The Cubs Way/The Plan

[stlouie_lipp]

That's funny.

[go birds]

that is hilarious and 100% true

[zac]

The level of jealousy and crying in this thread is ridiculous.

Its preposterous to expect a team to waste money to get to mediocrity when the entire cupboard was barren to start with. When Hendry was fired the team was an absolute mess. It was saddled with several bad contracts, had few talented controllable assets (Castro is an idiot who had a poor work ethic and attitude from day one), and had a completely barren farm system. He recognized almost every successful team was built around internal (non-FA) assets and went about the smartest and most efficient way in obtaining them.

So he recognized what the Cardinals had already been doing for a decade?

You are ridiculous.

The Cardinals success and the Cubs success aren't even comparable as they were built in completely different ways.

The Cardinals built a lot of their team around trades for players that were in or entering into their prime years. Edmonds, Renteria, and Rolen were already established players (and yes I know Rolen was a deadline deal but he wasn't strictly a rental a the Cards always wanted to resign him). The Cards drafted the best player of our generation in the 18th round, a stroke of great scouting and a lot of luck. They also made some savvy free agent signings (Izzy and Carpenter to name a few) and had some players come from within (Yadi...Waino etc). Then you had some wizardry of Dave Duncan who got career years from guys that sucked before and after they were with the Cards: Tavares, Kline, Lohse, etc and you have the Cardinals.

The Cubs situation was much more dire than the Cardinals when Theo took over. The one thing he had and that he used well was some of the high draft picks such as Bryant and Schwarber. What you can't apparently comprehend, nor give credit for, is the ability for Theo to identify bargain/sell high FAs and turn them into quality players. There is not another General Manager in history that tried to execute, let alone execute a plan like Theo's. Outside of Smardija the Cubs had little in the way of internal assets (maybe Cashner if you include him) and he parlayed those into Rizzo, Russell, Arrieta, Strop, and Hendricks. Not a single one of those players was in their prime, and while Russell was a top prospect the rest had either struggled, weren't highly touted, and/or were reclamation projects. These moves had nothing to do with money or an advantage, rather savvy, great scouting, and opportunity. Just like the Cards were with Pujols the Cubs were lucky in that everyone of those moves panned out. They traded for a Cy Young winner, an MVP candidate, and another pitcher that led the league in ERA that ANYBODY else could have had. Anyone. But Theo/Hoyer targeted those players.

The amount of time that it took Theo to turn a piece of [expletive] organization with little in the way of valuable assets to a World Series winning team and a machine of an organization is STAGGERING. If you think there are other GMs that could have done what he did you are fooling yourself. Yes there are guys with good draft histories as well as GMs that have spent well in FA agency, but 50% of the Cubs' success was his ability to sign guys to short term deals and trade them for long-term assets. Your Cardinals didn't do that. His Red Sox didn't have to do that. It really was a genius plan and he executed it to perfection.

I have a lot of respect for the Cardinal organization and the year's of success they were able to create. But the modern day Cardinals took longer to build and was executed in a completely different way. Not necessarily lesser, rather completely different.

Many GM's have built teams like Jocketty and others have. Through draft and development, smart FA signings, savvy trades and luck. What separates Theo from the rest is the utter speed at which he transformed an entire organization and his ability/recognition to sign players for the sold intent of trading later. That's the genius of his rebuild (along with the culture aspect...Maddon was the right hire at the right time).

It's doubtful another GM could have replicated Theo's success and timetable for it. Possible to turn around the Cubs and make them winners? No doubt. Turn them around in 4-5 years and have them set up for a decade long string of success? Highly unlikely.

[zac]

that is hilarious and 100% true

Likely not. It's more likely those in Wrigley are bandwagon fans.

When I go to Cub games at Busch (fairly regularly) none of the Cub fans I talk to are bandwagoners. Most are lifelong fans attending the closest game to them or traveling for the rivalry. Luckily I never get called out as I am the only Cub fan I know that has a Shawon Dunston jersey. I've never seen another one TBH.

[go birds]

The level of jealousy and crying in this thread is ridiculous.

Its preposterous to expect a team to waste money to get to mediocrity when the entire cupboard was barren to start with. When Hendry was fired the team was an absolute mess. It was saddled with several bad contracts, had few talented controllable assets (Castro is an idiot who had a poor work ethic and attitude from day one), and had a completely barren farm system. He recognized almost every successful team was built around internal (non-FA) assets and went about the smartest and most efficient way in obtaining them.

So he recognized what the Cardinals had already been doing for a decade?

You are ridiculous.

The Cardinals success and the Cubs success aren't even comparable as they were built in completely different ways.

The Cardinals built a lot of their team around trades for players that were in or entering into their prime years. Edmonds, Renteria, and Rolen were already established players (and yes I know Rolen was a deadline deal but he wasn't strictly a rental a the Cards always wanted to resign him). The Cards drafted the best player of our generation in the 18th round, a stroke of great scouting and a lot of luck. They also made some savvy free agent signings (Izzy and Carpenter to name a few) and had some players come from within (Yadi...Waino etc). Then you had some wizardry of Dave Duncan who got career years from guys that sucked before and after they were with the Cards: Tavares, Kline, Lohse, etc and you have the Cardinals.

The Cubs situation was much more dire than the Cardinals when Theo took over. The one thing he had and that he used well was some of the high draft picks such as Bryant and Schwarber. What you can't apparently comprehend, nor give credit for, is the ability for Theo to identify bargain/sell high FAs and turn them into quality players. There is not another General Manager in history that tried to execute, let alone execute a plan like Theo's. Outside of Smardija the Cubs had little in the way of internal assets (maybe Cashner if you include him) and he parlayed those into Rizzo, Russell, Arrieta, Strop, and Hendricks. Not a single one of those players was in their prime, and while Russell was a top prospect the rest had either struggled, weren't highly touted, and/or were reclamation projects. These moves had nothing to do with money or an advantage, rather savvy, great scouting, and opportunity. Just like the Cards were with Pujols the Cubs were lucky in that everyone of those moves panned out. They traded for a Cy Young winner, an MVP candidate, and another pitcher that led the league in ERA that ANYBODY else could have had. Anyone. But Theo/Hoyer targeted those players.

The amount of time that it took Theo to turn a piece of [expletive] organization with little in the way of valuable assets to a World Series winning team and a machine of an organization is STAGGERING. If you think there are other GMs that could have done what he did you are fooling yourself. Yes there are guys with good draft histories as well as GMs that have spent well in FA agency, but 50% of the Cubs' success was his ability to sign guys to short term deals and trade them for long-term assets. Your Cardinals didn't do that. His Red Sox didn't have to do that. It really was a genius plan and he executed it to perfection.

I have a lot of respect for the Cardinal organization and the year's of success they were able to create. But the modern day Cardinals took longer to build and was executed in a completely different way. Not necessarily lesser, rather completely different.

Many GM's have built teams like Jocketty and others have. Through draft and development, smart FA signings, savvy trades and luck. What separates Theo from the rest is the utter speed at which he transformed an entire organization and his ability/recognition to sign players for the sold intent of trading later. That's the genius of his rebuild (along with the culture aspect...Maddon was the right hire at the right time).

It's doubtful another GM could have replicated Theo's success and timetable for it. Possible to turn around the Cubs and make them winners? No doubt. Turn them around in 4-5 years and have them set up for a decade long string of success? Highly unlikely.

i only perused your essay and really just stopped at "no other GM in the history of baseball executed a plan and succeeded like Theo".

GTFO.

Theo was in charge of an organization with unlimited resources and a long-suffering fanbase (sound familiar?). they were willing to wait 5 more years.

[zac]

The level of jealousy and crying in this thread is ridiculous.

Its preposterous to expect a team to waste money to get to mediocrity when the entire cupboard was barren to start with. When Hendry was fired the team was an absolute mess. It was saddled with several bad contracts, had few talented controllable assets (Castro is an idiot who had a poor work ethic and attitude from day one), and had a completely barren farm system. He recognized almost every successful team was built around internal (non-FA) assets and went about the smartest and most efficient way in obtaining them.

So he recognized what the Cardinals had already been doing for a decade?

You are ridiculous.

The Cardinals success and the Cubs success aren't even comparable as they were built in completely different ways.

The Cardinals built a lot of their team around trades for players that were in or entering into their prime years. Edmonds, Renteria, and Rolen were already established players (and yes I know Rolen was a deadline deal but he wasn't strictly a rental a the Cards always wanted to resign him). The Cards drafted the best player of our generation in the 18th round, a stroke of great scouting and a lot of luck. They also made some savvy free agent signings (Izzy and Carpenter to name a few) and had some players come from within (Yadi...Waino etc). Then you had some wizardry of Dave Duncan who got career years from guys that sucked before and after they were with the Cards: Tavares, Kline, Lohse, etc and you have the Cardinals.

The Cubs situation was much more dire than the Cardinals when Theo took over. The one thing he had and that he used well was some of the high draft picks such as Bryant and Schwarber. What you can't apparently comprehend, nor give credit for, is the ability for Theo to identify bargain/sell high FAs and turn them into quality players. There is not another General Manager in history that tried to execute, let alone execute a plan like Theo's. Outside of Smardija the Cubs had little in the way of internal assets (maybe Cashner if you include him) and he parlayed those into Rizzo, Russell, Arrieta, Strop, and Hendricks. Not a single one of those players was in their prime, and while Russell was a top prospect the rest had either struggled, weren't highly touted, and/or were reclamation projects. These moves had nothing to do with money or an advantage, rather savvy, great scouting, and opportunity. Just like the Cards were with Pujols the Cubs were lucky in that everyone of those moves panned out. They traded for a Cy Young winner, an MVP candidate, and another pitcher that led the league in ERA that ANYBODY else could have had. Anyone. But Theo/Hoyer targeted those players.

The amount of time that it took Theo to turn a piece of [expletive] organization with little in the way of valuable assets to a World Series winning team and a machine of an organization is STAGGERING. If you think there are other GMs that could have done what he did you are fooling yourself. Yes there are guys with good draft histories as well as GMs that have spent well in FA agency, but 50% of the Cubs' success was his ability to sign guys to short term deals and trade them for long-term assets. Your Cardinals didn't do that. His Red Sox didn't have to do that. It really was a genius plan and he executed it to perfection.

I have a lot of respect for the Cardinal organization and the year's of success they were able to create. But the modern day Cardinals took longer to build and was executed in a completely different way. Not necessarily lesser, rather completely different.

Many GM's have built teams like Jocketty and others have. Through draft and development, smart FA signings, savvy trades and luck. What separates Theo from the rest is the utter speed at which he transformed an entire organization and his ability/recognition to sign players for the sold intent of trading later. That's the genius of his rebuild (along with the culture aspect...Maddon was the right hire at the right time).

It's doubtful another GM could have replicated Theo's success and timetable for it. Possible to turn around the Cubs and make them winners? No doubt. Turn them around in 4-5 years and have them set up for a decade long string of success? Highly unlikely.

i only perused your essay and really just stopped at "no other GM in the history of baseball executed a plan and succeeded like Theo".

GTFO.

Theo was in charge of an organization with unlimited resources and a long-suffering fanbase (sound familiar?). they were willing to wait 5 more years.

If you had you'd realize it was true.

You're making it sound like I said Theo is the only GM to turn around a franchise. I also didn't say that Theo is the only GM that could have made the Cubs winners. What I did say is that Theo is the only GM in history that employed a plan of signing short term FAs with the sole intent of trading them for long term assets, let alone having it turn out as brilliantly as it did.

It is highly unlikely that another GM could have turned around the Cubs as quickly and efficiently as Theo did. He utilized a strategy that was basically unprecedented and that strategy alone netted the Cubs some of their most valuable pieces. The unlimited resources argument is also a joke as the Cubs didn't even come close to using those resources until AFTER the 2015 season. Well after they were on their way to success.

Nobody is saying money doesn't help, especially now when every team has an analytics department and the scouting advantages once utilized by the A's and Twins are harder and harder to come by. But you come across as bitter and ignorant by trivializing Theo's success to money when 80% of the turnaround had NOTHING TO DO WITH RESOURCES.

Going forward the Cubs will most definitely have an advantage in being able to sign FAs and retain their own players. That's a given. But that advantage wasn't leveraged in the rebuilding process. That's what makes these assertions so ludicrous.

[pioneer98]

Like 3 or 4 years to rebuild is "quick and efficient"? If the Cardinals lost 100 games 2 years in a row, it would probably feel like 8 years to me.

The Cubs were still the top revenue team in their division even through that entire rebuild. No, they didn't spend all of it on player salaries.....partially because they could afford not to. In other places, losing that many games would piss off fans and damage their brand, and lead to a decrease in revenue. I remember people openly worrying whether fans would come back when the Astros used a similar strategy. The Astros revenue did dip from $195 down to $175 from 2012 to 2014, before spiking to $270 million in 2015. The Cubs' revenue increased every year except one, when it dropped by $8 million from $274 to $266 million in 2013. So the Astros' big spike in 2015 merely brought their revenue up to where the Cubs were in their "down" times.

This is kind of a long-winded way of saying the Astros took a much bigger risk when they tried a similar strategy. Many other teams either simply can't afford a drop in revenue like that, or don't want to take that kind of risk because it might kill their franchise if it fails. Losing a bunch of games is not a threat to damaging the Cubs brand in the same way, due to the brilliant marketing of "the curse".

[TheoSqua]

Theo is a no doubt hall of famer in my mind.

A lot of teams try to rebuild the way the cubs did, not many teams succeed. Yes the cubs have a ton of resources and should be more like the Yankees in their success, but you can count the amount of people that have failed to take advantage of those resources in decades. In my opinion the cubs accomplished something pretty incredible and Epstein should be given credit for it.

[go birds]

The level of jealousy and crying in this thread is ridiculous.

Its preposterous to expect a team to waste money to get to mediocrity when the entire cupboard was barren to start with. When Hendry was fired the team was an absolute mess. It was saddled with several bad contracts, had few talented controllable assets (Castro is an idiot who had a poor work ethic and attitude from day one), and had a completely barren farm system. He recognized almost every successful team was built around internal (non-FA) assets and went about the smartest and most efficient way in obtaining them.

So he recognized what the Cardinals had already been doing for a decade?

You are ridiculous.

The Cardinals success and the Cubs success aren't even comparable as they were built in completely different ways.

The Cardinals built a lot of their team around trades for players that were in or entering into their prime years. Edmonds, Renteria, and Rolen were already established players (and yes I know Rolen was a deadline deal but he wasn't strictly a rental a the Cards always wanted to resign him). The Cards drafted the best player of our generation in the 18th round, a stroke of great scouting and a lot of luck. They also made some savvy free agent signings (Izzy and Carpenter to name a few) and had some players come from within (Yadi...Waino etc). Then you had some wizardry of Dave Duncan who got career years from guys that sucked before and after they were with the Cards: Tavares, Kline, Lohse, etc and you have the Cardinals.

The Cubs situation was much more dire than the Cardinals when Theo took over. The one thing he had and that he used well was some of the high draft picks such as Bryant and Schwarber. What you can't apparently comprehend, nor give credit for, is the ability for Theo to identify bargain/sell high FAs and turn them into quality players. There is not another General Manager in history that tried to execute, let alone execute a plan like Theo's. Outside of Smardija the Cubs had little in the way of internal assets (maybe Cashner if you include him) and he parlayed those into Rizzo, Russell, Arrieta, Strop, and Hendricks. Not a single one of those players was in their prime, and while Russell was a top prospect the rest had either struggled, weren't highly touted, and/or were reclamation projects. These moves had nothing to do with money or an advantage, rather savvy, great scouting, and opportunity. Just like the Cards were with Pujols the Cubs were lucky in that everyone of those moves panned out. They traded for a Cy Young winner, an MVP candidate, and another pitcher that led the league in ERA that ANYBODY else could have had. Anyone. But Theo/Hoyer targeted those players.

The amount of time that it took Theo to turn a piece of [expletive] organization with little in the way of valuable assets to a World Series winning team and a machine of an organization is STAGGERING. If you think there are other GMs that could have done what he did you are fooling yourself. Yes there are guys with good draft histories as well as GMs that have spent well in FA agency, but 50% of the Cubs' success was his ability to sign guys to short term deals and trade them for long-term assets. Your Cardinals didn't do that. His Red Sox didn't have to do that. It really was a genius plan and he executed it to perfection.

I have a lot of respect for the Cardinal organization and the year's of success they were able to create. But the modern day Cardinals took longer to build and was executed in a completely different way. Not necessarily lesser, rather completely different.

Many GM's have built teams like Jocketty and others have. Through draft and development, smart FA signings, savvy trades and luck. What separates Theo from the rest is the utter speed at which he transformed an entire organization and his ability/recognition to sign players for the sold intent of trading later. That's the genius of his rebuild (along with the culture aspect...Maddon was the right hire at the right time).

It's doubtful another GM could have replicated Theo's success and timetable for it. Possible to turn around the Cubs and make them winners? No doubt. Turn them around in 4-5 years and have them set up for a decade long string of success? Highly unlikely.

i only perused your essay and really just stopped at "no other GM in the history of baseball executed a plan and succeeded like Theo".

GTFO.

Theo was in charge of an organization with unlimited resources and a long-suffering fanbase (sound familiar?). they were willing to wait 5 more years.

If you had you'd realize it was true.

You're making it sound like I said Theo is the only GM to turn around a franchise. I also didn't say that Theo is the only GM that could have made the Cubs winners. What I did say is that Theo is the only GM in history that employed a plan of signing short term FAs with the sole intent of trading them for long term assets, let alone having it turn out as brilliantly as it did.

It is highly unlikely that another GM could have turned around the Cubs as quickly and efficiently as Theo did. He utilized a strategy that was basically unprecedented and that strategy alone netted the Cubs some of their most valuable pieces. The unlimited resources argument is also a joke as the Cubs didn't even come close to using those resources until AFTER the 2015 season. Well after they were on their way to success.

Nobody is saying money doesn't help, especially now when every team has an analytics department and the scouting advantages once utilized by the A's and Twins are harder and harder to come by. But you come across as bitter and ignorant by trivializing Theo's success to money when 80% of the turnaround had NOTHING TO DO WITH RESOURCES.

Going forward the Cubs will most definitely have an advantage in being able to sign FAs and retain their own players. That's a given. But that advantage wasn't leveraged in the rebuilding process. That's what makes these assertions so ludicrous.

Well i hate the cubs.

But the success was 100% on resources and it 100% helps that the cubs fanbase was willing to wait it out a few more years, since they go into every year expecting to lose.

I've acknowledged that Theo is a good GM--that's really all youre gonna get out of me. I think he has an eye for talent, but his hall of fame run has been with two franchises that had established fanbases and big bank accounts. He's not the greatest gm of all time--sorry.

[pioneer98]

A lot of teams try to rebuild the way the cubs did, not many teams succeed.

The complete tear down of a big market team in the manner the Cubs did it has not really been attempted that often. The Astros are the main other example. I'd argue that they also succeeded since they are perennial playoff contenders now and will be for a while.

I don't think you can compare the Cubs' teardown to like the Brewers or Reds doing a teardown. They are not even close to the same situation, and by the way the Brewers and Reds have kept their franchise players (Braun and Votto) through their current rebuild attempts. I guess those guys were still young enough that they might still be around after a rebuild, but on the flip side, keeping Votto on the roster is not a great plan if the goal is to get a top 3 draft pick. Also, these are the kind of teams I was thinking about when I said they could damage their brand really badly if they ever did the complete tear down thing and traded away a guy like Votto.

Again, I'm not saying Theo is "bad". It is undeniable that he's good. I just think there are GMs/presidents of smaller market teams out there that have done just as much for their teams, but their franchises have a lower ceiling and also started from a lower floor to begin with. So those GMs/presidents will never get the notoriety. And they are working in towns with way less media than Chicago, too. Dayton Moore comes to mind.