Chicago Cubs: Tom Ricketts shares fans’ ‘desire for change’

Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts penned a letter to fans, calling the season ‘disappointing’ and emphasizing his desire to get back to winning ways.

Say what you will about Joe Maddon‘s in-game decisions, but one thing is for sure: the man forever changed what it means to be a Chicago Cubs fan. Expectations have changed from a .500 campaign being a success to an ‘October or bust’ mentality in five short years.

Last offseason, Cubs ownership put a spending cap on the front office, limiting what Theo Epstein could do to address the team’s holes. We all saw them – and spent pretty much the entire winter talking about how this could be one of those decisions that came back to haunt Tom Ricketts.

Sure enough, Chicago won just 84 games in 2019 and missed the postseason entirely for the first time since 2014. While not one, but two division rivals played in October, the Cubs cleaned out their lockers and sent Maddon on his way to greener pastures.

Chicago Cubs: Ricketts toes the company line of ‘change’

So when I got an email from Ricketts recently, I was interested to see what he had to say for himself. Here’s how he began.

“While we enjoyed several exciting wins at Wrigley Field and solid individual performances from many of our players, we struggled to deliver as a team in the moments that mattered most. Falling short of our potential and failing to make the postseason for the first time in five years was extremely disappointing for all of us. We share your desire for change and are committed to building our next championship team.”

Unlike a lot of fans, I’m more torn on how to feel about this. He’s saying all the right things – that, we can all agree on. But the Cubs battled a lot of these issues because he put a hard stop on spending right in the middle of a championship window.

Sure, he found the change in his couch cushions to add Nicholas Castellanos at the trade deadline. But the only reason Chicago brought in free agent closer Craig Kimbrel was the fact they saved millions with Ben Zobrist dealing with personal matters for much of the season. That’s inexcusable – especially for a team worth $3.1 billion, according to Forbes.