How Many Years until the Cubs Are Competitors?

This team is messy, but not a total disaster. A creative GM could get incrementally better in 2012 and have us back in it for sure by 2013.

I think a lot depends on our RH bullpen arms. We could improve by 5 wins just with a better season by Marmol. Can Cashner bounce back? Can Carpenter contibute the way Spellcheck did this year? Can Smarjdjia keep it up? If those things bounce our way, we can get better in a hurry.

There are two key components to Cubs being able to compete next year.

1) Fielder and Pujols. They don’t even need to sign with the Cubs, they just CANT resign in the NL Central.
2) Injuries – This is what makes baseball unpredictable.

*3) I’d say hiring Francona as manager but that’s more of a personal bias. Living in MA for 4 years I saw his managing style and I think he would be an incredible addition to the Cubs.

For a prime example

Heck, we could even threaten for the division next year if everything played out just right. But realistically (considering what the payroll is likely to be), I’d say 2013-2014 would be the time frame to expect a team that could be really competitive (not just “able to eek out an 85-win division title” competitive).

By 2013, we’ll be free of all but one of our bad contracts. We’ll have had the opportunity to add 3-4 good free agents from this offseason and next (combined). Hopefully guys like Brett Jackson, Matt Szczur, Flaherty/LeMahieu/Vitters, Andrew Cashner, and Trey McNutt have become solid contributors (if not more than that). Hopefully by then Castro has become a star.

There’s no reason why we can’t be really competitive in 2013. A lot of things will need to happen between now and then, but there’s no reason not to expect the new GM to put us in a position for the team to compete.

The real question shouldn’t be "how long until we are competitive. It really should be this: will the new management make sure that we “get good and stay good.”

I really think Ricketts was fooled — as many of us were — by the strong finish in 2010. He thought that the 2011 team would be good enough that Fielder/Pujols style reinforcements in 2012 (paid for by the money coming off the books after 2011) would make the Cubs contenders in 2012.

By mid-summer, I think Ricketts finally realized what a wreck the team was, and Hendry (rightly) paid the price. You could put a lot of the blame for the bad contracts on Tribune. But when some of the deals Hendry signed post-Trib (Grabow, Bradley/Silva, Byrd) looked worse and worse AND the Cubs couldn’t find one minor league starter to sub for Wells/Cashner, Ricketts decided that Hendry had to be dumped and that a major overhaul — as opposed to the minor one signaled after the end of 2010 — was in order.

If the Cubs had finished around .500 in 2011, I bet Hendry would have been retained, that Fielder would be our first baseman next year and Ramirez would have been given an extension. That would have made the 2012 Cubs more likely contenders than they will be next year, based on what I think we will see in the offseason.

The funny thing is that the bad finish might be a good thing. We’re done with Hendry patchwork fixes. And we’re done with Hendry. It appears that the team will take a longer-term approach and avoid a second post-2008 hangover by throwing the money we finally have free at free agents whose contract could prolong the cycle.

I expect a pretty good team in 2013. I don’t expect more than fringe contention in 2012 — but I think the team will be an interesting, developing situation to watch, and not a bottom feeder rebuilding team.

Anytime after 2012 is possible. If they can contend in 2012, then it would be more so because of good fortune than it would be because of the results of good strategy or team payroll. Things don’t have to be the same and when they aren’t the results become more difficult to predict for multiple seasons ahead.

This season dealt the following, in no particular order because they significantly overlap anyway. Jim Hendry fired, Carlos Zambrano got a new kind of suspension, the system served Samardzija and Barney from the start of the season, and the system served the likes of Campana, Coleman, et al. after the season started. No mention here of injuries, the lineup or the team’s shabby defense. No mention of W/L record or 5th place either.

Accordingly this off-season, and perhaps during the 2012 season, I think the smarter moves are the following.
1. Get a good GM. I prefer an experienced GM, but not sure how important that is over the long run. Leadership ability is key. Having a capable staff is also important.

2. Get a starting pitcher; two if two can be had. What the official criteria, get innings eaters who can pitch better than 4.3 ERA and preferably better than 3.7 ERA. Smart contracts, please. Garza-type deals welcome but probably not possible this year. Trade Marmol when a reasonable deal is possible which might be during the 2012 season.

3. Bid for Fielder or Pujols or any position player considered “elite”. Put in a low-ball bid in both length of contract and $ per year, but not ridiculously low. Not as confident as some that Fielder and Pujols will even hit the free agent market. Unless they already have a difference-maker at a given position, the Cubs should make these types of offers. The franchise isn’t currently in a good position to deal in the trade market.

Just make changes like this and make the budget follow the plan, not the other way around. Glad it was mentioned that high team payroll commitment doesn’t have to get in the way of scouting, drafting and player development. Ricketts shouldn’t make team payroll reduction mandatory because of Zambrano. The limited number of good opportunities should limit the spending.

We wouldn’t be signing Pujols or Fielder (more likely Fielder) for just 2012. We’d be singing him for 2012-2016 or beyond. It’d be understood that there’d be more pieces to fill, but those pieces could be filled next offseason.

There’ll be around $30-35 million this offseason. If you sign Fielder and Ramirez, then you can sign two very good starting pitchers next offseason. Then you’d immediately have at least 3 strong starters (and that’s assuming Wells, Cashner, and McNutt aren’t also strong in 2013), a strong 1B, 3B, and SS, a solid C and 2B, and probably a solid CF (Jackson). We’d still have Soriano in LF, which will be below-average by then. But he’d still be above replacement level. We’d just need somebody to play RF, and that guy wouldn’t need to be great.

I don’t think there’s a realistic way to make us a legitimate contender next year. But we could very reasonably be in position to contend in 2013. In fact, if we’re not a legitimate playoff contender in 2013 I’ll be very disappointed.

With the money we our putting in the draft we will have good trade chips and we do have some promising prospects about 2 years away. Also only 28.8 million obligations in 2013. IF we have a competent GM we should be 2-3 years away,

…somewhere between 1 year and infinity.

getting a pujols or fielder would be great for their stats. but we had many lousy teams with sammy on them.we need to spread the money around and fill holes.and that starts with pitching. next year’s team will have very little power.we need the young guys to step it up.