There were times in the early days of the Ricketts family ownership where fans (myself included) might have thought that they didn’t know what they were doing. Maybe that is still true to an extent today. The Cubs had a small front office, possibly the smallest in the majors. They had a general manager who was a good scout but a poor evaluator of future talent, if that made any sense, in Jim Hendry. Hendry did many things right, but towards the end he did a bunch of things that made us scratch our heads. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately, depending on who you are), the new ownership didn’t give Hendry a lot of money to spend and so he couldn’t do to the Cubs what seems to be happening to the Mariners right now.
Last season, the Mariners threw a bunch of money at Felix Hernandez, which on the surface doesn’t seem bad. King Felix is a splendid pitcher and still quite young and so if you’re going to throw armored trucks full of money at someone, a young elite pitcher makes sense. Recently, they threw another large tower of money at Robinson Cano, who isn’t as young but is still a great player (probably a Hall of Fame caliber second baseman by most accounts); however, Cano’s contract is going to look spectacularly bad by the time he’s 36, and he’s paid until age 41.
Former Seattle manager Eric Wedge was featured in Geoff Baker’s scathing review of the dysfunction in the Mariners organization. You can read all the soap opera digest in that link, but the Cliffs Notes version is that it may be possible that Seattle doesn’t have any idea WTF it’s doing. Their GM is possibly as old school or even more so than Hendry was, which is a bad thing in this day and age. For a franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs in 12 seasons and has only played in October four times since its inception in 1977 (Wikipedia told me so), this isn’t the way to go.
I don’t think the Mariners story is really a direct parallel to what’s going on with the Cubs. While he’s a novice, I believe Tom Ricketts has his heart in the right place. I think I’d prefer that the neighborhood acquiesce and allow him to renovate the ballpark the way a major league ballclub should. I like the direction of the front office’s plan, and I like that the ownership is backing away to let the smart guys do their thing. While it looks like they can’t or won’t spend money now, it’s a very convenient excuse to rebuild like they should have as I’ve argued since 2010. I put a lot of trust in Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod because of their history of success and because I don’t have much of a choice at this point; I have to root for them to succeed because the alternative is unpleasant.
I can’t believe after Baker’s article that Mariners fans can say the same about their favorite club. If ownership is throwing their manager under the bus for front office mistakes, that is pretty poor, even more so (and this is like comparing apples to oranges) than when Dale Sveum was let go for what I thought to be legitimate reasons. If their general manager is blowing money to fix their problems rather than looking at them logically to find alternative solutions, then they will have a long term problem. They probably already have this problem and exacerbated it with the Cano signing.
It’s not just the Cubs that apparently have issues. It’s not like the Cubs had to deal with Ponzi scheme shenanigans, though they have had to deal with overbearing neighbors who won’t let them be great. The previous links are just showing two issues that have cropped up with other franchises, but that may be similar to the money and community woes that the Cubs have had to deal with. We don’t really know the exact reasons why the Cubs are being cheap, though the current financial plan appears in line with a long-term rebuild like what the Astros are doing. The difference I perceive between what Tom Ricketts and the Astros ownership are doing and what Seattle is doing is that the Cubs and Astros seem to have a good plan and are sticking to it; I’m not sure anyone knows what the Mariners’ plans are at this point, though they’ve been linked to trading for David Price and trying to get other free agents.
I guess what I’m trying to say before the Winter Meetings start in earnest tomorrow is…it could always be worse. I think the Cubs are on the right track and I have to put my trust in the perceived plan right now. They will get better at all levels, and then the success can be sustained. And hopefully it won’t be as messed up as the Mariners appear to be.