Theo Epstein Delivers Death Sentence to Chicago Cubs Future

[Parade_Rain]

I've been a Cub fan for over 40 years. Let's get that one out of the way.

 

[daddies3angels]

CHICAGO -- Now that the Cubs have a manager in place, the next step is to stock the roster, and Theo Epstein, president of baseball operations, said they are in the market for more pitching.

"We need to add some quality," Epstein said Friday.

Rick Renteria was named the Cubs' 53rd manager on Thursday, and Epstein said they are in the process of determining the rest of the coaching staff. Pitching coach Chris Bosio may return, but nothing has been finalized.

Next week, Epstein will have face-to-face talks with representatives for free agents at the General Managers Meetings. The Cubs have traded 40 percent of their starting rotation the last two seasons, but Epstein said they are not looking for free agents who they can sign and then flip at the Trade Deadline.

"Every starting pitcher we acquire is someone we hope is starting Game 1 of the World Series for us," Epstein said.

Last offseason, the Cubs courted free agents Anibal Sanchez and Edwin Jackson. Sanchez signed with the Tigers and went 14-8 with a 2.57 ERA in 29 starts, while Jackson agreed to a four-year, $52 million deal with the Cubs and finished 8-18 with a 4.98 ERA in 31 starts.

"We believe there's a lot better ahead for Edwin Jackson," Epstein said of the right-hander, who led the Majors in losses. "He stayed healthy for the entire season, he's still only 30 years old, and his underlying performance was better than the stat line that you read on the scoreboard, and he never quit. He's certainly somebody who can impact us and fill a rotation spot going forward."

Jackson will join Travis Wood, Jeff Samardzija and Jake Arrieta in the Cubs' 2014 rotation, but Epstein would like to add another starter. The Cubs will talk to Scott Baker, who spent the year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and now is a free agent, but the right-hander also is exploring other options.

Who will shut the door?
The Cubs also are in the market for a closer. After Carlos Marmol struggled and was then traded, and Kyuji Fujikawa was injured, Kevin Gregg stepped in and totaled 30-plus saves for the third time in his career. He's now a free agent and shopping around.

"We have guys who could close," Epstein said of the Cubs' in-house options, "but I think that's an opportunity for us. If you go to market with the closer's role ready to bestow on somebody, that can help you sign a pretty good pitcher and can help your club. ... We're going to hit the market with a full closing opportunity to offer to the right pitcher we acquire, either through free agency or a trade, and know we have some interesting options in house."

One of the players currently on the roster who could close is right-hander Pedro Strop, acquired from the Orioles in the Scott Feldman deal.

Next for Bryant? Double-A and Triple-A success
Kris Bryant, the Cubs' No. 1 pick in the June First-Year Player Draft and ranked as the No. 4 prospect in the organization, is making the most of his opportunity in the Arizona Fall League. The third baseman ranked among the AFL leaders in batting average, home runs and RBIs, but that won't guarantee him a spot on the Cubs' Opening Day roster.

Epstein said players are told they need to dominate at each level before they are moved up. Bryant has responded to that challenge, batting .354 at short-season Boise, then .333 at Class A Advanced Daytona. But the Cubs want to see that same effort at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.

"He's a very advanced college bat who put up historically good power production at the college level," Epstein said of Bryant, who led the nation in home runs at San Diego. "Traditionally if someone is going to come out of the Draft and dominate, it's that type of player, that elite position player."

Optimism taking root at Minor League level
The Cubs may not have won a World Series since 1908, but that hasn't dampened the enthusiasm among the Minor League players. Epstein said he was impressed by the morale of the young players during instructional league this fall.

"Our players fully believe in the 'Cubs Way,'" he said. "They believe in their instructors and each other."

Minor League field coordinator Tim Cossins led the instructional league players on a mountain climb in Arizona, and everyone took part.

"I believe in what we're teaching, how we're teaching it, and the amount our players are buying in and the progress we're making," Epstein said. "We need that to continue at the big league level. We need that kind of morale and belief and progress at the big league level. If we don't, we're going to fail."

Carrie Muskat is a reporter for MLB.com. She writes a blog, Muskat Ramblings, and you can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Cubs already have Quality pitching. Not top tier by any means but instead of more just so called quality pitching they need to go after Top of rotation pitching and GET SOME DAMN BATS!!!! Have to score to win baseball games. Last yr World Series had the 2 HIGHEST SCORING TEAMS!!!

 

[chibears55]

http://chicagocubsonline.com/archiv...kenney-discuss-cubs-season-ticket-holders.php

here are some bits from the article..

The Cubs are close to resolving the issues with the rooftop club owners and the work will begin on Wrigley in the very near future. Kenney mentioned that everything going on with the Cubs has been part of the Ricketts family strategy since they purchased the team in 2009. There is a passion within the Ricketts family to win.

Under the Ricketts family ownership, no other team has spent more in the draft and international signings than the Cubs. Kenney added that even though their record does not show it, they believe the team is closing to winning than ever before. Kenney explained the team has added to their baseball operations department, business operations department and made huge investments in baseball technology. Kenney added, “We know the success that is coming and we want you to be here when it happens.

”

building an organization with Sustained Success begins with World Class facilities. The Cubs have made it a priority to have state of the art facilities throughout the organization from the Dominican Republic to their Spring Training home to the Major League team. Kenney showed photos of the Cubs current clubhouse and training facility at Wrigley then asked the question, “What player would ever believe an organization’s commitment to him with the facilities we have?

The Cubs are at an incredible disadvantage from other teams in the league when a new baseball season begins. The team starts in a $40 million hole according to Crane Kenney due to not being able to maximize revenue streams that other teams have. The Cubs currently have the worst facility in baseball. They have to put millions into the park during the off-season to keep it operational in its current state. The team is losing money to the rooftops plus they pay the highest taxes in baseball.

fter asking how many in attendance watched the World Series, Epstein pointed to the importance of homegrown talent. Epstein said that 35 of the 50 players on the Red Sox and Cardinals rosters were either homegrown players or players acquired with homegrown talent. The Red Sox and Cardinals are two of the best organizations in baseball as much as Epstein hates to say it. Epstein said he would not call the Cardinals a model organization, even though they are, because he took an oath to hate the Cardinals when Tom Ricketts hired him. Epstein jokingly said his disliking of the Cardinals organization is starting to come very easy. Then he pointed out the Red Sox and Cardinals have won five of the last 10 World Series.

Why are young players so essential? Young players have a tendency to get better, and stay healthy. The goal is to cram as much talent as possible into the organization. Players peak at 27 now and there is no free agency for young players. By the time a player hits free agency they are past their prime in many cases and the new team is paying for past success. Young, core players give an organization a chance at sustained success and there are only three ways to acquire impact talent … through the draft, international signings and trades.

When Theo Epstein and his baseball department took over it was clear to them that had to step back and take a longer view. The first step was to fix the player development department and scouting department. Epstein pointed out that the Cubs were 30th in baseball in player development from 2002-2011. Next they had to inject the organization with as much young talent as possible.

The Cubs’ brass met for four days in a large hotel conference room to work out the systems and the terminology they would use throughout the organization. Every player in the organization has a copy of the 350-page Cubs Way manual.
Epstein feels the player development department has done a good job and the players in the system showed a lot of improvement this past season.

Theo Epstein went back and expanded on the three ways that a team can add young talent to their organization under the new CBA. The first two things are spending everything a team can on the draft and international signings then trades. Epstein pointed out they found loopholes in the new CBA that allowed them to sign Jorge Soler and overspend in the international market this year. He feels the loophole that allowed the Cubs to sign Eloy Jimenez and Gleyber Torres, among others, will be changed soon.
The Cubs were upfront about their plans to trade short-term assets for long-term, controllable, but Epstein admitted that does not make it any easier. Epstein explained how they turned one year of Sean Marshall into five years of Travis Wood, two months of Ryan Dempster into the careers of Kyle Hendricks and Christian Villanueva, Scott Hairston into Ivan Pineyro, Alfonso Soriano into Corey Black and two months of Matt Garza into four players that included the Minor League Pitcher of the Year, C.J. Edwards. Epstein said the Cubs traded eight veteran players with a combined four year of control left with an average age of 32.5 into 14 players with 78 combined years of control and an average age of 23 years old.
Epstein admitted that not all of the trades they’ve made have worked out.

Starlin Castro called Epstein recently and asked for the strength and conditioning coach to come down to the Dominican for six weeks. Epstein has already sent him down. The Cubs have a plan in place with Castro for the off-season and they feel Castro will be a happy and productive player next season.

 

[Flacco4Prez]

What? Do you know when MLB has had farm systems? He followed since Hendry congrats! Its been a long time before that.

No I am saying you can't blame the guy for not following the Cubs farm system 5 years before he was born lol. Hendry/Hoyer has been the GM lineup for just about 13 years, so if you are a teenager or in your early 20's, then you probably don't know anybody from before the Hendry days. I know when I was 7 I was following the Cubs, but not their A/AA/AAA teams.

 

[SilenceS]

No I am saying you can't blame the guy for not following the Cubs farm system 5 years before he was born lol. Hendry/Hoyer has been the GM lineup for just about 13 years, so if you are a teenager or in your early 20's, then you probably don't know anybody from before the Hendry days. I know when I was 7 I was following the Cubs, but not their A/AA/AAA teams.

I get it. Im 27 and until about 4 years ago. I never followed the farm. Really, its been the last 3 or 4 years that farm systems have started to be followed closely by a lot of fans on message boards. People knew big time prospects but not like they know now.

 

[CSF77]

Cubs already have Quality pitching. Not top tier by any means but instead of more just so called quality pitching they need to go after Top of rotation pitching and GET SOME DAMN BATS!!!! Have to score to win baseball games. Last yr World Series had the 2 HIGHEST SCORING TEAMS!!!

"Every starting pitcher we acquire is someone we hope is starting Game 1 of the World Series for us," Epstein said.

Lets hope his idea of a ace is the same as ours.

But this makes me believe they are going to try to trade Shark. He used the word every. Now he has one opening. Shark looks pretty much gone.

I believe they will make an offer to a top arm. Now the question is with a protected first round pick will they give up their 2nd round pick? Seeing how they went into penalty last year for overseas dollars I believe it is more likely they are changing the build faze to adding established players this year. Not flips like Maholm/Feldman were.

That article states they are looking to add a SP and they will kick the tires on a closer.

Who I see they will go after:

1: Josh Johnson but he has said he wants to get a 1 year deal to establish himself and with a winning team. IE pump his value. Seems unlikely.

2: Ubaldo Jimenez: Now this is a guy I would conciser but will they be willing to give up a pick?

3: Scott Kazmir: Reports he is looking for a multi year deal. This is my personal pick. He has more swing and miss stuff than Wood. I'd feel pretty good with him as a #2.

There might be some dark horses out there but with the attention on getting Tanaka they should swoop in and grab up guys like this before that situation is resolved. Before those GM's that lose start looking else where in panic.

 

[TL1961]

Trust me, I have for almost two years now. I've been a lot happier.

And when they start to win, you'll be first on the bandwagon, fair weather fan.

 

[TL1961]

Cubs already have Quality pitching. Not top tier by any means but instead of more just so called quality pitching they need to go after Top of rotation pitching and GET SOME DAMN BATS!!!! Have to score to win baseball games. Last yr World Series had the 2 HIGHEST SCORING TEAMS!!!

Every team that advanced in the playoffs this year did it with pitching, not bats.

 

[TL1961]

"Every starting pitcher we acquire is someone we hope is starting Game 1 of the World Series for us," Epstein said.

Lets hope his idea of a ace is the same as ours.

But this makes me believe they are going to try to trade Shark. He used the word every. Now he has one opening. Shark looks pretty much gone.

I believe they will make an offer to a top arm. Now the question is with a protected first round pick will they give up their 2nd round pick? Seeing how they went into penalty last year for overseas dollars I believe it is more likely they are changing the build faze to adding established players this year. Not flips like Maholm/Feldman were.

That article states they are looking to add a SP and they will kick the tires on a closer.

Who I see they will go after:

1: Josh Johnson but he has said he wants to get a 1 year deal to establish himself and with a winning team. IE pump his value. Seems unlikely.

2: Ubaldo Jimenez: Now this is a guy I would conciser but will they be willing to give up a pick?

3: Scott Kazmir: Reports he is looking for a multi year deal. This is my personal pick. He has more swing and miss stuff than Wood. I'd feel pretty good with him as a #2.

There might be some dark horses out there but with the attention on getting Tanaka they should swoop in and grab up guys like this before that situation is resolved. Before those GM's that lose start looking else where in panic.

A team acquires more players than it has openings. At least it better.

 

[DJMoore_is_fat]

And when they start to win, you'll be first on the bandwagon, fair weather fan.

I, for one, have never left the bandwagon -- which has caused me 33 years of pain and suffering. Even though being a Cubs fan is deeply ingrained in me and no matter how hard I try, I cannot help but still follow them; I encourage everyone who is emotionally capable to stay away from Wrigley and stop financially supporting the team.

Ownership has delivered a death sentence to our beloved franchise. Ten years from now Wrigley after 12 consecutive 95+ loss seasons, Wrigley Field will be a museum. A historic, original charter franchise associated only with futility and failure.

I'll bleed Cubbie blue until the franchise folds but I wish I were born somewhere else with a real team.

 

[chibears55]

I'll bleed Cubbie blue until the franchise folds but I wish I were born somewhere else with a real team.

you could of chosen the whitesox... oh wait you said real team.. :shrug:

 

[Jntg4]

I, for one, have never left the bandwagon -- which has caused me 33 years of pain and suffering. Even though being a Cubs fan is deeply ingrained in me and no matter how hard I try, I cannot help but still follow them; I encourage everyone who is emotionally capable to stay away from Wrigley and stop financially supporting the team.

Ownership has delivered a death sentence to our beloved franchise. Ten years from now Wrigley after 12 consecutive 95+ loss seasons, Wrigley Field will be a museum. A historic, original charter franchise associated only with futility and failure.

I'll bleed Cubbie blue until the franchise folds but I wish I were born somewhere else with a real team.

Losing a lot of games =/= a $1 billion dollar value franchise folding.

 

[CSF77]

Losing a lot of games =/= a $1 billion dollar value franchise folding.

I believe most of the fans get that they are trying to build something while upgrading the park.

To be perfectly honest not being understanding of what needs to be done is pretty petty. So hate to say it. Deal with it or move on to another team and come back for the bandwagon with the rest of the clones when the phase passes.

If it doesn't work...well chalk it up to another failure in a string of failures going back over 100 years. But at least they had the balls to try something that might have a long term effect vs making short term splashes like the trib did to sell off.

In other words stop being impatient. Not like this team was winning WS after WS and they went rebuild.....

Sometimes it takes extreme measures to get the cancer out.

 

[nickofypres]

you could of chosen the whitesox... oh wait you said real team.. :shrug:

Lets be real, both Chicago teams are pretty much a joke in the grand scheme of things. Which I think is what you were implying anyway.

 

[Jntg4]

I believe most of the fans get that they are trying to build something while upgrading the park.

To be perfectly honest not being understanding of what needs to be done is pretty petty. So hate to say it. Deal with it or move on to another team and come back for the bandwagon with the rest of the clones when the phase passes.

If it doesn't work...well chalk it up to another failure in a string of failures going back over 100 years. But at least they had the balls to try something that might have a long term effect vs making short term splashes like the trib did to sell off.

In other words stop being impatient. Not like this team was winning WS after WS and they went rebuild.....

Sometimes it takes extreme measures to get the cancer out.

Did you mean to reply to the other post with this? I'm all for the rebuilding and completely patient with it... I was responding to the guy claiming that the team was going to fold completely after losing so many games...

 

[The Bandit]

For everyone saying that it is extremely difficult to build through the farm... yeah it is, but it's a lot more probable then taking the routes that have been thrown out there over and over again, especially D3A's fantasy of signing Ryu, Cespedes, Puig, Darvish, etc. it was never going to happen so just move on already.

Also, heard an interesting tid bit watching the Packers last week... 52 players I believe it was, out of their 56 man roster are in house and have never played for another team before... so if they can get 52 players through the draft and only 4ish players through other means then why can't the Cubs get 20 in house guys with 5 through other means exactly? Clearly different beasts in drafting and development, but it seemed like something worth mentioning.

 

[brett05]

For everyone saying that it is extremely difficult to build through the farm... yeah it is, but it's a lot more probable then taking the routes that have been thrown out there over and over again, especially D3A's fantasy of signing Ryu, Cespedes, Puig, Darvish, etc. it was never going to happen so just move on already.

Also, heard an interesting tid bit watching the Packers last week... 52 players I believe it was, out of their 56 man roster are in house and have never played for another team before... so if they can get 52 players through the draft and only 4ish players through other means then why can't the Cubs get 20 in house guys with 5 through other means exactly? Clearly different beasts in drafting and development, but it seemed like something worth mentioning.

1) ask the marlins or the white sox for a quick three champions

2) totally different beast thus not at all worth mentioning.

Sent from my SCH-I200 using Tapatalk

 

[The Bandit]

1) ask the marlins or the white sox for a quick three champions

2) totally different beast thus not at all worth mentioning.

Sent from my SCH-I200 using Tapatalk

 

[The Bandit]

1) ask the marlins or the white sox for a quick three champions

2) totally different beast thus not at all worth mentioning.

Sent from my SCH-I200 using Tapatalk

And the Cubs situation is a totally different beast from the Cardinals, Red Sox, and Yankees, so we can't mention anything correlating between the two and how some think we should do what they do?

 

[brett05]

Ask the yanks and the redsox. It looks like every way is more probable

Sent from my SCH-I200 using Tapatalk