. The place is so historic, but at the same time it's a dump.

On one hand, I understand the strategy of building up the franchise from the base, but on the other hand, is he just trying to put as many butts in the seats as possible while profiting what he can? Or is really interested in winning a championship? I guess only time will tell. It's been pretty frickin' miserable lately though. :(
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Agree totally. Only time will tell for sure what Ricketts really wants to do, and yes, the last few years have sucked big time. I have little interest in watching the games until the Cubs become at least remotely competitive.

But I guess the way I see it, is if Ricketts isn't interested in winning, then why the need to go out and lure Theo Epstein away from the Red Sox? You could have continued to lose with Hendry at the helm.
 
My biggest issue here is how Ricketts is linking his ability to put a competitive baseball team on the field with real estate interests in the Wrigleyville area. If he were just persuing a clubhouse upgrade this could have been already paid for and done. But because this involes all these other real estate ventures the ball club and the fans are the ones who suffer. What other ball club is not spending money because they want to build a hotel accross the street???

As a Raiders fan I can deal with poor ownership but this guy seems to have little regard for Cubs fans at this current juncture.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
Agree totally. Only time will tell for sure what Ricketts really wants to do, and yes, the last few years have sucked big time. I have little interest in watching the games until the Cubs become at least remotely competitive.

But I guess the way I see it, is if Ricketts isn't interested in winning, then why the need to go out and lure Theo Epstein away from the Red Sox? You could have continued to lose with Hendry at the helm.
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To keep the dogs at bay. He knows people were fed up with Hendry and his terrible decisions, so bring in Epstein to create the illusion that you're actually trying to win, but instead of forking out the huge payroll, just pay him a few million per year.
 
GoHawks24 said:
To keep the dogs at bay. He knows people were fed up with Hendry and his terrible decisions, so bring in Epstein to create the illusion that you're actually trying to win, but instead of forking out the huge payroll, just pay him a few million per year.
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Fair points by both you & Raiders. Guess that's possible, but I guess we won't know the real answer for a while, so all we can really do is see what things look like in a couple years.

Things don't look good now.. No way to argue that. But if Ricketts, Theo & Jed put together a winner a few years from now, then everyone will be singing a different tune.
 
If these guys are so damn smart, why can't they put a (at least) competitive team on the field now while waiting for the kiddie corps to develop? This shouldn't be an either/or proposition. They may be excellent judges of talent in young players (that remains to be seen), but their judgement on signing major league players has been suspect at best.
 
Gordon Wittenmayer of the Suntimes has explored the Cubs approach in depth, and he is a fierce critic of the Ricketts and Theo.

The way the sale from Zell to Ricketts was structured, it left the Cubs with huge debt, which does restrict them from enlarging payroll beyond a certain level, based on covenants in MLB ownership. Zell kind of took Ricketts to the cleaners on the deal, but as is the case in this America....even dumb rich guys get even richer. Ricketts asset has appreciated from 800 million to at least 1.5 billion in 5 years....so they will be ok.

I am a Sox fan, but I still get the Theo plan, but glad I do not have to endure the 5-6 years of pain to get there.
I think by 2018 the Cubs will be contending...but the next 3 years of losing will hurt the fans. Theo wants to get the next 3 top picks by losing more than 100 games the next three years....it could be worth it in the long run..if they pick the right guys.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
Fair points by both you & Raiders. Guess that's possible, but I guess we won't know the real answer for a while, so all we can really do is see what things look like in a couple years.

Things don't look good now.. No way to argue that. But if Ricketts, Theo & Jed put together a winner a few years from now, then everyone will be singing a different tune.
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Oh, I totally agree with you. I wasn't saying that is what they're trying to do purposefully, just providing a possible explanation.

I've already been waiting years for a contender, so what's a few more, right?
 
GoHawks24 said:
Oh, I totally agree with you. I wasn't saying that is what they're trying to do purposefully, just providing a possible explanation.

I've already been waiting years for a contender, so what's a few more, right?
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Thanks for clarifying, but that's way I interpreted your post. :)

Yeah, I'm 37 years old and there have only been a handful of Cubs teams in my lifetime that have been very good at all, so if it takes until 2017 for them to get this thing built, and they're perennial contenders after that, then that's something I can live with. But in the meantime, believe me, I feel everyone else's pain. Seeing the Cubs in the cellar every year is no fun.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
Thanks for clarifying, but that's way I interpreted your post. :)

Yeah, I'm 37 years old and there have only been a handful of Cubs teams in my lifetime that have been very good at all, so if it takes until 2017 for them to get this thing built, and they're perennial contenders after that, then that's something I can live with. But in the meantime, believe me, I feel everyone else's pain. Seeing the Cubs in the cellar every year is no fun.
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I believe that if Manny Ramirez hadn't been totally 'roided out back in '09 that we would've won that series and had a shot in the World Series. That bastard, hate him.
 
to the people who want the cubs spending a lot more, right now ...

this team is not a contender with 1,2, or 5 extra high-priced free agents, but they have improved the system. That's not my judgement, that's what I read everywhere, by people who study such things for a living. So if I was an owner, why would I spend an extra $50 Million dollars this year to turn a 60-70 win team into a 70-80 win team? If you don't make the playoffs, it doesn't matter how many games you won, all the loser teams are equally out the door. That $50 Million could have been spent more wisely on anything else, really.
 
according to "back to the future 2, 2015" is their year. of course in that movie flying cars, hover boards and accurate weather prediction are all invented as well. all those things will happen before the cubs win a world series.
 
I am also pumped for Jeff.

As for the folks saying the Cubs shoudl spend money else where. The Cubs needs to make a smaller hedge to their on field product. Their baseball portfolio right now is all banking on the farm. An injury here or somthing there and it could really derail the train another 4 years in Cubs time.

That is my fear.
 
thejumper5 said:
Manny Ramirez has signed to be a player-coach for the I-Cubs. It'll be interesting to see what kind of influence he has over the young talent in the minor league system.

[FONT=klavika_medium]Ramirez returns to baseball with I-Cubs[/FONT]
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There was debate about this on the radio in Des Moines this morning. The hosts both felt it was a move with all risk and no reward. I disagree. The guy is different, but he could hit. Maybe some of these younger players look up to him and maybe he can help them. If not, oh well, send him on his way. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of risk to me. What's the worse that can happen, Baez disappears into the Sec Taylor Field wall to relieve himself?
 
Speaking of Baez, after a very slow start he is hitting .439 in the last 10 games. Kris Bryant is also tearing up AA Tennessee batting .394 in his last 10 games, .337 on the year with 14 HRs already.
 
GoHawks24 said:
I believe that if Manny Ramirez hadn't been totally 'roided out back in '09 that we would've won that series and had a shot in the World Series. That bastard, hate him.
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Kind of weird how my comment here pretty much immediately preceded him being hired on to the Iowa staff, no?

But seriously, screw him. I still hate him, Cubbie or not.
 
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