What’s worse than being a Cubs fan with a World Series addiction? How about being a Looney Tunes fan with a hankering for new movies. Today we heard reports Warner Bros. is shelving straight-up deleting the no-longer-forthcoming film Coyote Vs. ACME. Nostalgia? Joy? Hope? Heartbreak? Pursuit of the incessantly elusive prize? Delete it all, say the lucre-sucking suits. Sorry, fans, there’s just not enough money in it.
If it feels familiar to watch billionaires back away from the negotiating table with a “too rich for my blood” sigh, if scrapping a perfectly good plan to save a couple* bucks gives you a nasty case of déjà vu, if you’re tired of, you know, endless greed and late-stage capitalism and the deterioration of all that is good and beautiful in favor of long-term investments in fascism and stuff . . . SORRY, you’re in the wrong news cycle.
After the Cubs greeted the dawn of the offseason by snagging Craig Counsell like a ravenous early bird, they’ve taken more of the procrastinating worm approach to surviving the big-ticket free agent market. Notable Boras clients Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Jordan Montgomery, and reigning NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell are heretofore unemployed. I don’t know that anyone is completely surprised by this; Boras is pretty notorious for holding out as long as necessary for the biggest deal possible.
It’s time to sign Bellinger
But the Cubs are still . . . not good. I know Jed and any MLB front office person loves to find value. Anyone can just pay a ton of money to the obvious free agents, but where’s the fun in that? Well, the fun is in watching good baseball. I would like to watch good players play good baseball. I care more about that than watching GMs make shrewd business decisions to free up cash for super PAC spending sprees. If all the Cubs ever do is get great deals on undervalued players, the endgame becomes paying our favorite players as little as possible.
Is this really what we want? What’s the use in steering clear of an albatross contract like Jason Heyward’s if Jed is going to keep shopping at flea markets and Big Lots anyway? Look, I’m all for finding value. I’m all for keeping an eye to the future. I’m a huge fans of great deals when you can get them. But guess what? There are no more great deals to be had. It’s the last minute. It’s peak season. The police auction is over. Our plane to spring training is about to take off, so it’s time to bite the bullet and pay airport prices for everything we need.
Mr. Right Now
The big coup to get Counsell made it feel like the Cubs were desperate, but as fast as the Cubs had to act to make it happen, that move didn’t really indicate an urgency about 2024. Upgrading at manager is a long-term, improve-the-baseline maneuver. Upgrading the farm system is too. I love what the Cubs have done to put a framework in place that gives them a really high floor moving forward.
But right now, the Cubs can’t be picky about their 2024 upgrades. We can have super high hopes for what the Cubs top prospects might accomplish this season, but the floor for this season (let’s call it The Twenty-Twenty-Floor . . . or not, I can’t tell you what to do) is still awfully low. If they make no significant moves, this team could easily wind up in the 90-loss wilderness. That’s absolutely unacceptable. I’ll take a handful of bad contracts before I put up with another bad season. This team is too rich to fail that badly.
Just do it, Jed Hoyer. Get Bellinger. Get Chapman. Make this team the defensive juggernaut you know it can be. Bargain season is over. Boras season has begun. Pitchers and catchers are about to report; now it’s time to let Passan and Rosenthal report as well.
*hundred million
