08-14-2013, 03:13 AM
Quote:All of the FA's you mentioned either came with huge question marks (Liriano, Nathan, Upton - who is terrible BTW) or were unproven (Darvish, Cespedes) aside from Fielder. And he came with his own concerns as a viable NL first baseman deep into his later contract years. We would have competed for a few years, and then still ended up a shitty organization. How would that have been different from the Hendry regime?
The difference to the Hendry regime would be the parallel focus on minor league system while adding FA talent when available. We are not talking about trading away minor league talent to acquire MLB ready talent but a parallel focus on putting out a competitive MLB roster to limit the damage to the Cubs brand. FA talent is becoming more and more scarce as expected with the new CBA so FO will needs to take larger risks - many of which will fail miserably in Cubs fashion - but simply relying on prospects and saying wait till 2015 or 2016, 2017 is not a viable strategy for a major revenue generating MLB team. The strategy is viable for a small market team that can rely on revenue sharing to generate profits but this is the Chicago Cubs playing in a baseball cathedral and charging some of the highest prices for tickets in baseball - the organization can and should do better.
Regarding the FA mentioned, hindsight is 20/20. Schierholtz, DeJesus, Gregg, Navarro have all provided great relative low risk/cost additions to the roster. Still expecting that Jackson will eat up innings for a few more years and should keep the Cubs in most games if Cubs can develop an average MLB worth offense.