Forgive me if you’ve posted your opinions elsewhere. I haven’t been around these parts in a while…

I think I changed my sig line to that a few years ago – it seems oddly prescient now…

that’s one of the reasons people often say to “forget about Cuban” or that he has “no chance.” They don’t think Selig, Reinsdof, et al. will allow Cuban to be a part of their club. Furthermore, given his deep pockets and the apparent willingness of Zell to sell the team to the highest bidder, finagling by those guys may be the most likely scenario that doesn’t involve Cuban owning the team.

1.) Spending money

2) Spending it wisely

Cuban has shown a propensity for both in his time In Dallas. His treatment of his players makes it a sought-after free agent destination, and he’s also employed – even helped develop – advanced statistical metrics with which to analyze talent. And his two public attitudes towards professional franchises – oscillating between a big toy he loves to improve and an investment in the public good – both point towards spending cash to build a winner.

To me there’s no doubt what you’d be getting in Cuban – you’d be getting one of the best owners in baseball.

the Bears made some astoundingly stupid moves over Jerry Angelo’s tenure.

Cuban has shown he’s not afraid to trade away big-name players when they’re ready to go, and some of the current Cubs (Lee in particular) are in the declining phase of their careers, or will be in the future. Those players probably aren’t going to be worth the money they’ll get paid in the last few years of their deals, and we need an owner who is both willing to pay salaries that large AND realize when they’re not worth those salaries. IMO, Cuban is that owner.

To expand upon the Lee example more, the best-case scenario for 1st base would be to trade Lee for prospects this offseason, and then sign Teixieira or Dunn to a short-term (3-4 years) big money-per-year deal. I can see a Cuban-owned team having the balls and the benjamins to do that. I can’t see that happening with the other potential owners (but admittedly don’t know as much about them.)

No, but the .381 career OBP would. He has a career OPS over .900! The Cubs should get Dunn this offseason – he’ll be underpriced because of that low AVG., and would represent a significant upgrade over what we can expect out of Lee next season.

they’ve consistently done just enough to keep the fan base interested, have sold people on the “experience of going to Wrigley” so they wouldn’t have to field a winner, have left the ballpark in shambles structurally while spending money on putting more seats in the stadium, have been awful neighbors, and only have put together a winner now by placing the burden of horrible future contracts on the next ownership group.

Meanwhile, Cuban has helped put together one of the more successful franchises in the NBA, which was in disarray when he took it over, has turned them into a place free agents seek out (which never happened before he got there), and has improved the NBA through his complaints against it when the league was wrong. Meanwhile, he’s put together great promotions that allow families to attend the game for reasonable prices, showing that he cares about more than the bottom line and that the happiness of his customers is important.

Other than that, you’re right. There’s no reason to expect ownership to improve

I’m not blowing sunshine up anyone’s ass. Cuban has a proven track record as a quality owner. The only complaint him you seem to have is that he’s too popular, which is simply an absurd thing to be complaining about.

And while it may not be the best thing that could happen to the sport, its the best owner baseball could hope for. He’d make the Cubs a perennial contender, would probably preserve and upgrade Wrigley, and he’d be loud and outspoken when baseball is doing something wrong. 9 times out of 10, when he’s complaining about the NBA on ESPN he’s right in what he’s railing against. If baseball had an owner like that, they’d be better off in the long run.

And as far as your state school fraternity analogy, maybe he’s acting that way because the current group of baseball owners act like a bunch of holier than now jackasses that don’t realize how desperately they need someone that isn’t already a de-facto “member of the club.”

I really don’t care about Mark Cuban’s success or failure because I care about Mark Cuban. I want Mark Cuban to get the Cubs because I care (too much) about the Cubs.