What if Mark Cuban were the owner

When was the last time any Cubs fan saw the team’s owner sitting in the stands, talking with the fans …

Isn’t Tom Ricketts at almost every home game? I see him on camera fairly often.

for blocking his bid. I’m sure Cuban would be a great owner, but I would like an owner whose full attention is on the Cubs and not divided between two teams

I am more than willing to bet [Carlos Zambrano] has not spent much, if any, time with a therapist.

Is it not common knowledge that Z underwent anger management therapy? I would assume that involves a therapist, no?

In my opinion, TR is investing in this organization in ways that cannot yet be measured on the playing field, with a very big picture in mind.

Building a successful baseball organization is quite complicated, especially when compared to the NBA. It’s easy to turn an NBA team around, when only 5 guys are on the court at once, and your entire roster is only 12 or 13 players. One or two FA signings, and a team can go from doormat to contender.

Baseball, on the other hand, is not that simple. You have to build an entire organization at every level under one philosophy. It takes time, as evidenced by the newest expansion teams like the Rays, Marlins, Rockies, and DBacks. You can’t just go out and be a contender in season one. You have to build the organization, and do it successfully.

If you were to read Al’s interviews from the Spring, you’ll see that that plan is to make massive improvements to player scouting and development. That includes bigger budgets on scouting, new facilities for training in the states and outside the U.S., and also improved budget for draft signings and overseas talent.

Also, on your thoughts on team therapists and Big Z… Z spent a considerably amount of time last year with a therapist, under Cubs direction.

idea but it’s a done deal now so there is not much point in bringing it up. It also doesn’t appear that baseball is anxious to let Cuban in anyway.

I admire the effort, but it seems to me there’s a fundamental problem with your premise. In the NBA, drafting a single superstar virtually guarantees you will be at least a .500 team, if not a contender, unless you have someone completely incompetent running the team. In the MLB, a single superstar is still many, many players short of what you’d need even to contend.

The Mavericks were irrelevant because they drafted poorly and couldn’t sign good players. That all changed not because of Cuban, but because in 1998 – two years before Cuban bought the team – their coach/GM Don Nelson took a chance on a skinny german teenager that lots of people thought shouldn’t be drafted until much later than the ninth pick of the first round. He struck gold, finding a kid who would become one of hte best players in the NBA and the anchor of a team that has been very good throughout his tenure. Nelson also struck gold by trading three players you’ve probably never heard of for Steve Nash right after that 1998 draft, getting a player who at that time was relatively obscure, but who would become one of the best PGs in the NBA over the next decade.

That is why the Mavericks are good, and it all pre-dates Cuban. He gets credit for not incompetently running them into the ground despite those advantages, but its pretty hard to miss the playoffs in the NBA when you have Nowitzki and Nash up to 2004, and then Nowitzki alone ever since.

None of this augurs better fortunes for the Cubs if Cuban was the owner.

Steinbrenner didnt do jack for the first 3 years he was the Yanks owner…

And could it be any worse? Would Cuban have asked for $200,000,000 public dollars? Methinks not.

An outsider to both MLB, Chicago and its politics, Cuban would have required an able staff to operate within these unfamiliar territories. Yet, by most accounts, he’s a typical hands-on meddling owner who can drive fans and employees crazy.

Had he been approved, three years into his ownership of the Cubs, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear him making veiled threats to take the Cubs to Portland, Oklahoma City or Honolulu. Watching the relentless drive of Mark Cuban attacking the lethal inertia of Cubdom would have been a great show but, given the potential for disaster in that scenario, I’m a little more comfortable with the gang from Omaha.

My God not even 2 years.

I think people expected to wake up the day after Ricketts took over and the Cubs to become instant backtobacktobacktoback x infinity world series winners.

Mark Cuban would be too involved in the baseball part of the baseball team. We may disagree with who Ricketts has kept in charge of making baseball decisions but we know that he lets them make the decisions and that’s WHO SHOULD,

Typical MArk Cuban would be this.

3 years from now Starlin Castro is what we expect him to be a great young shortstop, The Cubs need a 3rd baseman.

The shiny splashy free agent is a SS. But a less flashy one is the third baseman we need.

Cuban would go get the SS to make a splash not caring what would be better for the team.

I have not heard one knowledgeable baseball person that has said Cuban would be a good Cubs owner.

I took a picture of him for a cute girl I met, and he was absolutely approachable and I appreciate that he didn’t act like I was bothering him to take a pic.

The Cubs would have gone into the season:

Thinking Dempster was a #1

Handcuffed by some old contracts that they need to free up before making a run at Fielder or Pujols

Riding the wave of Castro as the future of the team.

Impressed with the emergence of Darwin Barney

Wanting to trade Z who would play his no trade clause card, and then end up being the best pitcher on the roster.

Have trouble selling tickets, in a bad economy and very cold, wet spring.

Try some outlandish plan to get money from the state to make Wrigley less of a ball park, and more of a video game.

Dumped Silva regardless of what contract they had to eat.

And paid Carlos Pena $20 million instead of Tight Tom and his measly 10 million

to do what he wants to, thanks to the debt from the sale and how the sale is written up. He CANNOT pay it off faster (Zell stipulated that for tax purposes). That alone will allow for another 8 years of bitching and moaning from those who refuse to look at the reality of the sale terms.

Give me a concrete reason the Cubs would be better off with Cuban as owner.

When he is an owner it’s all ME ME ME not the team.

Look at how often he makes sure he’s seen on TV,

Just like with Sandberg there’s as much reason to think the Cubs would be worse with him than they are now than they’d be better with him.

To actually see people say they’d want to watch the Cubs more with him as owner? So you watch the team to see the owner in the stands. Funny I’m different I watch to see baseball.

How do we even know Ricketts would have fired Hendry and/or hired Sandberg? Actually he may have hired Sandberg because it’s the popular decision although baseball people almost universally said Quade was the better choice.

The love of Mark Cuban here is the kind of love of the Jersey Shore generation. No substance just flash.

So the Mavericks are highly successfully financially. When is the last big name they’ve signed?

And I admit I don’t follow the NBA very much but I usually see who wins championships and I don’t think the Mavericks have won any titles.

Ricketts is too hands on and owning a team for him is ME ME ME.

Meant Cuban is all about Mark Cuban.

And my main point is it’s not even been 2 years. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

And there’s absolutely no concrete reason to think the Cubs would be better off with Cuban right now.

Cuban is the Kyle Orton of owners. Just like there are bozos who think the Bears win the 07 Super BOwl with Orton people think the Cubs would win 20 straight world series with Cuban as owner.

Why doesn’t someone make a post about the person who actually finished 2nd in the derby and that’s Donald Levin (who you heard it here first will most likely be among the buyers of the Bears when the time comes) and what a difference it would be.

Or how about a post guessing what would have happened if it was Oprah. Or Michael Jordan. Or a group composed of Al, me, Jessica, Sue, SWL and CubbieTim? Or the Wirtz family? Or Rod Blagojevich? Or Will and Kate and the rest of the British Royal Family?

into the spotlight at the end of today’s (Sunday) playoff game by hugging Phil Jackson.

That could have been done privately well after the game, out of the sight of cameras.

Wear a damn suit and act like an owner. Not a teenager.

And that means what, now? I don’t see any Mavs rings and I doubt if we’ll see any this year.