Mr. Ricketts, Deflection Isn’t a Good Look

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011. That was the day Tom Ricketts completely won me over. Earlier that day I checked out StubHub and I saw tickets to that night’s Chicago Cubs game for $2.50 each. The kicker, it was against the St. Louis Cardinals. I saw this as an awesome chance to bring my two boys to the game with my wife. My wife, she is a Cubs fan but much more responsible than I am, declined because it was a work night. So I phoned my brother, since I already bought the tickets (yes, I’m both irresponsible and impulsive).

Sometime around the fifth inning, my youngest son had to go to the bathroom and my oldest was hungry. So, my brother took the youngest to the horse troughs while I brought the oldest to concessions. On our way over, we were stopped by a man. Understand, my oldest was five at the time and had the awe of Wrigley in his eyes. I believe that this man saw that, and took the chance to ensure that awe would never falter.

He offered us his seats, and even before he pointed towards the front row, near the Cubs warmup circle, I knew this was Tom Ricketts. Regrettably, we turned down the seats as I couldn’t bring myself to ditch my brother, well, and my three year old, for this chance. Later, my brother would tell me I was an idiot and we could have just taken turns sitting upfront.

We know the rest of the Ricketts story. We know the literal rebuild of everything Cubs. Wrigley, scouting, player development, computer systems, international efforts, minor league facilities, management, players, and the last piece – turned them from loveable losers to World Series champions in six short years.

Fast forward to 2020 and the man that was revered for rebuilding this organization, is now under fire. Some of it from his own doing, and some of it because of what his family’s beliefs are. I’m not going to get into the political ties that the Ricketts family has. Personally, I don’t think it’s any of my business, as it’s no one else’s business what my political thoughts are, just like I don’t believe it’s my business to know your political thoughts. I think the whole of our parts create our ideals and if you’re ideals are different than mine I’d rather learn from you than degrade you for daring to have different thoughts than me.

This is the same with the Ricketts in my mind.

What I do take issue with is when Tom acts as if the fans are dumb. That should anger you as well.

Look, I do have a problem with the lack of spending and the talks of trading players that they can absolutely afford.

Recently, Patrick Mooney talked to Tom (paid link) about the team, budgets, lack of spending, and ownership panels. When it came to spending in free agency, Mr. Ricketts really just deflected the questions.

“First of all, payroll doesn’t solve all your problems,” Tom said. “The top payrolls last year didn’t even make the playoffs, and we were one of them. Our baseball spend will be at the top — or among the top teams — every year going forward. We’ve developed the resources here to be consistent on that.”

While, sure, he’s right. The Kansas City Royals had a $126 million payroll when they won in 2015. The Cubs won the World Series with a payroll of $147 million. The Houston Astros won in 2017 with a payroll of $138 million. In 2018, the Red Sox bucked the trend, spending $227 million.

So while he was “right” every one of those teams (with the exception of the Astros) took a step backwards. While Tom spoke of not becoming one of those teams that succeeded, to only fall upon mediocre times, the only ways to do this is to spend or have constant waves of prospects filling gaps.

This is where I noticed the biggest deflection in Mooney’s interview for The Athletic.

“We have some good guys coming,” Ricketts said. “Maybe it would have been nice to have a couple more coming a little quicker.”

There has been quite a lot of talk around Theo Epstein’s gunslinger like approach to trading prospects at the deadline. Guys like Gleyber Torres, Jorge Soler, and Eloy Jimenez would look nice in left field, right field, and second base while saving the club upwards of $25 million in annual salaries. That $25 million would have looked nice if it turned into one or two starting pitchers that hit the market in either 2019 or 2020.

Tom would go on to explain that these are all Theo decisions, and anytime he’s brought a case to him, ownership has always approved it.

“When Theo comes to suggest something like that (trade for Nicholas Castellanos), I generally approve it,” Ricketts said. “Kimbrel was a little more complicated than that earlier in the year. Certainly, a lot more money and a long-term commitment. It will be important for us to give him all the resources he needs to get ready for the season, so we can have a full season of the real Craig Kimbrel.”

So, which is it here? The chicken or the egg? It seems that Tom points to Theo for roster like questions – and “generally approve them” – but it seems like Theo isn’t bringing ideas to Tom due to budgetary constraints.

This is where I would like the “most accessible owner in all sports” to stand up and just tell it to us like it is. “The Cubs have set a budget under the CBT because we stand to lose roughly $40 million if we’re over a second year in a row.”

That is a statement that I can understand and respect. I respect that a lot more than the B.S. deflections and tap dancing the franchise is forced to do when asked about budgets now. As the dad that was so impressed that the owner would pick my son and I out of the crowd one cold night in May, I think we all deserve the truth.