With a team as terrible and overpriced as the Chicago Cubs presently appear to be, with an aging core, and with a promising set of youngsters, most teams would view the Cubs as an ideal rebuilding opportunity. Imagine the powerhouse the Cubs could be in two or three years if they sold off their expensive pieces, groomed young talent, and then spent up for free agents to pair with that young talent.
But imagining is all you can do, as current Cubs general manager Jim Hendry has no intention of rebuilding.
“I’m here to tell you it’s not some kind of a major rebuilding job,” Hendry told Bruce Miles of the Daily Herald yesterday. “When you start seeing the improvement in the young people that we have and the type of young arms that we have and the arms that we have coming, you make three or four solid moves in the off-season and your young guys keep developing, then you’re right back to being a contending team, and that’s the way we’re going to go about it.”
Immediate reactions:
1. Jim, that’s the right idea, but you’re about two years premature.
2. Three or four “solid” moves? When I think solid moves, I think “Cliff Lee,” but I suspect Jim thinks “John Grabow.”
3. If there are to be three or four moves of any kind, maybe some will be trades, as there may not be three to four open spots on the Cubs. The outfield, third, short, second, catcher, four starting pitchers, and most of the bullpen are under contract and set. Hopefully that means there will be some trades, but I suppose it could simply mean signing a middling starting pitcher, an overpriced veteran reliever coming off a career year, and a first baseman.
The question of when Hendry is going to give up on the “core” that lost six straight playoff games and haven’t been back since has finally been answered- never. Hendry is never going to give up on Samardjia, Berg, Stevens, Diamond and the other rookies who will be the majority of the bullpen next year. So again they’ll be ready to blow plenty of early games and put us in the same position as this year. If all of these young pitchers are so great why do none of the other scouts or GMs bother to look at them? Hendry is starting to sound more and more lie the Pirates front office every day. The man is dillusional and needs to go now.
Ricketts needs to fire Jim Hendry today after these comments. This guy is absolutely delusional if he believes a major rebuilding effort is not required. He is the only one who could possibly believe this. Hendry clearly does not have a plan to address this team’s weaknesses. I would have felt much better if Hendry had said it will take a couple of years.
1. You don’t have a number 1 or number 2 starter and yet you have more than 5 starters under contract you probably can’t move, including 3 who are going to make more than $10M next season.
2. There are only 2 guys in the pen you can count on–Marmol and Marshall. Cashner has had a nice year, but we still don’t know long-term how that will play out. Grabow is just bad and the young guys are still big question marks.
3. Who’s going to play first base in 2011? You cannot bring back Derrek Lee and if you move Colvin there, you still need a right fielder. First base has to be a power position and the Cubs don’t have the money or prospects to do that in 2011.
4. $94M is tied up in the contracts of Soriano, Fukudome, Ramirez, Dempster, Silva and Zambrano for 2011. The good news is that only Dempster, Soriano and Zambrano go beyond this season. The bad news is that you will need 1 more starter and a third basemen in 2012.
5. You can’t believe that a bunch of guys are going to have turnaround years when they are getting towards the end of their careers. Ramirez got really hot for about 10 days, but that was it. Silva, now on the DL, has been playing this season on borrowed time. And, it’s obvious that Fukudome can’t play in the majors.
6. Zambrano likely peaked. He has had two bad years in a row and only won 14 games in 2008. His strikeouts are way down from 2006 and his starts are averaging only 6 innings. He’s expensive, likely unmoveable and you can’t expect much from him.
7. The bench…enough said.
8. No one wins immediately with rookies. I am confident about and do like the pieces in the minors, but many are still a couple of years away. Also, are you better off to move them for proven vets that are about to get expensive for their teams (those getting near or are arbitration-eligible)? How much could Felix Pie have brought a year too soon instead of a year too late?
I don’t mean to be negative, but am just attempting to point out a major rebuilding effort is required given the state of the Cubs. I would hope that Jim Hendry would be honest enough with the fans to tell us what it’s going to take to be a pennant winner. We can all see it. However, if he honestly believes it’s not a major rebuilding effort, he is clearly not up for the job and Ricketts needs to let him go.
Good points. I forgot to mention the 1st base issue which I still think can be resolved if we can get Nick Evans from the Mets (he’d fit in nicely with Lee, Colvin, Castro, and Jackson). The problem is your preaching to the choir and everyone who reads this blog is already singing alto. Hendry’s statements were obviously directed to the casual fans who’ve stopped watching and buying tickets. He made them because these fans watch the news and read the paper and might be dupped into thinking everything will be alright next year. Same old song. Apparently Ricketts is too preoccupied with generating new revenue streams and staying out of the public eye to do something meaningful about it. If only we could channel Steinbrenner…
I love this. In “CubSpeak”, “fielding a competitive team” means “we’ll try not to suck excessively”. When are we going to get a GM who understands that every team that DOESN’T win the World Series is a loser? I’m not denigrating the value of a team that plays well and is entertaining (NOT nauseating) to watch, but if you set your sights that low, then you’re not going to have much of a chance to end up playing in October. The whole concept of “getting into the playoffs — where anything can happen” is self-defeating. Sure, playoff teams have won the WS, but if every year you go to the Ball PLANNING to be Cinderella, how often is that going to work out?
We need the patience to execute a multi-year plan — no more years where we delude ourselves into thinking that we’re just that one last piece away from winning it all. That kind of “tinkering” approach has lead to a bunch of lingering bad contracts.
Let’s start by conceding that next year is going to be grim. Instead, let’s shoot for the WS in 2013; make that our target year. That gives us 2 years to put together a team that reasonably could be considered to be WS-quality. That also means that we don’t need people to play great next year; we need people that are GOING TO BE GREAT TWO YEARS FROM NOW. That negates the value of any free-agents that would peak BEFORE the target year.
But first, we need to find a new Manager — a tough one; one that has the stomach for a rebuild process. I think that rules out any rookie managers (sorry Ryno) — and it will be hard to get a proven manager (like a Torre) to go along with this kind of plan. This is a problem; maybe Girardi would sign on to that, but I don’t have a good answer here. Is Leo Durocher still dead?
Next year, we can expect to eat a ton of salary. Let’s get it over with. If we can trade some of these guys for prospects, let’s do so — even if it means we have to eat ALL of their salaries. Any value they have for next year is meaningless, in the overall plan. We need to unblock anyone in the Minors that could be part of the target-year team. Sure, it’s going to be ugly next year, but I’d rather watch the Lansing Lugnuts play than watch what we’ve been served up the past year and a half. But by 2012, we could be “respectable”.
Next, look at timing. 2012 will be a GREAT year for free-agent firstbasemen, so the last thing we would want to do is to miss out because we tied ourselves into a guy who’s going to be past his prime by the time we get to the target year. That means no Adam Dunns. Sign D Lee to a 1 year extension, with a bunch of performance rewards. We need a fielding ace at 1B until our infield youngsters grow up, anyway, but we want to have them playing with the 1B of the future for a year in advance of the target year. We also want to be in a position to throw a ton of money at somebody like Adrian Gonzalez.
I’m thinking that Ramirez exercises his option for next year, but probably we won’t want to exercise OURS for the year after. Let’s see who we can develop in time for 2012, or else let’s look for a prospect we can obtain who does have a future. With all the infielders we have, maybe one of them will develop enough power to hold down 3B in the future.
At catcher, Soto still should be near his prime. But if we’ve got faith in the guys we’ve got coming up through our system, then now is the time to trade him; somehow, I get the feeling that Geo is not the best at calling a game. We might want a Henry Blanco–type next year, because we’ll be trying a bunch of youngsters in the bullpen and the rotation. Catcher is the one position where we could afford to have somebody who was past his prime (hitting-wise), as long as his team-leadership skills still were excellent (Ivan Rodriguiz?).
As for the comments on having too many arms … be honest — did any of us expect to get anything at all out of Carlos Silva? Assuming things go well for him in his recovery, he could have some trade value — he falls into the category of the money we’re going to have to eat for dinner. Fill the rotation with the young arms to see what they can do (sorry, Ted Lilly … but we still love you!). And find a way to throw a ton of money at Cliff Lee; he’s right on the line of being young enough for our plan, but you’ve got to have SOMEBODY who is a legitimate “Ace”. Zack Greinke could be an option, too. As for the other Carlos … I don’t think a WS team comes with fruitcake. Pay his salary, and trade him for prospects.
For next year, Colvin plays RF, Byrd in CF, and … yeah, I’m happy with Soriano in LF (although I’d start converting him to 3B, in case Ramirez is gone). Last year, everyone who thought he was done was after his head, but at 25-30 HR a year, I can live with him. He’d just be an overpaid LF, but we can handle one guy like that, at least until all of our minor leaguers get their shots.
As for coaches, I’m OK with Larry Rothschild — anybody who can get 10 wins out of Silva MUST be good. But I’ve got a theory about our Hitting Coach …
One of the reasons why 2008 was so good was that players took a cue from Fukodome and started (some of them for the first time in their careers) becoming selective at the plate. But when Lou told Theriot he should try for some more power, he hit a burst of HRs … and dropped 30 points in his BA. This year, it looks like Rudy J must be a proponent of an aggressive approach to hitting — and I think that’s why the situational hitting has gotten to be so bad. That kind of approach might take a year or so to sink in and adjust to — it’s the kind of performance dip that wouldn’t be noticed at a team that had low expectations (Rangers), but would be flagrant at a team that was “expected to compete” (Cubs). I’m also thinking that things will be better next year.
However, we need somebody with access to the game stats to go through them to confirm a theory: if the Cubs don’t hit home runs, they don’t win. Obviously, if you hit more HRs you’re going to score more runs, but I get the impression that if they don’t hit HRs, they don’t score ANY runs. I think you could check the W-L record for scoring a given number of runs and plot it against the number of HRs; I’d be willing to bet that it would show that the more HRs they hit in the process of scoring that given number of runs, the more likely that they won. I think there’s a psychological effect going on here, and I think it’s tied into that same aggressive approach to hitting: when the aggressive hitting is successful, then the general quality of play is good, too — but when it isn’t working, the quality goes to Hell.
So … long rant, but in the end it’s going to be easy … next year, sign Cliff Lee and Ivan Rodriguiz; the following year, reel in Adrian Gonzalez. And next season, when we break camp from Spring Training, we won’t be packing off the enthusiasm of the young players we sent back to the minors this year — they’ll be becoming part of a new kind of Cub team.
See, and everybody thought this would be difficult …
I was with you until you had Soriano at third. That’s a terrible idea.
Not to pick one small piece out of a long, long comment, but Ivan Rodriguez sucks worse than Koyie Hill.
I’ll leave aside the issue of whether it even is physically possible to suck worse than Koyie Hill (although he wasn’t terrible when he was playing regularly for a while). The point was: on-field leadership — of which Soto appears to have none — and working with the young pitchers to get them ready for the REAL challenge in the target year (2013). The Cubs appear to have no one (Manager or Coaches either) who really cares whether or not they are playing the game right. Rodriguez would change that attitude in a hurry (although a more demanding Manager would help, too).
This year — at age 38 — Rodriguez has better caught-stealing numbers than either Soto or Hill (35% to 24% to 15%). In fact, Rodriguez’ WORST year is better than Soto’s best. Yeah, Soto’s still young, but I don’t think he ever will improve much in this area. Rodriguez still hits better than Hill ever will. Doesn’t matter anyway … I hadn’t realized that Rodriguez is in the first year of a two-year contract with Texas … likely not available anyway.
Adrian Beltre (mentioned in a comment below) finally got back on track after 5 so-so years when he switched to the AL. Now that he’s doing well, why would Boston trade him? I suggested that Soriano try 3B because it’s the only possible option for him. If it works, great — fills the open spot and opens an outfield slot (it’s easier to find an outfielder than a 3B guy); also saves his legs some wear and tear. If not, no big deal — we’re no worse off than before. It’s not like I was suggesting that we trade for a guy and then put him at a position he never had played before (like Washington did in 2006) — we’ve already got him …
Besides … there’s a bigger problem with Beltre: if we signed the free agents we ought to pursue, it would create a violation of the “One Adrian per Team” Rule. We’re already up against it with the “Three Carlos per Team” Rule …
Well, I TOLD you things were going to get ugly!
Soriano has played 3B (a little) before. And other than LF, there isn’t another position on the field he conceivably could play — despite the thoughts of some that 1B is an option. 1B is much more difficult to play than 3B; you get about 6 or 7 times as many fielding chances at 1B as at 3B (about 10 “normal” chances/game vs 3 at 3B; then there’s all of those pitcher throws to first to hold runners). But the bigger problem is that at 1B you actually have to PAY ATTENTION. Staying involved in the game is not Soriano’s strong point; but, on the positive side, I do think he has a healthy fear of running into the walls when he’s playing in the OF.
Anyhow, it’s just a thought … options if there’s no Ramirez, and no Minor League candidates … Soriano OUGHT to have a second position he could play.
Remember, the goal is to be good in 2013 … ignore the pain in-between …
Assuming Soriano can’t be dealt, we’re better off with him staying right where he is. His play in left has improved greatly. He’d be just brutal at third. He hasn’t got the athleticism for that position at this point. No quickness, no range.
Same old sh-t , if you want your voice heard boycott the convention ! Don’t waste your hard earn money there. If ownership don’t get the message shame on them.
I just don’t understand why they want to take this approach – it certainly isn’t about money, because rebuilding is cheaper than not. Even if it’s just a two year quickie – it’s not like the fans will COMPLETELY stop coming.
Can you please explain to me why and how Pinella is still managing? Hendry and Rickett’s silence basically says it’s okay to let this train wreck burn itself out. Even the players have already started making their off season plans. They’re walking away with millions for doing absolutely nothing. I had a bad feeling about this season when Millar got cut. It was bad hoodoo. But the thing that angers me most is Pinella’s still there for two more months. Then he’ll retire and and this bad dream will start all over again with somebody else. Clearly Hendry and Ricketts only care about money. If not they’d give us the satisfaction of seeing a little firing. Really, what do we as the fans owe Lou? 2 playoff appearances, no wins. Endless frustration with issues like Z not wanting to drink water, Sorriano’s a leadoff hitter, we need to keep Z fresh for game four, Colvin doesn’t have a place to play, on and on and on. Seriously, I’m embarrassed for all those fans that are watching the Cubs get smoked again. If Hendry had any balls he’d ask or tell Lou to retire now. There’s nothing to benefit the team by letting him coach out the season. He owes it to us fans. And it would go a long way to keeping his job past January.
Right or wrong, Lou is considered a legend of managing in the sport. He’ll be allowed to walk away, as he said he would, at the end of the season. Shrug.
I used to be on the fire Lou bandwagon and in hindsight, it was wrongheaded even before we were out of contention. Changing managers wasn’t going to fix this season’s problems and the only possible reasons to do it only had to do with maneuvers in a strategy for hiring the 2011 manager.
I agree that he should walk away with dignity. So I ask the question what dignity is there in watching this train wreck for the next two months. Is this the way he really wants to end his career? He should either quit tomorrow or just pull a Jody Davis and forfit the rest of the season because his legacy is more tarnished every day we watch this crap.
I hear you. I’m just saying – again, for better or worse – that it will be his choice, not management’s.
Going out with dignity means seeing it through to the end. What you’re suggesting is that he do what Sarah Palin did in Alaska…quit his job because it’s not going to end the way he wanted. It’s weak.
How’s this for a wild suggestion: See if you can get Lou and Bob Brenly to switch places for the rest of the year; name Brenly Interim Manager. At the end of the year, Lou goes — unless there’s a Management position (maybe “Front Door Greeter”, like at Wal-Mart) that he can fill in the future, and Brenly either stays as Manager or goes back to the booth. Brenly would have nothing to lose.
As long as we’re wild … consider this: If we’re NOT going to try to re-sign Derrek Lee (and we already know we don’t want to offer him arbitration — he’d probably accept and be even more overpaid next year), then we give him one last chance to accept a trade. If he refuses, we release him. This frees up a roster spot; Tyler Colvin tries at 1B, as do Hoffpauir and LaHair. [LaHair is 6'5", just like DLee; Colvin and Hoffpauir are 6'3"; I think that's a factor at 1B.] If we ARE going to try to re-sign DLee, then we bench him for the rest of the year, and let the other guys try to replace him. Either way, we find out about whether anyone we’ve got is a legitimate option for the future.
While we’re at it … we could give Baker a run at 1B, too (maybe even DeWitt; the more the merrier), but I don’t think it’s in either one of them to produce at the level we want for 1B. But they might do for a year while we wait for the target free agents to be available. Otherwise, Baker’s probably in the same boat as DLee; I think his contract is up at the end of the year, so if we can’t work a trade, then we might as well release him now, too. The same goes for anyone else in the same category (Fontenot and Nady come to mind). None of them have impressed enough to merit the time (of the consideration) to deal with them.
Maybe we could interest LA in the other half of “The Dynamic Duo”?
That would really engender the Cubs to future free agents – “we’re the team that releases guys 2/3 of the way into the season because we feel like it, and they’ll be free agents at the end of the year anyway. Good luck with your family and all that. Kids love moving, or being without their daddy!”
Would we rather be known as the team that sucks year after year, and doesn’t care about it? The best free-agents can pretty much pick their destinations — would any of them want to sign with a team that won’t be demanding that the other 24 guys be committed to putting out their best, too? The guys who would be released are underperforming — this franchise needs to demonstrate that it won’t tolerate players just going through the motions.
Anyone released will be getting paid their money anyway … if they aren’t going to be re-signed, then their relocation is inevitable — and now (before the start of the school year) is better timing for their families than a move some time over the winter.
With the new ownership taking control, their first moves are going to set the tone and the perception of the franchise for the next ten years. We’ve already lived through multiple cycles of being “lovable losers” — that hasn’t been working out too well. Time to try a tougher approach. If we had allowed ourselves to get tired of Big Z’s acting out a few years ago, just imagine the return we could have gotten for him. We love Mark DeRosa, but he was traded at the right time; we got some good prospects for him, and “old age” caught up with him right after he was gone. Would it have been better for us to have inflated our payroll even further, and kept him through his struggles over last couple of years? Same goes for Kerry Wood — the time was right for him to cash in, even though it was predictable (or at least not surprising) that things would go downhill again. Has he been worth $10 Million a year since leaving the Cubs? Would a hometown discount have made it any easier to swallow? If we had matched Cleveland’s offer, we’d be looking to dump his salary now, too.
Anyhow, I’m writing all this to encourage people to think outside-the-box, and to have a little fun. None of us will get to decide how to spend Ricketts’ money — maybe not even Jim Hendry, despite what already has been announced. In my time, I’ve run more than a few “Facilitation” sessions, and most of the time the biggest problem is getting people past all their preconceived notions of what is, and what is not, possible. If we all just cut loose, who knows what kind of ideas will come forward? I’ve watched lots of blog threads, and there’s always somebody who wants to know why the Cubs don’t just trade Koyie Hill for Albert Puhols — after all, St. Louis would be getting a SWITCH-HITTER. But those kind of questions get the discussions going — and SOMETIMES practical ideas do come out of them. We should at least be looking at how we COULD get Albert Puhols if he does become available.
I wonder if throwing Fukudome, Grabow, Baker, Fontenot, and Nady in with Hill would get that deal done? After all — St. Louis would be getting SIX players just for ONE … that’s got to solve a lot of their problems, right?
Cubs suck period this year i soo sick of fucking hendry and how he ruined this team…the fucking ricketts havent done shit since theyve owned the team..mark cuban should have bought the team at least he would shell out the money and put a winning team on the field!! i like some of the ideas that dean said..except we need to keep ramirez around until josh vitters is either ready or we can get a good 3rd baseman…andrian beltre would be available after this year as a free agent..is willing to come back to the NL?when he was with the Dodgers he hit over 40 hrs and over 100 rbis!…i still feel hendry should at least extend ramirez contract.. i know hes hurt but even at being hurt hes better than half of the people playing everyday! ive like what ive seen from Blake Dewitt…hes definately our future 2nd baseman!
I’m sorry. I wasn’t on the Lou bandwagon when he got hired. I wanted Girardi then, now everyone wants Girardi. Well…….back before Lou got hired, Tampa Rays sucked ass and had the worst record in the majors when he coached. Maddon took over and 3 years later they go to the World Series. In Florida Girardi had all rookies and almost took that team to the playoffs. I believe Lou is a legend but from his last job he showed he didn’t do much there with what he had. It also showed the same thing Stoney said, he can’t work with young players. Cubs were fairly young when he took over, now they are the highest paid and one of the oldest teams in mlb. Cubs went the playoffs twice and def in 2008 should not have gotten swept. They got swept both years. That……is coaching. They played stiff and you could see they were nervous. I’m glad to see him gone. I tried to like him every year. Met him a few times at convention but it was like he was on some medication or something. It took like 3 seconds for him to register what i said to him , he’d pause then speak. Regardless, I tried, but I still felt Girardi shoulda got hired in 2006. Oh well what can we do now. Season’s over. Time to start watching Preseason football.
Ace,I am get this team on the right track with 4 or 5 Moves:
Send Zambrano to the Mets for Oliver Perez (That just to give the Mets some piece of mind) and Reese Havens.
Send Fukudome to anyone.
Get Greinke and Kila Ka’aihue (1B) from the Royals for Vitters, Jay Jackson, Logan Watkins and another top 20 pitcher.
Send Byrd to the Rays for Jake Mcgee or Alexender Torres and another pitcher.
And if Brett Jackson isnt ready. Sign Pods for 1 or 2 years.
What do u think Ace?
Some are fine moves, but that many moves will never happen – just doesn’t work that way, for whatever reason. I’d like to see what Zambrano has over the rest of the year before dumping him in a pure salary move. Greinke alone would cost more than you’ve proposed. Why would the Rays want Byrd while they still have Upton? I’d much rather have Byrd than Scott Podsednik.
Dear Cubbies, um WTF!?!?!? Why is Jim Hendry still our GM? Tom Ricketts, are you in this for the team, fans, and a championship, or for the money? This is enough! 102 years is enough! It is time to change and a lot needs to be done. I am not going to say specifically what we need to do, because I am just a fan giving my opinion, like every other Cub fan. We may think we know it all but we really don’t. At least we all know it is right to start rebuilding though. C’mon my 8 year old brother can figure that one out Hendry!
It is going to very hard to move those big contracts, and yes I would agree we would have to eat up all of the contracts, even if we do move them. The ideal team to be right now is someone like the Rays, not Yankees who just buy everyone. But at least the Yankees are paying for good quality players (even though I still think they are way overpaid). Anyway, the Rays are playing good baseball with players coming out of their farm system. So it is possible to build a team like that. I know, the Rays have had so many bad years and were able to receive a bunch of high draft choices, but lets face it, our Cubs are not going to win anytime soon (especially if we do not start building NOW!) The Padres are a good example too.
The Players: A lot has to be done with the players, obviously. But like what? I should just say who we should keep. It is a shorter list, ha! Starlin Castro, Tyler Colvin, Andrew Cashner, Jay Jackson, Kyler Burke, Darwin Barney, Hak-Ju Lee, Blake Dewitt, Josh Vitters, Jeff Samardzija, Sean Marshall, and Carlos Marmol. I am not making any promises these players are the next Jeter or A-Rod, but they are legit. We also need a number one starter someway somehow. But think about this, we trade our top players for even more prospects, draft prospects, and even trade Marmol for some top 10 prospects (because he is affordable), well hopefully if our scouting team is good enough, so some of these players could be future stars and not be like the Indians who traded Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez, and CC Sabathia for busts. The scouting team is the most important job on a team in my opinion so that is key. Now, it is not a perfect world, I understand. So trading some of our high price players for top-notch prospects can be a long shot. So that is why we aim for the under-the-radar players. I am also a Colts fan, and you guys can see how the Colts can get these no bodies and turn them into somebodies, so that’s possible too, with a little help from our coach staff.
Coaching Staff and Front Office: Do we really want Jim Hendry to make one of the most important decisions for this organization (especially when he is going to be gone sooner then later). Can we get a GM who is gonna be with us for a while make this decision? Ah, Greg The Mad-dog, how it would be so cool if he takes over as General Manager (which probably will happen since he is assistant already). Greg Maddux could put together a winning team. He has a winning history, we all respect him, and I think he can become successful at GM too once he learns the ways being one. And for Cubs President….STEVE STONE. This would be a good move because he is very intelligent when it comes to baseball. You can tell this guy won’t be taking sh*t from anyone or any player (ex: Carlos Zambrano and Milton Bradley). He is very opinionated, but very confident in his choices. Another great mind to add to the Front Office. Now for the coaching staff, I am not really sure who would be the best fit for manager. We just need a guy who demands players to play the game the right way. A coach who players look up to and show all the respect for. A coach that will NOT fall and break with the pressure there is to win in Chicago. He also needs to have the “fire” in his personality to break the team out of slumps. That manager will help figure out our hitting and pitching coach.
Other Facts: Note: these are not excuses, just thoughts to keep in consideration. One, the Cubs play more day games than any other team because of where they are located (around 50 at Wrigley alone). That can be a grind. Also Wrigley Field as we know is a very old park, so the best way to improve the locker room and other places, build a replica of Wrigley Field. Now that may sound crazy, and I love Wrigley Field, but building a replica can improve the equipment and keep the same feeling as the old park. Play at U.S. Cellular til its done. The thing is though can they afford this and is Tom Ricketts willing to pay for this? I highly doubt it.
This is my opinion what I think the Cubs should do. If you do not like it, that is fine, but as long as we all know that change needs to be done and start rebuilding NOW!!! GOODBYE JIM HENDRY, GOODBYE LOU PINELLA, AND HELLO NEW ERA!!!