GatewayRedbirds.com

Two new books on the Cubs. One titled simply "The Plan" and the other "The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse". There was a lot of angst over how the team was built up here from many including from one of my law partners ("they aren't even trying to win"). Today I saw that second book sitting in the back seat of his car. Hmmm....

One would think they should be pretty short reads. Lose on purpose for 3-4 years and tamper with another teams manager. Yes, they did draft especially well, but the basics of the "plan" was simply to tank and acquire high draft picks. I guess everyone is trying to cash in on them winning.

https://www.amazon.com/Cubs-Way-Buildin ... 0804190011
https://www.amazon.com/Plan-Epstein-Aud ... EVH9K31355

Apparently there's a story in one of the books about a topless Jason Heyward angrily confronting Maddon during the playoffs. I don't know why the detail about him being topless was important, though.

The Cubs had a top 10 draft pick in 5 straight years (from 2011 to 2015). They also had the #3 overall pick in 2007.

The last time the Cardinals had a top 10 draft pick was 1998, when they had the #5 pick.

The Cubs Way is the good one, and The Plan is the dumb one written by a dumb person.

stlouie_lipp wrote:Lose on purpose for 3-4 years and tamper with another teams manager.

Maddon didn't even know about the clause that triggered his free agency until after the event that precipitated it had occurred, so if the Cubs knew about it and he didn't, that was some impressive freaking tampering.

This is from the description of The Cubs Way on Amazon:

How did a team composed of unknown, young players and supposedly washed-up veterans come together to break the Curse of the Billy Goat?

"Unknown, young players"? Yeah who had ever heard of Addison Russell, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, or Kyle Schwarber? These guys were nobodies before 2016. Then Maddon and Theo molded them into superstars.

I assume Ross is one of the "supposedly washed-up veterans." I'm not sure who else they may be referring to there. Trevor Cahill maybe?

pioneer98 wrote:
I assume Ross is one of the "supposedly washed-up veterans." I'm not sure who else they may be referring to there. Trevor Cahill maybe?

Jason Heyward! Oh wait. He is.

The Cubs Way: How an over-hyped young President of Baseball Operations (not the GM) convinced an entire fanbase that it could lose badly for a few more seasons seasons, combined some reasonable drafting with a fairly good trade record, and overcame spotty high-price free agent acquisitions and borderline insane playoff managing to finally win the World Series it by all means should have, given the amount of talent and resources at the team's disposal.

Assuming of course that Theo gets the credit for this.

Popeye_Card wrote:The Cubs Way: How an over-hyped young President of Baseball Operations (not the GM) convinced an entire fanbase that it could lose badly for a few more seasons seasons, combined some reasonable drafting with a fairly good trade record, and overcame spotty high-price free agent acquisitions and borderline insane playoff managing to finally win the World Series it by all means should have, given the amount of talent and resources at the team's disposal.

Assuming of course that Theo gets the credit for this.

Imagine how much worse the Red Sox would have beat the Cardinals in 2004 if they'd had a good GM!

Do you think there's a single Cubs fan who's upset about the early losing seasons under Theo now? I don't get the bizarre unwillingness to admit anything good the Cubs have done. Also, if they've got all this talent (which you said yourself) wasn't their drafting a little more than "reasonable"?

FM... you need to spend some more time in St. Louis to understand how irrational we can be with our dislike of the cubs. Heck, I still won't even use an uppercase 'C' with their team name!

I don't think Cubs fans give two hoots about how they got there since it had been so long anyway. That said, I would never want the Cardinals to intentionally lose 89+ games for four straight seasons.

Also don't know which high-price free agents were bad for them besides Heyward. Zobrist, Lackey and Lester were anywhere from good to great.