tom ricketts – Page 6 – Obstructed View

Cubs Asking For Public Funding to Fix Wrigley: Take Two

I think I’ve seen this episode before. It’s the one where Jack and Chrissy ask a bankrupt Mr. Roper if they can not pay their rent for a few years while they spend the money on renovating their bathroom. Then Janet and Mrs. Roper overhear part of the plot when Jack tells Larry about the scheme down at the Regal Beagle and hilarity ensues. Or something like that.

We knew it would only be a matter of time before the Cubs went back to the government to get public funding for their Wrigley Field renovation project. Anyone who thought the Ricketts would settle for either not doing the renovations or paying for it out of their own money after the last disastrous public funding attempt is stupefyingly naive or new to this planet.

Greg Hinz at Crain’s Chicago Business is reporting that Tom Ricketts has been talking with new Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel about various scenarios involving public money and Rahm has at least been keeping an open mind about the possibilities:

Sources close to the matter say that team chief Tom Ricketts in recent weeks has met with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other government officials about a funding scheme that could be put before state lawmakers as soon as the Legislature’s fall veto session.

According to sources, the plan envisions as much as $200 million in public help for a $400-million rebuild of Wrigley, with officials given a menu of potential funding options to get the needed cash.

“Rahm’s people have been much more interested than Daley’s were,” said one inside source, referring to the current mayor and former one, Richard M. Daley, who blocked an earlier plan that would have allowed the team to pocket increased tax receipts from an expanded Wrigley complex.

So this seems like basically the same plot as before, except this time, he’s going to the Mayor instead of Michael Madigan to cook up the new scheme. That’s fine, but a little free advice to Tommy-boy: You may want to loop the Governor in this time. He wasn’t so happy when you tried to backdoor him with the schemes last time, remember?

“Apparently, they don’t think I’m as important as some others,” [Governor] Quinn said. “I am important in this matter because I’m goalie for the people of Illinois to make sure they get their top priorities addressed.”

The governor added: “These are private owners of a baseball team. They spent almost $1 billion buying it. They knew what they were buying. To be coming to the people of Illinois for assistance now after an election isn’t a top priority… If they wanted this to happen, they should have talked about it before the election — not after.”

So besides trying a little harder to get his ducks in a row behind the scenes before running off to blab to the season ticket holders about his plan, I don’t see much different from the last time other than that the current Mayor is now not steadfastly against the plan. Hinz insinuates that part of the the reason may be the two mayors’ different team allegiances.

It probably also doesn’t hurt that, unlike Sox fan Mr. Daley, that Mr. Emanuel is a long-time Cubs fan who lives less than a mile from the ballpark.

This has been a rumor I have long heard and it seems to have taken form as a fact. However, I’ve talked to people who have worked with Daley and Daley’s people, and they have always told me that they believe Daley’s problem with the Cubs was never that he was a Sox fan. His problem with them was that they were owned by the Tribune. Messing around with the Cubs screwed with the Tribune and that was a more politically acceptable way to get retribution against a paper that wasn’t always kind to him. Who knows where the truth lies, but I thought it was interesting that Crain’s included that bit.

More importantly, I think we might have a bit of an idea of what Tom Ricketts will be talking about when he addresses the State of the Cubs in the near future.

Folks who were hoping that it would be Tom Ricketts showing Jim Hendry the door can probably start preparing to be disappointed. Bruce Miles outlines why he believes Hendry isn’t going anywhere, and I tend to agree with him:

All that speculation aside, some things are just not adding up from the perspective that Hendry is not staying, and events of this week further drive that point home for me.

Hendry is the man who supervises baseball operations, and his scouting director, Tim Wilken, just reeled in a haul of draft picks worth about $12 million.

On top of that, Hendry helped to negotiate some, if not all, of the bigger deals to get these kids to sign with the Cubs.

Is Ricketts going to turn around now and say, “Thanks for doing that, Jim. Appreciate you restocking the farm system. Now take a hike”?

I have a difficult time believing Ricketts would do that, and if he did, would he be the kind of boss anybody would want to work for?

So even though the announcement of the announcement was enough to get people hoping, I don’t think we can assume that there will be some sort of major baseball operations shakeup simply because this future statement has been announced. There are now other things to talk about. Like squeezing that $200 million out of a city, county or state treasury that has nothing left inthem to squeeze. It’s sounding more like this will be a statement further slapping themselves on the back for finally approaching a draft like a major league team should and then an update on the Wrigley 2014 plan (or whatever they will call it now).

Hell, as far as we know, they could spend a whole lot of time talking about the troughs in the bathrooms again. For some reason the Ricketts are fascinated by the troughs and what people think of them.

(h/t @Desipiodotcom)

So, as we have seen from this organization numerous times recently, we’ll just have to see what happens.

Continue reading “Cubs Asking For Public Funding to Fix Wrigley: Take Two”

Tom Ricketts and Player Acquisition

Tom Ricketts has been vocal since buying the Cubs about the need to strengthen the minor league system. It’s getting harder to doubt his sincerity given the construction of a new facility in the Dominican Republic, the increased number of overslot draftees in 2011, and the newly competitive nature of the organization in plucking sixteen year-olds out of foreign countries.

But I’m not specifically interested in discussing the Little Ricketts Dominican Achievers (and proud we are of all of them). What has me intrigued is whether his fingerprints are present in the type of player currently being acquired by the Cubs. Take a look at these names:

Marc Sawyer (15)

Bryan Jost (44)

Ryan Keedy (16)

Rebel Ridling (25)

Sean Hoorelbeke (33)

Greg Rohan (21)

Justin Bour (25)

Andrew Clark (31) – unsigned

Ryan Cuneo (20)

Karsten Strieby (30) – unsigned

Benito Santiago (31) – unsigned

Jacob Rogers (44) – unsigned

That is the complete list of first basemen drafted by the Cubs since Tim Wilken took the helm as fearless draft leader in 2006 up through 2010. Five drafts, twelve first basemen, eight signed, and none picked before the fifteenth round. This is no surprise to anyone who has followed Wilken’s career. He drafts athletes who can move rightward along the defensive spectrum if need be, and the progression from first base is roughly: First Base –> American League –> American Legion Coach.

I do like guys who can hit, and I like up-the-middle guys. Middle guys are usually the best players on the field, so you can move them more easily if the need arises. I know that in Toronto we had 10 of them in instructs (instructional league) one year that went on to play in the big leagues. Some, like Michael Young, Orlando Hudson, and Cesar Izturis, are still there, but others, like Casey Blake, moved to a corner or the outfield.

Of course, Wilken has to follow orders, but the mandate from Hendry seems to have been along the lines of: “Fuck this. You do it.” Wilken’s drafts with the Cubs have not strayed far from his stated philosophy on talent. Cubs fans have learned to expect middle infielders, athletic pitchers and outfielders, and the occasional wide receiver or decathlete. Simply put, first basemen are the opposite of what the Cubs have looked for in a potential draft pick since Wilken took over. So what happened this past June?

Dan Vogelbach (2)

Trevor Gretzky (7)

Paul Hoilman (19)

Roderick Shoulders (25)

That’s four first baseman (three of whom will require overslot money to sign), and two of them in the first seven rounds. It’s certainly possible that Wilken recognized his previous neglect of the position, and decided to make it a priority in 2011. Or perhaps the available prospects were more athletic than in prior years. But just look at this guy:

If DJ Lemahieu stood to his right, they would form a “10.” He moves like a pregnant yak. Not exactly what I would picture as Wilken’s platonic ideal of a first baseman.

I think we have to consider the possibility that Ricketts is subtly steering the scouting department. Carrie Muskat reported that he was present during the draft, and at least influenced the selection of less signable high schoolers. Furthermore, Tom Ricketts was a rich, young financial executive in 2003. That demographic voraciously consumes the Malcolm Gladwell “pop-business” genre like it’s manna from heaven. Is there any chance that Ricketts, who was clearly interested in baseball at the time, didn’t read Moneyball? Now let’s reconsider Dan Vogelbach. Not only is he a poster boy for the “not selling jeans” mantra, he most likely is selling barely-legal pastries from the back of his four wheeler. To me, that pick has “yuppie boss wants a power hitter” written all over it.

It’s not easy to spot a change in draft philosophy, given the variation in available prospects each year. Wilken, in particular, has been all over the map in terms of the typical high school vs. college, and pitcher vs. hitter tendencies. I bring up first basemen because it seems his one obvious avoidance prior to this year.

Of course, all of this is more speculative than forensic, at least until an enterprising beat reporter decides to investigate. Moreover, whether or not a scouting course correction would be good for the franchise is a matter for debate. From where I sit, the minor league system is teeming with mediocrity, and a shift in philosophy would be welcomed. However, Wilken maintains a fair number of defenders even on this blog. At the very least, it’s an encouraging sign for those of us who are desperate for both middle of the order prospects and any sign of leadership within the new regime.

Continue reading “Tom Ricketts and Player Acquisition”

Some thoughts on the so-called team meetings

On Saturday Tim explained how silly the Cubs are, but I came to a much different conclusion than he did after reading the same thing. Let me start with just quoting some of the same things Tim did.

General manager Jim Hendry and assistant GM Randy Bush will preside over the two days of meetings. Hendry’s objective will be to give the scouts direction as the team looks to acquire new players or move some off the present 25-man roster.

I’m not even sure why such a meeting is news. Every single organization in baseball is having the same meeting. We’re approaching the mont of July and teams need to start figuring out if they’re buyers or sellers. You don’t necessarily have to be one or the other. You could be both as we’ve seen some teams do over the years. I’m not sure the Cubs are in a position to do it. They would have been after 2009, but now it’s just going to be too difficult to accomplish, but that’s not really the point.

I’m sure fans immediately thought fire sale when they read this comment, which is exactly what the media wanted us to think. I couldn’t help but think why this was even news.

I want to break the next quote into two quotes.

“In other words, don’t believe all the hype surrounding the front-office meetings next week involving top scouts and baseball brass.

There it is. The media made a big deal about nothing. If the media told us about every single meeting the Cubs executives and scouts have it would be the most boring topic on the planet. No idea at all why we even heard about this one. The meeting was nothing from the start. It was never going to be anything close to what some in the media speculated. The media tried to create a story about a meeting that takes place on a regular basis and one that all teams have.

“It’s not as complicated as people would think,” general manager Jim Hendry said. “You want to get healthy. You want Marlon [Byrd] to come back [from the disabled list], and [Darwin] Barney, and let Mike manage a club that looks a little more like the one we broke camp with, and see how we play for a while.”

Tim head-desked this one, but I don’t see anything wrong with that statement. Every GM wants to see his team healthy and the manager have a chance to manage the team they thought they had entering the season. Furthermore, every GM wants his players to get healthy so he has a better idea of what he can and cannot trade in the next month plus. He wants Marlon Byrd back for two reasons: he’s better than what the Cubs have been trotting out there and if he proves he’s healthy he’s worth a decent prospect in a trade.

Also, and you may not like this, it gives the club an idea of what they have entering next season. Do they play well enough that they think they can add some pieces? We’re mostly in agreement that they don’t, but that’s a decision they have to reach themselves and they aren’t going to do it with Marlon Byrd on the disabled list. In fact, having Marlon Byrd on the DL makes it less likely the Cubs are sellers because that’s one of their major contributors that’s been out of the lineup for a long time now. As long as there are a number of injuries the team can always say that they’d have played better were it not for the injuries and they’re 100% correct. How much better? This was a .500 team at best entering the season so there you go.

Now I’m going to quote something Tim said because I don’t think I was clear enough a few weeks ago when I wrote the article about team presidents.

It started with Ricketts giving that little talk about how he doesn’t need a baseball guy watching his baseball guy, which I know MB liked, but I don’t think he meant it how MB took it. He wasn’t saying, “I’m not going to limit the pool of people from which I pick the next leader of the Cubs baseball operations.” He was saying, “I have my leader of Cubs baseball operations right here and I’m not going to bring in anyone to oversee him, overrule him, or otherwise deter him from his plan.”

I definitely liked it. Here’s why: look at the New York Yankees front office. You have five Steinbrenners at the top ranging from principal owner and chairperson (George Steinbrenner). That’s interesting in itself since the man is dead. The Yankees have a dead man owning their team. Can you imagine how much fun we’d have if the Cubs had a dead man who owned the Cubs? That would be so Cub-like. After George you have Hal, Henry, Jennifer Steinbrenner Swindal, Jessica Steinbrenner and Joan Steinbrenner. The latter 3 are all vice chairpersons, but the Jennifer and Jessica are also General Partner. Henry is the General Partner and Co-Chairperson while Hal is the Managing General Partner and Co-Chairperson.

After the five Steinbrenners you have Randy Levine who I mentioned recently. He’s the team president. You then have Lonn A. Trost who is the Chief Operating Officer and then Brian Cashman who is the Senior Vice President and General Manager. Neither Trott nor Levine, both attorneys, are involved with baseball related decisions. Those decisions are left to Brian Cashman and at least one of the Steinbrenners.

Now take a look at the Cubs front office. You have Tom Ricketts at the top followed by Pete, Laura and Todd Ricketts. The Tribune Company serves as a Board of Directors along with the latter three Ricketts and then Crane Kenny is the team President.

Kenney is no longer involved in baseball related decisions. Those decisions, exactly like the New York Yankees system, are left to the general manager and at least one member of the owning family.

What I’m saying is that I don’t care who or what they hire to replace Crane Kenney or even if they do replace him. The structure of the Cubs front office is nearly identical to that of the Yankees and they’ve won a million titles. The only way it could be more similar is if the Ricketts family found another member of their family to do whatever the hell it is they all do. The Yankees have five members of the owning family while the Cubs have four. The next person involved with baseball related decisions is the General Manager.

We can’t attack the system the Cubs have setup in the front office without also attacking the same structure that the Yankees have. Does anyone feel like attacking the structure of the greatest franchise in sports history? Yes, I realize sports history ended, but still.

Back to comments that Tim quoted.

“It’s no different than I would tell you a month ago,” he said. “My main objective would be to see how we do by the end of July and also make logical decisions that help the ballclub for next year, too.”

I actually like this comment. Do I trust Hendry to make logical decisions that help the ballclub next season? Probably not, but you can’t advertise your players for sale at the end of June. Have the Astros done it? Have the Royals done it? Has any team in baseball told the baseball world which players they have that are available? For that matter, has any team in baseball ever announced which players they want to trade? If the Cubs said publicly they’re selling all players, they don’t really have a fire sale. They have a garage sale instead because teams aren’t offering maximum value for something someone else is desperately trying to rid themselves of.

The game plan will include going after top prospects and young players from other teams. Three Cubs players — Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano and Aramis Ramirez — with no-trade clauses or 5-and-10 no-trade rights have responded to media inquiries about whether they would accept trades.

This is a quote that I think we all have to read carefully and I realized after reading it two to three times the first time that it was written this way for a specific reason. The first sentence states some game plan about going after top prospects and young players. Keep in mind this so-called game plan is from an unnamed source so we must take it with a grain of salt. Also important, there are two things they are going after: top prospects and young players. More specifically, the best prospects they can get for what they are trading because, well, that’s just how it works.

It’s interesting that the next sentence is written right after the first, because the implication is that those players are going to bring top prospects and young players in return. I can tell you for a fact that the Cubs know they aren’t getting prospects for Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano and Aramis Ramirez. I’m left to think only one thing: Gordo, or whoever it was that wrote it, combined those two sentences for a specific reason.

I don’t think the second sentence has anything to do with the first. I don’t even think they’re connected in any way. There was no quote from even an unnamed source. This was Gordo writing something that would get some hits so you include some popular names that are searched on google. Then you throw in top prospects, young players, trade, no-trade clause, 5-and-10 no-trade rights and accept trade and you’re going to get a shitload of hits over the years simply because you combined so many words that fans are frantically searching during the baseball season in July. It would not surprise me one bit to learn this entire two sentence paragraph was written by someone other than Gordo.

I know from running ACB over the years that popular search hits have to do with trades, rumors, no-trade clause, salary, contract, popular player names and top prospects. That paragraph is written with the specific intention of getting hits from search engines.

For example:

The Cubs of Major League Baseball will trade players like Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano and Alfonso Soriano if a team like the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers or Cardinals are interested. They would want top prospects, preferably ones from the MLB Draft’s first round, which takes place in June, so they would have plenty of service time remaining before they’re eligible for free agency. They might then negotiate a free agent contract for a long-term deal keeping him in Chicago while at the Winter Meetings in December. Along with other young players and/or prospects like Starlin Castro, Brett Jackson, Trey McNutt, Matt Szczur they could win the division by 2013 and be World Series Champions.

Over the next year, that paragraph is going to lead to a lot of hits on Obstructed View. There are two months listed. I’ve named 3 popular Cubs, five of the most popular teams in baseball, talked about several prospects, winning the division, a specified year, the World Series and its champion, the MLB Draft, and free agency. About the only thing I could to get more hits would be to randomly say something like Albert Pujols traded, Pujols signs with Cubs, Barry Bonds and steroids, A-Rod, and of course Brad Fucking Snyder. Or how about the one sentence search engine hit machine?

What does Metta World Peace mean?

You know that shit is going to be searched for along time by a lot of people.

You see, journalists may be bad at their jobs, and beat writers covering baseball may be especially bad, but their articles are filled with popular search terms.

There’s also one additional thing we have to accept as Cubs fans. As baseball fans for that matter. Those who run organizations have two jobs: put butts in the seats and be good. It’s arguable which one is more important to any franchise and a franchise like the Cubs, being good is less important than it is for others. Their goal will always be to put butts in the seats. Winning is secondary. It has been my entire life and will be the rest of my life.

There are a number of things to blame for this. Wrigley takes its share of blame for sure. I don’t care if you like Wrigley or not, but you have to acknowledge that since the Cubs fans love Wrigley so much and would go watch a shitty team there that it’s part of the problem. There’s less incentive for this team to win because they have the attraction of Wrigley Field. The number of fans can be blamed, as well. There are a lot of Cubs fans. As a result, their attendance will always be better than teams with similarly bad records. Chicago is a very large city. There’s obviously a lot to do there, but going to a baseball game is one of them. People who aren’t baseball fans will attend games just so they have something different to do. There are others of course, but those are the three big things as far as I can tell. They all enable the the Cubs to focus almost solely on the bottom line and focus little time and energy on winning baseball games. There’s not much you can do about the size of Chicago or the number of Cubs fans. There’s not a lot you can do about Wrigley at the moment either.

We root for a team that has much less incentive to win that most other franchises. My brother used to tell me when we were kids that the Cubs didn’t want to win a championship. I thought he was full of shit at the time, but I think there is some truth to that. Once the Cubs win a championship, this idea of them being the lovable losers vanishes. They become a team that outspends all but a team or two and we know how much fans enjoy hating those who spend money. I don’t believe the Cubs have been actively trying not to win, but I also don’t believe they’ve cared as much about it as other teams might.

People talk about what the Cubs may lose if they left Wrigley. Well, what might they lose if they actually won a championship? Just as much. If you think Wrigley means as much as some do to the Cubs then you also have to think that continuing to lose is equally important.

Continue reading “Some thoughts on the so-called team meetings”

Replacement for Craney Kenney: Tom Ricketts doesn’t care if it’s a baseball guy and good for him

This comment yesterday from Tom Ricketts has become big news:

“I’ve never bought into the (idea) that I should have a baseball guy to watch my baseball guy and his baseball guys,” Ricketts said. “Then what do you get? A baseball guy to watch the baseball guy who’s watching your baseball guys?

Continue reading “Replacement for Craney Kenney: Tom Ricketts doesn’t care if it’s a baseball guy and good for him”

Phil Rogers is Still Wrong – Because He HAS TO

MB, you ignorant slut.

As someone who has been around the Cubs blogosphere for as long as you have, you should know damn well that Phil Rogers is never right about anything. I’m fairly certain he needs a couple of tries to get his own name right in the byline.

It was disturbing to realize that I was coming down on the same side of things as Steve Rosenbloom when talking about the Cubs’ ownership and administration, but it is wholly unsettling to realize we may also be looking at information before us and coming to the same conclusions as Phil Rogers. That can’t possibly be good for our credibility as the most unrediscredited Cubs blog in existence.

So, given that we know Phil Rogers is always wrong, we have to look and determine how that could be so. Because, as anyone who has ever Wikipedia’d Sherlock Holmes knows, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

We’ve been awfully upset lately about the Ricketts’ apparent disconnection from the issues at hand with the team. We’ve been jumping up and down on him pretty hard for seemingly ignoring the calamity that is unfolding as the season progresses (hence the new banner) and foolishly clinging to the idea that the Cubs, once healthy, are a force to be reckoned with.

We wonder how it could be so. We wonder how any rational human being with two operational brain cells to scrape together could possibly look at this team and this season and possibly be surprised at how it’s going.

Maybe they’re not surprised. Maybe they knew damn well this disaster was a possibility.

We all saw the projections before the season. As much as Jim Hendry scoffs at advanced metrics, he had to be aware of them. Surely someone somewhere in the Cubs office realized this was a 77 win team if things went our way, and would surely be a trainwreck if they went typically Cub-style as the season wore on. We talk about how stupid they are, but they seem to at least be literate people who presumably don’t need to be reminded to inhale and exhale. (Maybe not so much Todd, but he may be the exception that proves the rule.)

So maybe this was semi-expected. Maybe the reason we haven’t gotten votes of confidence on Quade and Hendry is because ownership isn’t panicking over something they foresaw as long ago as we did. Maybe Hendry is being allowed to go on his merry way in the rebuild because they knew all along this was going to be a potential shit storm and it couldn’t be helped.

I’ve talked before about the attendance floor and the buffer zone the waitlist provides allowing the Cubs to do some things that aren’t popular. I’ve always put it in a context of raising ticket prices and basically screwing over the fans in the pursuit of cash, but it works just as well for doing things on the baseball side that are unpopular amongst the common fan. Think about it, Rogers thinks that the Cubs HAVE TO do something soon to offer up a sacrifice to the masses.

Something has to give, and probably soon, even if the calls for an organizational clean sweep have yet to penetrate the clubhouse doors.

Where have we heard that before? Now suddenly we find ourselves on the same side of the argument as Rosenbloom, Rogers, AND Yellon? Holy shit! What bizarro universe is this?

We have to ask ourselves, if the Cubs do not fire anyone and allow the season to go on the way it has, will Al Yellon quit being a season ticket holder? I’d be shocked if he did. And I’d be shocked if most of the thousands of season ticket holders that have stuck with this team through the 80’s and 90’s would jump ship at this point. There will be turnover. There is no getting around it. the attrition might even be higher than the Cubs expected in their worst nightmares, but they do not act like a team that is concerned.

They say they aren’t concerned and none of their actions indicate they are concerned. Even Hendry always seems pretty calm for someone who is supposedly one more lost series away from the unemployment lne:

“People don’t believe me, but I don’t worry about that,” he said when asked if he’s concerned about losing his job. “I’ll leave that up to what (Chairman) Tom Ricketts thinks is best for the club.”

So we are left with two possible conclusions. 1) The Rickettseses don’t give a shit or 2) They saw this coming and are working through their playbook to some endgame that involves the team getting better through Jim Hendry and Crane Kenney.

I am going to throw out the idea that they don’t care. They may not be the kind of Cubs fans that we want them to be, but they do care. You don’t sink $850 million into something during the worst economy since the Great Depression if you don’t care about it. They might not have understood what they were taking on and may have underestimated just HOW bad it was going to get as they ran their playbook, but they have a plan.

I believe that plan involves Jim Hendry and Crane Kenney, and if it involves those two, then it also involves Mike Quade at least through the season. The Cubs don’t HAVE TO do anything drastic to assure that 26,000 seats are sold for every game next year. On the flipside, I also don’t think any additional seats will be sold this year or next year based on who manages this team or who the general manager is. Anyone who abandoned the Cubs over Hendry still having a job isn’t going to come back the minute Hendry is gone. They will wait to see how the next guy does, so there is no short term gain to be had by cleaning house. This leads me to suspect that no meaningless change for change’s sake is imminent.

We can argue about whether the plan the Rickettseses have is any good or if they are actually on the right track, but what I don’t think is likely is a scrapping of that plan when they have no real reason to do so and it hasn’t been allowed to play out as they drew it up. They say their goal is to continue to build up the farm system and spend money more smarter (or something). Well, as MB pointed out, the just concluded draft showed a change from recent Cubs drafting history and if they do manage to sign some of the guys who fell because of perceived signability issues, they might have done a nice job re-stocking the system.

Also, if the Cubs suck this year (and we had every reason to think that was just as possible as contending), they’ll get a nice draft position to further the stockpiling of prospects. The trade for Garza makes less sense if we choose to completely believe their words about building the farm, but it seems far more likely a deviation than one that involves Phil Rogers being right about something.

So I’m going to say that the Cubs stick with the status quo if for no other reason than to not be in agreement with Phil Rogers. He wants the Cubs to go after Ned Coletti, for crying out loud. When looking at the Dodgers and seeing Kim Ng and Ned Coletti side by side, Rogers wants Ned. This is not someone I ever want to agree with on something as basic as pizza toppings.

Continue reading “Phil Rogers is Still Wrong – Because He HAS TO”

The Cubs Are Still In It!

Tim is right: 2011 is not the Cubs’ year. (see also: 1909-2010). But not everybody needs to think that way.

There are two approaches to being a fan (probably more, but I’m concerning this argument about these two alone . . . unless I get so inspired to consider others; I doubt it): thinking like a player and thinking like an owner. One approach tends to be more relentlessly optimistic, while the other stirs up storm clouds of doom and gloom not unlike those delaying today’s Cubs vs. Pirates titanic clash.

I’ll take a look at the latter, more pragmatic (and, at this point, pessimistic) approach first. When you think like an owner, you ask the basic question: “What should the Cubs do?” Another way of phrasing it: If I were the owner, GM, manager of the team, what would I do? Well, I think most of us agree that ownership and management can’t afford to be blind optimists. If it’s your money or your job on the line, you don’t make decisions based on what you hope will happen but instead on what you think will happen based on hard facts and well thought-out philosophies.

If you think like an owner, you look at this Cubs team and realize the writing on the wall is all too easy to read. It’s “Cubs Suck” in bright blue graffiti. You start thinking about how to make the team better. You start thinking about 2012 and beyond. You realize that fighting desperately to compete in 2011 probably runs counter to the team’s best long-term interests.

You realize that cheering for success in 2011 is pointless. If you think like an owner. Nothing wrong with that.

But that same owner (and you probably) expects the players to adopt a completely different attitude. If I’m paying guys many millions of dollars to try to compete on a lost cause of a team, I expect them to try their best each and every time to the plate, each and every pitch, each and every defensive play, and every single game. I expect them to expect to win. Always. Even though I know they’ll more likely to lose, I expect the players I’m paying to embrace some rather unrealistic expectations.

That’s one reason we weigh all performance essentially the same. We don’t value stats accumulated in a pennant race any higher or lower than those put up when the team is out of contention. Players on winning teams are expected to compete as fiercely as they can. Players on crappy teams are expected to compete just as tenaciously. Playing for a championship or playing for pride, athletes aren’t extended any grace based on their circumstances. They’re expected to try to win, no matter how ridiculous that might seem.

Players shouldn’t get discouraged. Players shouldn’t concede. Players should never give up hope, even after mathematics declares hope dead.

Some fans, a lot of fans, take that approach. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Is it stupid? Let me say this as plainly as I can: there is nothing intelligent about being a Cubs fan. There’s nothing intelligent about being a sports fan of any kind. We do this for fun. Sometimes being a Cubs fan is fun. It’s rarely, if ever, smart.

So I don’t begrudge anyone who takes the die-hard approach of a player on the team. Go ahead and describe yourself as a member of the team. Invoke the collective we. We need to keep trying. We need to rally. We need to do whatever we can to win and win now. Fine. I like people who think that way. It’s an admirable quality in a fan, a teammate, or a friend.

If you’re a fan who thinks like a player and approaches every game as a new opportunity to try to win, who believes that every year has a chance to be the year, and who cheers as loud as your vocal chords will allow at the slightest sign of positive progress, I applaud you. (I might not want to hear you pontificate on why your approach is superior, but I applaud you nonetheless.)

So go ahead and keep hope alive. Tell all the haters and naysayers to embrace love and say, “Yeah,” and enjoy every minute of it if you can. There’s nothing wrong with thinking like a player when you’re a fan.

Unless, of course, you’re a fan who actually happens to be the owner.

Continue reading “The Cubs Are Still In It!”

Besides That, Cubs Fans, How Have You Enjoyed the Ricketts Era?

The Ricketts showed up last year at the Cubs Convention to a hero’s welcome. If the crowds could have somehow gotten ahold of some rose petals or palm fronds to throw at their feet, they surely would have. Finally! The reign of the Tribune had come to an end! Long live the Ricketts Family!!!

They talked about how they were planning on owning the Cubs for a very long time. (Cheers.) They talked about the beauty of Wrigley Field. (Cheers.) They talked about building an organization that regularly made the playoffs through developing homegrown players and smart spending. (Wild cheers.) Finally, they talked about winning a World Series for the great fans of Chicago. (Thunderous ovation.)

At the time, Cubs fans were in love with the Ricketts and so were most of the media. Right after they finally assumed control of the team in October 2009 they started talking almost immediately about how ticket prices would be going up and the payroll would be staying flat. But that didn’t matter, they weren’t the Tribune and they had a honeymoon period where pretty much everything they said was taken at face value and anything we maybe didn’t like was part of a grand plan to improve the team.

I never understood how that could be possible in a city like Chicago where lying and overt misdirection of the press is practically an Olympic sport amongst politicians. I couldn’t comprehend how that was possible from someone who was so obviously communicating in that meaningless corporate-speak that flowers up almost any dreadful pronouncement with non-sensical lingo and buzzwords that sound positive: “Mrs. Lincoln, your husband experienced a slight interruption of his cranial capacities when an unforeseen ammunition emission dynamically impacted on a neural trajectory. We are really working outside-the-box to conceptualize a holistic method to successfully optimize a return of his infrastructural synergies to his occipital area instead of all over the floor. Besides that, how was the play?”

But that was pretty much how it went. The Ricketts would say, “We are dedicated to building up the farm system!” and so it would be. They would insist that the Cubs were only a couple of transactions away from contention, and by golly, so they were! They would talk about providing plenty of cheaper seat options for families and suddenly they were really in touch with the needs of Cubs-loving families. Or at least, that is how it would usually be reported.

But things sure are changing here on Waltons mountain. The word of the Ricketts doesn’t seem to carry the weight it once did with the fans, and now the writers are starting to catch on too.

Bruce Miles wrote today that the Cubs could very well go 0 for the current roadtrip and pretty much states that he has no indication that such a disastrous occurrence for the state of the Cubs season would result in any changes from the top.

Truth be told, I’m sure Ricketts will keep his feet moving quickly when and if he sees the beat writers, whose questions he never likes to answer.

and

Ricketts has shown no sign of wanting to let Hendry go. The owner seems to be putting his faith in Tim Wilken’s drafts and Oneri Fleita’s player development and counting the days until the likes of Brett Jackson, Trey McNutt, Jae-Hoon Ha, Rob Whitenack, Matt Szczur, Ryan Flaherty and others are ready to move up.

It sounds like Bruce has some follow-up questions he’d like to ask if Tommy gives him the chance. Maybe he should put on a disguise and pretend he’s a tourist who wants an autograph.

Meanwhile, and I can’t even believe this is possible, Steve Rosenbloom actually manages to hit the nail on the head repeatedly today:

Ricketts has been a disaster since about his second day of this hobby. He apparently doesn’t realize it. He apparently doesn’t realize that he is one of the big reasons Cubs fans have death-spiraled into something once unimaginable: apathy.

Cubs fans don’t care enough to use tickets they already purchased. Other Cubs fans don’t care enough to spend as little as a buck or 50 cents for a ticket on a swap site. It has reached such embarrassing proportions that the Cubs have resorted to something else once unimaginable: discounted beer in the bleachers.

The fan who bought the franchise from the corporation has turned off the fans. Can we get some big red shoes and big red noses for the owner’s suite?

The Cubs have a roster of mismatched parts because of mismanagement. Last offseason, Ricketts told fans he would shift money from payroll to scouting and development, and then his general manager traded three of his top prospects for a pitcher who could cost this fifth-place team $15 million this year and next.

But even though some of the media members have started noticing the smoke and mirrors that the Ricketts have been using all along, they are going to keep running the same play until someone can pin them down and start asking tough follow-ups.

For instance, Ed Sherman followed up his piece where Ricketts blamed attendance woes on bad weather and whiny lower-income Cubs fans with a piece where Tom insists again that the Cubs are trying to build their team through the farm system.

“From a team perspective, it’s about reinforcing the fact that development of players matters,” Mr. Ricketts said. “You visit with the young players and tell them, ‘Hope to see you in Wrigley soon.’ You see the managers and coaches and say, ‘What you guys are doing is critical to us. Keep it up.’

So that’s what the Cubs have been doing wrong all these 102 years? The owners haven’t hauled their cookies to Iowa and Peoria and whatever backwater burghs the minor league affiliates have ever been located to give the players and managers there an “attaboy?” That’s why Corey Patterson sucked? That’s why Mike Harkey sucked? I wonder why Hayden Simpson sucks. Maybe he missed Tommy’s visit when he was off looking for his 10 mph of lost velocity.

“On the business side, it sends a good message for the whole organization.”

What message is that? “You guys here on the major league roster suck and I can’t wait to get rid of you, now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to go give some blowies to all those hard working prospects down there so they know we care about them.”

“You’ve got to walk the walk,” Mr. Ricketts said. “When you’re trying to build an organization through the farm system, you’ve got to get down there. If you don’t develop players, you’re behind the 8-ball.”

I’m actually shocked he didn’t work the phrases, “It is what it is,” “All things being equal,” or “At the end of the day” into that somewhere. But if you cut through the mumbo-jumbo, he seems to be saying the youth shall be the answer to our long-term problems.

Meanwhile the fans, and hopefully more of the media will finally notice that Tyler Colvin was sent down to the minors, Brett Jackson isn’t anywhere on the horizon, we traded away valuable depth in the organization to acquire a pitcher heading into his most expensive years, Koyie Hill is now getting regular playing time, and the entire roster seems to have had it’s extra-base capabilities sucked away by the ravages of time. Perhaps some follow-ups may be coming soon. I won’t hold my breath, but I’m certainly more hopeful about that than I am about the Cubs ever reaching the .500 mark again this season.

Continue reading “Besides That, Cubs Fans, How Have You Enjoyed the Ricketts Era?”

(Not) Tom Ricketts Clarifies Statements on Attendance

I was a little confused this morning when I read Ed Sherman’s interview with Tom Ricketts. In it, Ricketts said that the Cubs’ meagre attendance numbers had more to do with the soggy weather than the crappy baseball.

When you play most of your home games in 45 degrees and it’s wet, I’m sorry, I can understand why some people don’t want to come out. That’s been the driver here. Once we get some spring weather, people will want to be at the park.

This struck me as either incredibly naive or intentionally evasive, but I wanted to give Ricketts the chance to clear up that and some of his other more confusing statements (such as “I can’t stand it when I hear someone say they can’t afford to go to a game. It might be hard to get tickets for a Yankees or Sox game, but there’s no reason why they can’t afford to go another game.” Really, Tom? No reason anyone can’t afford to go to a game where the average ticket price is $FU?). Unfortunately, the terms of a certain restraining order don’t allow me to conduct one-on-one conversations with Cubs ownership, whoever that may be. So I did the next best thing:

I got a hold of @NotTomRicketts. I can usually count on him to be pretty straightforward, honest, and direct, especially when it comes to the subject of buying Cubs tickets. Here’s my Q&A with him that should help set the record straight.

April 2011 was the least sunniest April in Chicago history. How much do you think that has impacted ticket sales in the early going this season?

Tremendously. As you know, some of the finest meteorologists work here in Chicago and they were all predicting back in February that this would be a dreary April. I’m certain Tom Skilling and his cohorts scared a few people off from buying tickets in advance. Then when it turned out the weather predictions were correct, few people came out on the day of game. I mean, remember that Mother’s Day game against the Reds where we drew 31,000 or so? Can you really expect people to show up to a weekend sunny game with temperatures in the 60s against a division rival? What can you do about that? You can’t beat science.

Which do you think is more directly to blame for the Cubs poor performance thus far: bad weather or poor attendance?

The weather. Definitely the weather. Because, as I mentioned, the weather is primarily responsible for keeping the people away from the ballpark and that creates a dead atmosphere that the players don’t like. They need to feel that energy from the crowd to get clutch hits. Ari Kaplan tells me that the Cubs are batting .456 in clutch situations at home during sunny days when the crowd noise is “electric.” I know the games aren’t played on Ari’s statsheets, but he makes a compelling argument.

Who owns the Cubs?

This again. You bloggers never quit with this question do you? Can’t you just take our word like the mainstream media does? I’ll tell you what . . . I’m going to tell you a little secret . . . nobody fucking knows. If you look at the paperwork that completed the transfer from the Tribune, it is a mess of legalese that none of us understand. “Wherein the party of the first part agrees forthwith to the party of the second part on Article VI, subsection D, blah blah blah . . . ” Even Pete can’t figure out what the hell is going on and he is way smarter than me at this business stuff. I just tell everyone I’m the Executive Chairman and hope nobody fact checks it. But that information probably shouldn’t leave your mother’s basement.

Some people have accused this front office of putting too much pressure on Starlin Castro. To prove them wrong, list five players in the history of the game who had more potential than he does to save a floundering franchise.

(At this point, NotTomRicketts mumbled something about Babe Ruth and then trailed off. Read into that what you will.)

Did you miscalculate fan interest when you set the prices for Cubs tickets this offseason?

Not at all. We kept the overall average ticket price flat. We cannot stress that enough. On average, it costs the same amount to go to a Cubs game this year as it did last year. Last year was a shitty team. Let’s not pretend that last year wasn’t a complete joke that was all Lou’s fault. Now we have made a few solid moves and brought in a new staff ace in Matt Garza, good clubhouse guy Carlos Pena, and some old fan favorites back into the fold to make the team better. So fans are getting a better, more likable team that should be able to contend for the same amount as last year’s crap team. So, once again, if the ticket sales are down, it must be the weather.

What do you say to people who can’t afford to pay $60 a ticket or who think the ballpark concessions are too expensive?

We can’t have everything we want in life. For instance, I wanted the state to fork over $250 million to us to renovate Wrigley Field and build a bunch of revenue-driving shops and stuff out on Clark Street, but it didn’t happen. Did I whine and complain that the state wouldn’t give me the money? Well sure I did, we’re talking about $250 million being taken away from me and these people are complaining about $60 seats? Cry me a river. We went and provided plenty of cheap seats for people on budgets to come out to the ballpark, and did they show up for that Monday, April 4th game against the craptastic Diamondbacks? No. The 500 section up in the pigeon poop and spiderwebs was practically empty that day. And that was a pretty decent 47 degree day. That ain’t bad for April in Chicago, so I’m not sure what else people want.

Tickets are being priced on the secondary market for what some people would call reasonable market prices, substantially below face value. Is that fair to the fans who paid full price, and do you plan to offer a discount to make it up to your best customers?

It is probably not fair to our best customers since they paid full price way back in January before all this weather nonsense got started, but let’s face it, our best customers regularly bring their own baloney sandwiches with them to munch on while sitting in their crappy seat and cost us concession revenue. So I’m not all that inclined to bend over backwards for those people. Life isn’t always fair, or so I’ve been told from people who don’t have a billionaire father.

If ticket sales fail to rebound, who in this organization will take the fall for the disappointment?

Is Tom Skilling part of the organization? I think we may still have enough influence on the Tribune to get his ass fired. Otherwise, Todd says he knows a guy who fixes problems. That has nothing to do with anything, really. Todd just likes to brag.

Which is more likely to improve on a sustained basis: the Chicago weather or the Chicago Cubs?

I really think we are on the right course here. Ken Rosenthal also agrees with me, so I don’t think there is any rational argument otherwise at this point. Our plan of trading away valuable members of the minor leagues while simultaneously relying on prospects taken way above their consensus draft slot to perform at the major league level can’t possibly fail. I believe that. It’s what gets me through the nights. Say, you wouldn’t want to buy any Cubs tickets for the next homestand, would you? The weather should be much better. I’ve got bleachers, I’ve got Club Box, I’ve got all the good seats. Make me an offer. Please?

Continue reading “(Not) Tom Ricketts Clarifies Statements on Attendance”

Obstructed View Opening Day Roundtable – part 2

Your fearless Obstructed View Executive Chairmen got together to discuss various topics related to the 2011 Cubs season. We looked at the offseason and the new additions to the club in part one. Here’s part two, which focuses on our predictions for the 2011 season.

Ryan Theriot

[mb21] : How many times will Theriot get a standing ovation when the Cardinals come to town?
[aisle 424] : Zero.
[aisle 424] : He will be roundly booed.
[berselius] : zero
[aisle 424] : That “right side of the rivalry” bit got a lot of traction.
[berselius] : The Hobbitton Gazette will make sure to bang the drum on his “right side of the rivalry” comments
[mb21] : I actually hope he doesn’t get booed. He was a player on back to back division championships. He’s an idiot, but I hope he doesn’t booed.
[aisle 424] : Prepare to be disappointed.
[berselius] : That’s the 2011 motto (dying laughing)
[aisle 424] : (dying laughing)

Who will surprise, who will disappoint?

Continue reading “Obstructed View Opening Day Roundtable – part 2”

Tom Ricketts’ Easiest Interview Ever

I don’t read a ton of articles by Toni Ginnetti, so I can’t say whether she was just having a bad day or if this is the result of Tom Ricketts being particularly oily, but I had a hard time reading her interview with Tom today.

Tom Ricketts smiles at the question: Would winning the World Series help the Cubs accelerate their dream of transforming Wrigley Field into a modern stadium that retains its old-world charm?

There are two realistic answers to this question: 1) “Well, winning the World Series would be great for revenue generation since interest and demand for the team would be at an all-time high, and would probably accelerate timetables of our long-term plans.” 2) “Wrigley Field will never be a modern stadium, have you ever been there?”

I wonder which answer Tom will choose?

‘‘I’m convinced everything takes time,’’ the chairman said.

Wait… what? A reporter lofted you a softball question that allows you to entertain the notion that a World Series for the Cubs is somehow plausible and your answer is basically, “Don’t hold your breath”? Man, I bet Toni is really going to nail him with a stinging follow-up after that mis-step.

After all, it took his family three years to complete the record $845 million purchase of the Cubs from Tribune Co. in October 2009, with the deal closing as the economy plunged.

Toni must have gone to the Yellon School of Journalism with a major in Follow-ups and minor in Wrong Facts. Somehow, the time from when Zell bought the Tribune and announced the team would be sold on April 2, 2007 to October 2009 counts as three years. But even letting that slide on the basis that she was simply rounding up, the follow-up is a semi-rationalization of the bullshit answer you were just fed to a fairly simple question?

Amenities such as an electronic video board are things to consider down the road.

Well, I guess we really are just moving on to other things.

‘‘It’s not part of what we’re thinking about now,’’ Ricketts said. ‘‘There’s no space for it. Over time, who knows?’’

We’re not thinking about it, but we are because we know there’s no room for it, which somehow could change down the road, but who knows how or why because we’re not thinking about it.

But a year and a half into their ownership, the Rickettses have anchored their principles, from making the team less dependent on free agency, to player development, to beginning the long-term task of creating a Wrigley Field for the future.

Again, no follow-up to the bizarre response to the oddly out-of-place video board question. Al would have at least asked Ricketts who owns the Cubs three times by now. Instead, Toni seems content to lead Tom into his own factually baseless rhetoric.

‘‘We’ve always talked about three goals: win a championship, preserve Wrigley Field and be a great neighbor,’’ Ricketts said.

They’ll win that championship when they get around to it, but first they need to get some tax money to preserve Wrigley and build up its revenue creating capabilities that will steal business away from their new bestest friends in the neighborhood.

Even if it’s unclear how the Cubs will pay for the longer-term changes, which could hinge on some kind of public financing help, the progress is measurable as the Rickettses begin their second season:

Did I miss something and Toni is now writing for Vine Line?

◆ A modernized spring-training facility in Mesa, Ariz., was secured in November when voters approved funding help for the project. The new facility is targeted for completion by 2014, perhaps sooner.

‘‘Other teams had newer and better facilities [built with help from Arizona specialty taxes denied to the Cubs], and it was definitely a front-burner concern to close that discrepancy,’’ Ricketts said.

The Cubs also have begun renovation on their training facility in the Dominican Republic, where future Latin American players will begin their careers.

‘‘That’s organizational consistency for our facilities,’’ Ricketts said.

I like the parenthetical statement unnecessarily added in there that highlights how unfair it is that Arizona had previously not provided tax dollars to the Cubs. Seriously, when did Toni Ginnetti start working for the Cubs? And does the Sun-Times know about it?

◆ Revitalizing Wrigley Field continues. Improvements to the locker-room facilities, which began last season, have continued with an expansion of the training room. It now includes X-ray equipment to help quickly diagnose some injuries.

Fans this year will see remodeled Sheffield Grill and Captain Morgan Club eateries, while the Batter’s Eye area in center field will have windows instead of fixed glass ‘‘so people can feel the game,’’ Ricketts said. New menus will feature items from local vendors, such as Vienna hot dogs and D’Agostino’s pizza, and gluten-free choices, among other special-diet fare.

She forgot to mention the troughs. Maybe she doesn’t work for the Cubs afterall. Maybe she could find out why the Cubs are remodeling areas of the ballpark that have all been put in or remodeled in the last five years? What’s next? An overhaul of the PNC Club?

In the background is the continuing replacement of aging brick and mortar.

OK, then, we’ll just move on. Toni’s got shit to do, apparently.

‘‘Steel and concrete are ongoing things,’’ Ricketts said.

Kind of like the drought of championships, eh, Tom?

◆ The Cubs have aspired to be more cordial to surrounding businesses, rooftop owners and residents.

‘‘There were a lot of years when there wasn’t great communication with the team,’’ Ricketts said. ‘‘We’ve reached out to everyone.’’

The Cubs invested in one of the rooftop clubs last season when it was in danger of financial failure.

‘‘We have a small investment in it, and it gives us an insight into their business,’’ Ricketts said. ‘‘The rooftops are our partners, and we like them.’’

The Cubs share 17 percent of all the rooftop revenues under a deal struck in 2004 that ended a feud with then-owner Tribune Co.

So the Cubs aren’t being total dicks to the neighboring rooftops now that they have a piece of that revenue? That’s very benevolent of them. What great people the Rickettseses are. I don’t even care if the Cubs ever win a damn thing again since I know such wonderful people with good Christian values are raking in all that cash from us fans.

The Cubs also have requested the 2014 All Star Game to coincide with the park’s 100th anniversary.

And a pony.

‘‘It would mean $150 million in revenue [for the city],’’ Ricketts said. ‘‘The commissioner [Bud Selig] is open-minded about it — if we can get some of the [ballpark] improvements done.’’

You hear that, Rahm? The city ain’t getting jack squat unless Tom can find the money to add his Cubs Alley and other bullshit to the ballpark, and it better happen tootsweet because the clock is ticking.

Still on the drawing board is the long-discussed ‘‘triangle building’’ next to Wrigley that would include offices, restaurants and other amenities. But its future depends on uncertain financing.

‘‘It’s part of and can’t be separated from what we have to do to preserve the ballpark,’’ Ricketts said.

But what about all those restaurants and businesses that the Triangle Building would compete with for Cubs fan dollars? They’re your friends now right? Why would you try and hurt them like that? Never mind. That’s not important to ask.

Implicit in his comments is the dilemma of seeking public revenue in a climate of strained government funds. The idea drew a chilly reception last fall when it was first raised, and Ricketts defers discussing it for now. Yet it could be the most challenging question facing the ownership family, even as it keeps checking off its to-do list.

Their checklist, as Tom mentioned and Toni accepted without question was:

Win a championship – So far they’ve taken an 83 win team, turned it into a 75 win team and has now built a team that projections estimate to win somewhere between 73 and 76 wins. I think we can say this is not even close to being checked off.
Preserve Wrigley Field – They are at least openly trying to achieve this goal, though we’re not quite sure why since it will take around half a billion dollars to achieve on top of the $845 million they already paid. But whatever, its not checked off.
Be a great neighbor – They’re trying to consolidate the revenue driven in the neighborhood to their own property, but they’re being nice about it. I’ll give them half a check.

So the Cubs have achieved less than one of their three stated goals, one of which seems to contradict another. Any thing else to ask, Toni? No? We’re just going to leave it at that?

I guess we’re just going to leave it at that.

Continue reading “Tom Ricketts’ Easiest Interview Ever”