I just wanted to add some more confirmation onto Dave Kaplan’s report last night, later seemingly endorsed by Gordon Wittenmyer, that Chicago Cubs President Jed Hoyer has been told by owner Tom Ricketts that the green light is there to spend aggressively right now to improve the team.
First, there’s agent Scott Boras seemingly confirming that HE has been told the Cubs are ready to spend at the highest levels (in his very Scott Boras-y way):
Boras, by the way, has a history of involving owners on his highest-priced clients when talks get to a certain stage. Although Jed Hoyer is ultimately the decision-maker here, we know that certain contracts and expenditures necessarily have to get ownership blessing because of how many future years they can impact. So, if the Cubs WERE getting very serious with a Boras client or two, you could see Boras knowing where Tom Ricketts stands.
Then you had Russell Dorsey confirming Kap’s report today on MLBN:
What’s blowing my mind is how much the Cubs – seemingly – are just laying this all out there. It not only runs completely counter to what they’ve historically done when it comes to talking about spending publicly, but it also doesn’t really give them any kind of market advantage. It almost makes you think they already KNOW they have at least one major deal more or less locked up, so at that point, who cares if this gets out? Because otherwise, why wouldn’t they be squashing this stuff? Why allow expectations to run wild?
There is one interesting theory, though: