NEWSLETTER
The headline says it, but you’ll have to watch this Ken Rosenthal clip to get the full take on why he’s laying into the Chicago Cubs, and specifically the perception that their owners are unwilling to spend appropriately to compete/win right now.
Fair Territory with @alannarizzo!
*Snell fallout
*Widening gaps between haves and have-nots
*Answering your questions
*Dudes and dorks of the week
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On the Cubs: pic.twitter.com/Tm6bXdwMsQ— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 29, 2024
“All we’re hearing out of Chicago, the North Side, is ‘eh we’re not gonna be involved in any of the big free agents.’ We’re gonna just try to do some other things. They’re trying to trade Cody Bellinger, I get that. But where are the Cubs? …. [The Cubs] have the ability, if they spend some money, to become a special team …. The Cubs have an opportunity here to maybe seize control of this division and they are squandering it. Cubs ownership, Dorks of the Week.”
As Rosenthal figures it, the NL Central is wide open at the moment, and may well be there for the Cubs to control for a certain period of time. But the Cubs, and the Ricketts Family as owners, are “squandering” this opportunity by not aggressively spending to supplement the high-quality group of young players who are coming up, all while the division is theoretically there for the taking.
It’s the kind of thing we always chide teams like the Reds, Pirates, and Brewers for not doing when they are loaded with young talent, and here the Cubs are – at least according to rumors – on the verge of doing the same thing this offseason and/or in seasons ahead.
That squandered opportunity is why Rosenthal says he’s naming the Cubs owners the ‘Dorks of the Week.’
Obviously I want to see the Cubs spending more aggressively this offseason, so I’m hardly going to lob out any kind of full-throated defense here. I would point out that, so far, the Cubs’ lack of movement this offseason is not necessarily out of step with 95% of other MLB teams. Things COULD still happen. Significant things, even. Most of the criticism is based on the swirling rumors and some reasonable inferences. Of course, Rosenthal himself does a lot of the reporting, so it’s not like he’s taking swings out of nowhere.
It’s also fair to point out that, when you get to end-of-season payroll, the Cubs are almost always at least in the top-ten (a bare minimum threshold for a major-market, historic club). They do outspend their NL Central foes, generally speaking. That’ll almost certainly be the case again in 2025, and maybe by a wide margin. The Ricketts Family has always indicated that whatever money comes into the organization, minus expenses, is left over from the baseball operations group, currently led by Jed Hoyer, to spend as they see fit. Reliable and robust financial data is hard to come by externally, so that’s usually about the only comment we get.
But, for all the reasons Rosenthal says, it’s pretty hard not to look at the landscape of the division at this moment in time and avoid concluding that an aggressive Cubs offseason would be PARTICULARLY well-timed. Rumors are rumors, and we’ll see what’s what when the rosters are assembled. But whatever Rosenthal is hearing behind the scenes, it clearly isn’t reflecting well on the Chicago Cubs’ willingness to spend at a level consistent with their market size and opportunity.
Rosenthal’s full episode of Fair Territory with Alanna Rizzo is available here.
