Bleeding ‘Cubbie blues’

 Bill Knight column for 8-12, 13 or 14, 2021

 It wasn’t the White Sox sweeping the weekend series with the Cubs – which fielded a team dramatically different after trading one-third of their Opening Day lineup – as much as the Cubs hours earlier getting approval to radically change Addison and Sheffield with a huge sportsbook addition.

“It’s never a good look to dump payroll the way the Cubs have this year and then release plans to spend a bunch of money on an addition to the ballpark,” said Jon Strong of Cubs Insider. “It’s really difficult to believe the oft-repeated line that all surplus revenue will go directly back into the baseball payroll when we see things like this.”

Nothing’s sacred.

Indeed, the Ricketts family bought the Cubs for $700 million in 2009, and it’s now valued at $3.36 billion, so perhaps their priority was always commercial development. Maybe the 2016 World Series win was mostly valuable to them by serving their real-estate holdings.

Of course, “most rational humans, which include a good number of Cubs fans, understand baseball is a business and stars tend to get traded for one reason or another, usually relating to money,” wrote Tribune sports columnist Paul Sullivan.

However, the selloff was historic in impacts as well as scope.

“STATS tells us that there had never been a team in the modern era that traded three different players and had to watch all of them hit a home run in their first game with a new team,” wrote Jayson Stark in The Athletic. “Rizzo homered in his first game with the Yankees, Baez homered in his first game with the Mets, and Kris Bryant homered in his first game as a Giant.”

One Sox trade shows the Cubs may hope for an instant grain, said Brett Taylor from Bleacher Nation.

“The Cubs opted for two big leaguers [pitcher Cody Heuer and second baseman Nick Madrigal for reliever Craig Kimbrel] instead of prospects,” he wrote. “The Cubs wanted to get the best returns they could and fill up the farm system, but also set themselves up to be competitive in the very near-term.”

At the Sun-Times, Cubs beat reporter Russell Dorsey wrote, “It’s not a question of if the Cubs are in a rebuild … The real question is how long.”

Another question fans have (as Butch and Sundance said in the movie): “Who are those guys?”

Further, who’s such an imminent contributor that memories of the controversial 1982 trade sending Cubs shortstop Ivan DeJesus to the Phillies for shortstop Larry Bowa and “throw-in” infielder Ryan Sandberg might resurface, and who’s “in development”? (As for some newbies becoming trade bait for off-season acquisitions, comments by Rizzo and Bryant indicated feelings of disrespect, and, as Ryan O’Rourke of cubbiescrib.com wrote, “Why would any player worth their salt want to deal with that if that’s how they treat marquee players?”)

Before rage at ownership becomes derision for players, fans may note there already were fresh faces who’ve shown promise: right-handed pitcher (RHP) Manuel Rodriguez, LHP Justin Steele, RHP Keegan Thompson, and utility man Patrick Wisdom. Plus, Jonathan Mayo of MLBPipeline.com ranked 9 of the dozen acquired in the deadline trades among Major League Baseball’s 41 top prospects.

Still, here are the transactions and details from STATS and Baseball-Reference:

In exchange for Javier Baez and Trevor Williams, the Mets sent outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong (19, with a .417 batting average [BA] in one minor-league season).

For Kris Bryant, the Giants sent RHP Caleb Kilian (24, with a 2.78 earned-run average [ERA] over two minor-league seasons) and outfielder Alexander Canario (21, .277 over four minor-league seasons).

For Andrew Chafin, the A’s sent outfielder Greg Deichmann (26, batting .247 over three Triple-A seasons) and RHP Daniel Palencia (21, with a 6.91 ERA in six Class-A games).

For Kimbrel, again, the Sox sent Madrigal (24, batting .317 after two seasons with the Sox) and RHP Heuer (25, posting a 3.53 ERA over 61 major-league games).

For Jake Marisnick, the Padres sent RHP Anderson Espinoza (23, with a 3.58 ERA over three minor-league seasons).

For Joc Pederson, the Braves sent first baseman Bryce Ball (23, a husky power hitter averaging a homer every 17 at-bats in the minors).

For Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees sent RHP Alexander Vizcaíno (24, with a 5.01 ERA over five minor-league campaigns) and outfielder Kevin Alcantara (19, .278 BA).

For Ryan Tepara, the White Sox sent LHP Bailey Horn (23, with a 5.63 ERA over 14 minor-league games this summer).

 

Cubs chair Tom Ricketts told the Marquee Sports Network he’s not directly involved in personnel decisions, but added that GM Jed Hoyer will have “financial resources,” which presumably come from the billionaire Ricketts clan.

So, at Wrigley’s new sportsbook addition, I wouldn’t bet against an overpriced beer being dumped on Ricketts’ head.