Chicago Cubs Quiet Offseaon Is No Reason to Doubt Their Grand Plan: One can understand the panic amongst Chicago Cubs fans. After all, going more than a century without winning it all can severely test peoples’ patience. Just not the Cubs front office. Cubs President Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer made their first significant move this offseason by hiring new manager Joe Maddon. That came more than a month ago. Since then, the Cubs have been the shy kid at the party. No trades, no free agents, no pizzazz. And that is perfectly OK. This is the most important offseason the Cubs have had in a long time, and it could shape where the franchise goes in the next 10 years. Rushing something this critical would be dumb. “The definition of patient varies from person to person, as it should,” Epstein told Carrie Muskat of MLB at the start of the 2012 season. At that point, Epstein and Hoyer had a clear plan for where they wanted to take the team entering this offseason. While they knew they could end up with significant money to spend in free agency, they also wanted to walk into the winter meetings in a position of strength when it came to personnel, not just cash. Looking across the game’s landscape, the men understood that offense was dipping, pitching would become slightly devalued, and having a surplus of hitters would shortly be the envy of all major league decision-makers. The first rounds of the Cubs’ next three drafts went like this: hitter, hitter, hitter. Later rounds in those same drafts also saw the Cubs stockpile offense, and they went nuts on the international market to do the same, including signing Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler. Last July, they also made a trade with the Oakland A’s that sent away Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel for highly touted shortstop prospect Addison Russell, among others. That deal gave the Cubs yet another prized hitter at a premium position, and like the others, available for trade for the right return. The plan has now made Epstein and Hoyer major players going forward in this offseason, and it is likely other team executives and agents will frequent their suite at this weekend’s winter meetings in San Diego. Teams know what the Cubs want—pitching—what they have in surplus—young hitting—and what they have to offer—money and prospects. While their first month of this offseason has been mostly silent, things could soon get dramatically loud for the Cubs. “The Cubs used the fourth pick [in June’s draft] to pick a pure hitter [Kyle Schwarber] without a position at a time when they needed pitching badly, and they are in as deep on [19-year-old Cuban prospect] Yoan Moncada as any team,” a National League executive told Joel Sherman of the New York Post. “That is not by accident. They want to have so many hitters when nobody else has them. That is a planned-out choice.” The Cubs have been linked to plenty of players so far this offseason, but the only player they have really lost out on as of now is catcher Russell Martin, who signed with the Toronto Blue Jays for $82 million. That was clearly more than what the Cubs wanted to pay, so they let Martin walk without an 11th-hour push. For that price, he did not fit their model. Before Martin and since, the Cubs’ top free-agent target has been ace Jon Lester. They have reportedly offered the left-hander a six-year deal worth $138 million, and while Lester flirts with the Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants, Epstein and Hoyer are exploring other possibilities to fill their pitching needs. That mainly means Cole Hamels. The Philadelphia Phillies are willing to deal their ace with four years and $96 million remaining on his contract in return for a significant bushel of prospects. #Phillies in good position with Hamels. Both #RedSox, #Cubs interested. Team that fails to land Lester could jump. Others likely in, too. — Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 24, 2014 It also means Jordan Zimmermann. The Cubs have engaged the Washington Nationals about their ace, who has one year of control remaining before he can become a free agent next fall. The Cubs would likely want an assurance that Zimmermann would sign an extension with them before they traded away one of their top middle-infield prospects to the Nats, which is what it would take to complete the deal, according to the sources of the Chicago Sun Times Gordon Wittenmyer. While the Cubs would be more willing to sign Lester, or even James Shields and possibly Max Scherzer, and keep their prospects, this regime is also conscious of the advantages of selling high. Year after year, teams realize the error in their ways while watching some of their once-coveted prospects lose value as performances decline. “You can make mistakes by holding onto your prospects too long,” Epstein said last month, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan. The free-agent market for hitters has played out at length so far, but the pitching market is still evolving, both in free agency and trades. Since pitching is what the Cubs want, they have remained patient. This is the right call. They don’t need to overpay for a guy like Lester when other targets are available to them. Fans and some media might not like the silence from Epstein and Hoyer, but the fact is slow playing their hand is the only way to get what they want for as close to the price they want. Striking fast works for some, but not for these Cubs. Starting at the winter meetings, the Cubs are going to be one of the biggest players in the game. Expect them to get what they want, and expect them to remain patient in doing so. Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here. Read more MLB news on BleacherReport #Baseball #MLB #NLCentral #ChicagoCubs
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 12:17:10 +0000
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