See, this is where we differ. I dont trust them pulling a big time FA pitcher. I just dont. It has nothing to do with Theo and them. I just have seen nothing that Ricketts will step up as an owner. Again, to this date, Ricketts has not shown it. You can speculate all you want that he will but he wont. Also, my problem is why if we signed Shark is that the only pitcher we are going to sign who is front of the line? Even, if you gave him the 20 million and paid another 20 million for an ace. Whats the problem? We arent small market. The Cubs future relies heavily on the bats in our farm that will be cost controlled for a long time. Castro and Rizzo contract are reasonable even till the end. I dont get if we pay Shark, we cant pay anyone else. The fucking Reds paid Votto, BP, and Homer Bailey with little problem. The Cubs may sign a bat or two, but they are mostly going to sink or swim with the bats in the farm.
Edit: This got hella wordy so I'm going to give a summary to start and if you want to read the detailed version you can
Summary:
They didn't land pitching because they lacked financial backing
They now have around $60 mil payroll going toward 2015 if you assume shark is gone
They likely still have $110 mil to spend though possibly more if you add in WGN tv contract and roll over
At $110 mil they have $50 mil to spend next year which could allow them to spend $40 mil on two starters.
At $40 mil on two starters they could probably get one of Lester/Scherzer and a decent guy sub-$15 mil to fill in for Hammel
That would leave $10 mil to add a CF which you could likely get someone like Span for.
End Summary
Why didn't the cubs land pitchers that ended up good or they that they targeted? Maybe you can argue preference to play for a winner but let's be realistic here, it's almost certainly money in all cases. Sanchez was ready to sign for the cubs until the Tigers came in over the top of them with a better money offer. Tanaka chose the Yankees because they gave him an extra year and more money. Darvish was the cubs being outbid in posting. Same goes for Ryu. You ask what's changed? I was going to go into a systematic breakdown of how their salary was limited in 2012-2014 and had it wrote out but **** it, we all know that story and I'm sure you don't honestly give a shit about the depth I went into it. Suffice to say the were spending a lot of money on guys like Soriano, Marmol and Zambrano from 2012-this year. So, I'm just gonna look at what they have committed for 2015 because that's really the only thing that is relevant.
Assuming they trade Shark, he's probably another $10ish mil in terms of arbitration they wont have. Right now you're looking at $11 mil on Jackson, roughly $7 mil on Castro, roughly $5 mil on Rizzzo, roughly $2.5 mil on Soler, $1.2 on Gerardo Concepcion, $1.5 mil on Sweeney, $150k on a buyout for Veras, and $500k buy out on Fujikawa. All told that comes out to $29.16 before arbitration cases. From there we can probably guess Vizcaino, Castillo, Arreita, Wood, Strop will make around $15 mil given what similar players made last year. Kalish, Ruggiano, Barney, Coghlan, and Baker are potential non-tenders/trade candidates. Valbuena, Wright, and Russell also could be potential trade pieces but you might also want to keep some of them. For the sake of argument let's call those guys or their replacement's to be $15 mil. You also have Bonifacio, Hammel, Schierholtz, and Villanueva as FAs to replace on the 40 man as well as possibly Wada(not sure if he's a FA or what).
Going into FA you have roughly $60 mil in payroll committed with most likely a $110 mil limit and you have to add a RF(Schierholtz), a CF(Bonifacio), 2 starters(Shark, Hammel), ad possibly some bullpen pieces though given their wealth of relievers in AAA that may be done internally. They could in theory add some short term players at 3B/2B until midseason(or earlier) callups of Bryant, Alcantara, and Baez. You also might want to add a better LF since Lake has been kind of ass there. Let's say $20 mil/season is the starting point for the top tier starters. You could add 2 of those and still have $10 mil to play with. That's before you even talk about the roughly $20 mil they didn't spend this year and have said they could potentially roll that into next year. That's also before we talk about an increase from the WGN portion of tv rights. In this scenario, the Rickett's don't have to "step up." You can do all of that with no more money than they've spent in 2012-2013.
The difference between that and say this year when they had almost nothing more than they offered Tanaka is a stark contrast. They offered him $23 mil and that appears to literally be everything they had left because if you add in the $17 mil difference between him and what they gave Hammel that puts you right in range for the $110 mil payroll they appear to have been working with the past 2 years. $23 mil vs $50 mil and potentially more is a world apart. Even if you're talking about Lester and Scherzer at say $25 mil a year you can probably get one of those two and still have money for someone like Beckett, Hammel(again), Shields, Wandy, Peavy, Liriano, Masterson, Maholm, Burnett, and Edinson Volquez. Obviously those second set of guys is a wide range of money. But, I think $15 mil/season likely should cover all of them considering none is an ace and Garza without draft pick compensation was only $13 mil/season. From there, you could probably sign someone like Span for $6-7 mil/season as a short term fix until Almora is ready. You're likely talking about one of Bryant/Alcantara in the OF as well leaving LF as one of the biggest trouble spot left and you would have $5+ mil to spend without exceeding $110 mil. If they end up getting more money from roll over or the WGN contract that's gravy. There is potentially the elephant in the room that the cubs don't want to give out NTC's/opt outs. With that, I honestly don't have answers for because it's hard to say whether that matters enough to take less money or whether the cubs will change their opinion. But from a purely money standpoint, the cubs should be able to compete with anyone next season for a top tier pitcher.
Now I know where you're going to go with this post. Why not keep shark and then sign one of those guys? Well for one the money doesn't match up quite the same unless you're saying Shark is as good as Lester/Scherzer which seems like a stretch to me but whatever. I mean I agree he has potential to be but he's not shown it and they have. To get him and one of those two for less than $40 mil seems unlikely to me if Shark is already turning down $17 mil so he's definitely not in the same grouping as the second set of guys monetarily wise. An argument could be made to say **** it and roll with him through arbitration. That would work money wise but it still leaves you in the situation where he's a FA after next year and you're not going to be able to sign him for under $17 mil.
And honestly, the very fact that the Ricketts haven't "stepped up" should be the very reason people give a shit about them over spending on Shark. If they had proven to be the dodgers ownership or a Stienbrenner then fine, over pay him and keep the asset. He helps you win now and is more of a known quantity. And in that case, if he blows up in your face, you have the money to fix it. However, in the current realm of the cubs, if you have Shark making $20 mil/season as say a 4 ERA pitcher or where ever you would put him if things go south that really hurts what they can do if we assume $110 mil is what they have to spend right now. It puts them in the very case that Soriano did. And while Soriano wasn't really a killer performance wise to say Marmol or Zambrano he was playing well below $19 mil a year which meant that was more money they didn't have to spend on Sanchez and instead signed Jackson and we know how that went.
It's the same situation for Shark. If you pay him more than $17 mil now and 29 is his peak performance, where are you in the 4-5th year of the 5 year deal they offered him? Hopefully, you're talking about some of the great prospects panning out but they aren't going to do it alone. And if Shark is more of a 3/4 starter at 33-34 and you're counting on Edwards as your TOR with less money to spend you're probably going to end up being good enough to get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs. And if he's making 1/5th of the payroll when we're currently talking about players on cheap deals(mainly rizzo/castro) making ~1/2 of the payroll that leaves you $20-30 mil to play with to fill in holes that prospects leave. The only way that changes is if the mythical revenue streams finally open. But who knows when/if that will happen. And those cheap players are quickly going to start being less cheap. Castro and Rizzo start making $11 mil in 2019. You're talking about a roughly $16 mil increase from this year. And while you will have some cheaper hitters via prospects, it's not like the cubs have a ton of high priced hitting right now. Schierholtz is the only other hitter besides Castro making $5 mil+. Bonifacio, Barney and Ruggiano are the only other hitters making $2 mil+
In fairness, if Lester/Scherzer don't pan out you're in the same situation. The difference is in who you're prepared to gamble on. And even if you want to toss in the concepts of the Yankees coming over top as they need pitching help they will be paying a 50% penalty on adding players because they are well over the luxury tax for the 5th straight year. So, $25 mil to them becomes $37.5 mil. Not sure what the Dodgers will pay though they paid 17.5% this year might be 20%. The rest of the teams were under the threshold so they would only pay 12.5% if they went over. At $25 mil/season, that likely includes the Angels, Tigers, Phillies and possibly the Giants, Red Sox and Rangers depending on what they do with guys becoming FAs from their teams.
