I know fans have differing opinions of Dave Kaplan, but the man does have connections and will have access to interviews with people in the know of Cubs business. Tonight it seemed that he got to chat with Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer, who was candid as usual.
Kaplan’s first bit involved Jeff Samardzija:
“We’ve had discussions w/Samardzija because we like him + want to keep him. We’ll see where things go. We like hearing he wants to be here.”
— David Kaplan (@thekapman) November 16, 2013
The wanting to keep Samardzija bit was never in question. Jeff is a workhorse and has good stuff as we’ve said before. The problem is, we have no idea if his demands are reasonable or outlandish given his performance so far, and we also have no idea whether Jeff will ever reach his full potential, which many still believe is that of a top-of-the-rotation pitcher. I feel like Jed Hoyer is just keeping the door open here, but it’s difficult to tell in a 140-character message. Of course they want to keep him, but they certainly don’t want to overpay and they probably don’t want to hold on to a lame-duck kind of asset when they can trade Jeff Samardzija for a hefty package of prospects.
The second part dealt with the long-term plan:
Hoyer: “We will not hit the fast forward button on our plan simply because people are impatient. It will make it worth it in the end.”
— David Kaplan (@thekapman) November 16, 2013
Even if they wanted to hit the fast forward button, baseball and biology don’t exactly work that way anyway. Prospects take time to develop, and the available commodities that fans may actually want are rare and expensive. It is refreshing to hear from the GM himself that he doesn’t really care what fans think, he’s going to do what he believes is best for the team in the long term. Now let’s hold him to his word that it will be worth it in the end; if it doesn’t work, you can form the lynch mob after he’s fired.