Boras Rips Cubs Spending At GM Meetings

Feb 24, 2012; Los Angeles, CA, USA;Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-USA TODAY Sports

This past week at the GM meetings, agent Scott Boras had some unkind words for several clubs. The Cubs being one of them.

You’re developing the infrastructure, but fans don’t come to see seats, grass, cement. They come to see players,” he said. “They’ve done a great job in the draft and development and they’ve got a really good core of young players coming, but it is just not what’s expected when you have a (family) buy a major-market club.

I actually disagree with this. For a lot of reasons. Dislike for what Boras has done to baseball free agency for one. He is indeed a great agent, ask his clients. But he gets great money for mediocre players. It’s hurting baseball but he doesn’t care, and it allows him to “hold court” at the GM meetings to make statements like this.

But I think that this is EXACTLY what a major market club should do when bought by a family. The Cubs spent plenty of money for several years when owned by the Tribune Company. And while they enjoyed some success, it wasn’t lasting. And that joy has all but been erased from most of our memories due to the Bartman Game, multiple 100 loss seasons, and terrible, terrible contracts the Cubs were burdened with.

If Boras was paying any attention to the happenings around Wrigley, he would know what the Ricketts family is spending more than enough to have a place for the team to play. And, whether right or not, people DO come to see the grass, ivy, and brick of Wrigley. That may have been fine before, but the Ricketts family wants a winner here and is following the right process to do so.

So for the time being, Boras will have to do without whatever it is he needed while essentially soliciting for more money. When the time is right, the Cubs will look for the players they need through free agency. My hope is they don’t belong to Boras.