Here’s a question: Is this worse than you thought?
Granted, we all knew this season was going to, for lack of a better word, blow. We knew we were going to witness the complete destruction of the Jim Hendry Cubs (thank God) and the rebuilding of the organization from . . well . . . scratch. Before the season even started, we pondered whether or not this team could lose 100 games.
But man, it’s been brutal.
Your team is worse than I thought – whoops, wait a minute, I think another Cub just struck out – and so is your future.
It’s not here yet and won’t be for a long time. Heck, it looks like it’ll be a long time before the Cubs become even a competent major league team.I didn’t say competitive. I certainly didn’t say contender. I said competent, and I said I haven’t seen much that sniffs even that modest level.
As I imagined it, the 2012 season was Theo Epstein getting to know everybody, 2013 was supposed to be the season they finished razing the failures of the last five or so administrations and show some progress, then 2014 was supposed to be a big step up the standings, 2015 at worst.
But now, based on what I’ve seen of players given the chance to show their color and character, all I can say is, “oy.”
On the one had, this article is written by Steve Rosenbloom. On the other, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t occasionally have these very same thoughts. Mostly because of this:
After whacking the farm director and two statheads last week, Epstein fired six scouts Wednesday, and if you need to know why they had to go, just look at the young misery on the field.
No, wait, don’t look. It’ll make you sick or sad, or both.
Of the Cubs-developed talent that Epstein and his bunch have taken over and looked over — and reached for air-sickness bags over — only Jeff Samardzija looks like he can start. The other four spots in the rotation put the “for’’ in forfeit.
Well . . . yeah. Though he is forgetting Matt Garza.
It’s an odd morning when you wake up and find that you kinda sorta “get” where Steve Rosenbloom is coming from. It’s probably going to take me all day to shake off the heebie-jeebies. But it got me thinking. And I hope it will get you talking.
Has this season been worse than you thought it would be? Do you think it’s been worse than Theo thought it would be? Does the current mess in Boston give you pause about Theo? And, most importantly, how far away is a “competitive” season?
Don’t forget Wrigley Talk Friday coming up today at 1 pm CT on Blog Talk Radio.
Cubs and Rockies this afternoon at Wrigley.
The season is about what I expected. The return on the trades Theo made was not.
I saw all this with the Yankees in the 1980′s, the Oakland A’s, and the Angels. It will eventally get better, but it will be ugly. IF ownership is honest with the fans, and woudl cut ticket prices,etc. I think people will still go to Wrigley;if they aren’t and raise prices, people will go away…
It’s interesting you mention ticket prices…because right now that Cubs have another problem…the sorry excuse for a minor league park that we call Wrigley Field. Wrigley must be renovated and it looks more and more likely that the Ricketts family is going to get little assistance to do this. Revenues will likely drop again this season and will probably drop again next season. At some point, this team is going to have a hard time balancing their checkbook. It seems to me that they’ll probably look to keep ticket prices flat, but raising or lowering them will probably result in very little change in revenue. The truth is, lowering ticket prices isn’t going to increase attendance very much. You can get tickets to Cubs game for less than $10 right now on StubHub and people still aren’t going to the games.
The result is that the Ricketts family is going to have to figure out some other streams of revenue. Maybe another advertisement in the outfield similar to the Toyota sign. Maybe naming rights to the ballpark. Maybe a full fledged video board. Who knows.
you and I will always disagree on Wrigley, I’m seriously annoyed/angered that the recent string of owners let the basic view of Wrigley get so bad, there is a lot of building envelope type work that needs to be done
however it sounds to me that you look at Wrigley and see what it is, the old metal and concrete, lack of concessions, deteriorated bathrooms
I see Wrigley as a renovation/rehab/expansion design challenge, there is a way to incorporate most if not all the things that we expect now in a ballpark, without losing the quintessential Wrigleyness that people have enjoyed for nearly a century
but as it is well documented I love old buildings, and new buildings too, but I love exposed structure and architecture without a lot of piecemeal ornamentation (Robert Venturi called this the Duck and Decorated Shed difference, Wrigley is a duck)
but I fear the Ricketts will continue to allow Wrigley to wallow, until a time where they can convince someone to lend them $600 million and build the park out in Bollingbrook or something
oh, and Save Prentice Hospital!
also that was supposed to include that I understand where you’re coming from, I disagree more on the steps that should be taken next
1. I’ll honestly say that this team isn’t nearly as good as I had expected. Simply, Castro did not continue to develop as I had hoped. I expect Soto to hit better than he did. LaHair was a disappointment. I also didn’t expect Ian Stewart and Marlon Byrd to be as bad as they were. David DeJesus was the only player that had really exceeded expectations for me, everyone else either met or performed below expectations. Looking at it, though, those expectations were probably too high in the first place. I over estimated some of the talent on this team.
2. I think Theo saw what he had in spring training and had a pretty good idea going into the season that this was going to be a 100 loss team.
3. I look at the current situation in Boston and it seems to me that most of the problems they have been having are due to ownership’s meddling into the operations of the team. Ownership pushed for Carl Crawford. Ownership fired Tito. Ownership hired Bobby V. Theo saw what was happening. Ownership saw this team miss the playoffs for 2 straight years and they felt they needed to get involved and they increasingly did over the last few years and Theo couldn’t wait to get out. Tom Ricketts appears to be letting Theo do what he wants right now (except for the Kerry Wood contract)…and I have confidence that Theo can make this team competitive again.
This is the painful question. Next year is going to be pretty damn bad too. Rizzo and Castro appear to be legit everyday players. Jackson probably needs another year…but if he can’t get his strikeouts under control, he’s going to be a bust. I think Vitters will likely become an outfielder, but the Cubs really have no need for that, so I think they will be looking to trade him. That leaves a lot of holes in the field. The bigger problem, though, is the pitching staff. The Cubs have Matt Garza. That’s it. Samardzija might work out at some point…we’ll see if he can put together back to back decent seasons. The Cubs have no real bullpen unless they can get Marmol’s mechanics more consistent. Simply put, this team is along ways away. I think once you start seeing, at the major league level, some of the players that were drafted and signed this past year, this team will then be able to make a push for the playoffs. Unfortunately, that’s probably a ways out. 2015 seams reasonable. And the next two years are going to continue to be painful.
The bigger issue is if the Cubs are a 90 to 95 loss team the next two season, are fans going to start screaming for Theo’s head?
I think more likely the screams will be for Dale. Theo communicates well with the media,etc. He has already said about this being aweful. Dale is not a strong enough personality to survive this process-his comments show that. They need for better or worse, I personality like Lasorda:loud,positive,selling the Cubs brand 24/7. When Lasorda managed,you knew who was in charge,right or wrong. Dale is like the sub teacher in high school;pleasant enough to leave alone, not enough personality to pay attention to…
I don’t believe a Lasorda type of manager would work well on a rebuilding team with today’s players. Sveum has one quality that is needed…he has the ear of the young players. He doesn’t appear to have the overall baseball instincts or the media handling skills needed for this job. It is interesting because those skills were specifically being tested in the interview process. That makes me think that Maddux was indeed the #1 choice.
That’s my point- at this stage, the manager/management needs to communicate with fans,etc. just as much as the team. If the manager tells the players what they want to hear, and the team loses 9 out of 10 games, the players may be satisfied but the fans will not. The Angel’s manager is facing media calls to step down for this very reason…
Early this year I said that I thought this was a .500 team even in a rebuilding season.
Stewart, Voglebum, LaHair, and the entire bullpen were a bust.
Initially the starting rotation looked competitive. I see now that Theo was buying minor leaguers by signing good players then trading them for prospects. Good plan.
It will take 2 years to evaluate the trades that have been made. From the recent scout firings, it appears that certain voices gave the team some bad advice. That weeding out process to shed these types is gonna take time. You HAVE to trust your people when making deals.
I like what I have seen fom Theo and company. If I see the minor league managers and coaches shaken up this winter like the scouting system has this week I will be very happy. I’m tired of seeing guys come to the bigs unprepared and un-taught. I look for a least 10 new managers/pitching coaches in the minors this winter.
To sum up, I’d hoped it would be better, but I can understand why it is not.
the record is about where I expected it to be, but the team is much more painful to watch than I thought, I expected growing pains, but not this much
the Boston situation can’t be blamed on Theo, or really Ben Cherrington, there were more injuries than seems normal,they fired the conditioning coach last year, and the ownership there is delusional (sure that was a sellout last night, uh huh, if you say so) and I don’t see next season getting better for them.
but then I don’t see next season getting better for the Cubs
This is our triage season. So we get that the farm system is a few years off from producing. This is where we use cast-offs to plug holes at the MLB and AAA level.
I trust that the brain trust realizes they only get one 5th place finish in the central before we really are the worst team in the division. Not saying we’re gonna win it all next year, but a buch of one year contracts for non-tenders and aging Vets with some gas left in the tank is gonna be needed and affordable while the team and stadium get rebuilt.
Don’t hold your breath on the stadium rebuild…
Have there been any hearings,reports,etc. on a new stadium? I mean Illinois is not CA, where it can take 100 years to build a freeway due to NIMBYs,etc…
This is not what I expected by a million miles but after what has transpired I certainly am not surprised that the season has turned out as such. And I don’t see it getting better any time soon.
Building a nucleus of such a young team with the hope a majority will excel as a group happens rarely.
The Big Red Machine,the Dodger(gag) infield of Garvey, Lopes, Russell, Cey. Oakland when they won 3 WS titles, these don’t happen as a rule and certainly not often.
We need a mixture of young, veteran, and occasional big-time free agent, and even this can be a crapshoot, but I would certainly be a little more hopeful of positive results.
We have fallen on lean times recently but we can’t look at the last 10 to 12 years as a failure just because we haven’t won the WS.
It is a bitterly fine line to define being competitive and making the playoffs to not winning the WS as failure.To a Cub fan it’s painful no doubt especially to those of us who are seeing the Grim Reaper gaining on us every year.
Getting swept the last 2 times we made the playoffs was agony but we can rest assured that won’t happen again in the near future.
But I still will ALWAYS LOVE THE CUBS. GO CUBBIES!
Honestly, this is where I expected the season to be. Sign some vets, hope they pan out and flip them for prospects. The cupboard was bare when Theo got here and it is going to take a while to fill it. I took to saying “Wait until 2015!” back in May, when anyone asked me about the Cubs, and it certainly looks realistic. I just hope Ricketts is patient enough with Theo to keep the plan in place.
A friend tweeted me saying “What happened with Theo? Curse 1, Theo 0″ (he’s a yankees fan, doesn’t know the meaning of patience). I have faith in this plan, and I think the regime will do good to make this team not only competitive before the 5 year contract is up, but keep them that way long after they have left. The Cubs have been historically behind the curve (see: farm system, night games) and I think this is just a painful first (and second, and third) steps to ultimately being yearly contenders. If this is the road to that rather than random appearances in the playoffs followed by 3-10 crappy seasons, then I will gladly stay on it til the sun rises for our beloved North Siders.