Cubs left high and dry thanks to confluence of perfect storms

Chicago Cubs: Who is handling the money?

I’m no accountant and I’m certainly not privy to the particulars of the 1060 project, but it seems to me that doubling your initial projected costs probably means you didn’t have the right people involved at some point.

Again, the Cubs are a private business and none of us know what kind of money has truly been spent and how it’s been managed, but by gleaning tidbits of information from different sources, it’s clear that the project cost way more than it was supposed to and put the Ricketts in a spot where the payroll was secondary to paying back debt. For a competitive and presently successful professional sports franchise, that’s never a good thing.

Also, I don’t know how much of an effort was made in extension talks with Baez, Contreras, and Bryant, but how can Anthony Rizzo not have an extension at this point? Maybe Bryant was always going to be too expensive and hard to deal with seeing as he’s a Scott Boras guy, but why didn’t the Cubs lock up their other young stars while they could have been had for below-market value long-term deals?

Maybe this was a “wait for the big Marquee money” roll of the dice, and maybe the plan all along was to trade some or let them walk, but it now looks like a terrible set of decisions that has led us to this point in January of 2021.

It’s said that hindsight is 20/20, so maybe it’s not fair to look back on every decision as an armchair quarterback. However, now that 2020 is over, perhaps 2021 will give us some new perspectives, better vision, and some better baseball decisions… I just feel like we’re not out of the eye of this storm quite yet.