Well Mr. Ricketts, You Got Your Wish, Now it’s Time to Spend or Sell

*This is going to be irrational, but I had to get it off my chest. Thanks!

The Chicago Cubs are broke! Don’t you know that? Broke I tell you, BROKE! B. R. O. K. E. broke. Don’t you remember the biblical proportions!? Were you not around for COVID? Are you not sympathetic to these tough times!?

I have seen a lot of Cubs fans pointing a finger at Jed Hoyer for a bad deal on Monday evening when he sent Yu Darvish and Victor Caratini to the San Diego Padres for four kids that can’t shave yet. I have no doubts that these kids will pay off someday but someday is 2024 – AT THE EARLIEST. That someday current Cubs player, Kyle Hendricks would be 34 years old. Anthony Rizzo will also be 34. Javier Baez, Willson Contreras, and Kris Bryant will be 31. If there are extensions for these players, they are likely half-way through these extensions before these players are ready to contribute.

While I am certain Reginald Preciado, Owen Caissie, Yeison Santana, and Ismael Mena will be fine players – they weren’t the type of return you are looking for when trading Yu Darvish. A day after the Tampa Bay Rays pulled the number two prospect from the Padres for a pitcher that has averaged less than five innings pitched per game the last two years, and you couldn’t muster a top 10 prospect is not doing your job. Essentially, this IS a salary dump.

Salary dumps don’t come from general managers or team presidents. Salary dumps come from ownership. This salary dump came at the directive of Tom “we’ve lost money at biblical proportions” Ricketts.

Here’s the thing Tommy, you bought this team and told us that you wanted a perennial contender here. You sold us this bullsh*t story about meeting your wife in the bleachers and all that noise. You came in here with daddy’s money and built something that had the looks of being great. Then you supplemented what should be great with a new TV network, bringing Cubs games to a single-source (while lining the Cubs coffers). You developed the area surrounding Wrigley Field, bringing in countless more dollars.

You came in here and promised a top-flight organization but at your leadership, you’ve turned this team into the Kansas City Freaking Royals.

Tommy, us Cubs fans aren’t idiots. We know, absolutely, that even after suffering biblical losses, you could have afforded to keep Darvish. You can absolutely afford to hand out multiple extensions, you can afford to add viable and important free agents. Oh, and you can afford this and run the risk of paying into the CBT.

But at the risk of not receiving 45% profits on the Cubs, you have pulled the strings on Hoyer like Geppetto pulling Pinocchio’s. The difference between you and Geppetto, he knew to let Pinocchio do his thing when he became a real boy.

So you pushed Hoyer to trade a higher salary from the roster, and he did. Your push caused him to receive four players that are light-years away from the big leagues with a historically low chance at becoming legitimate Major League ballplayers. Let alone, actual difference makers.

So now here you are, sitting on your throne of lies. That throne that gave you the fake courage to stand in front of thousands of Cubs fans at the Cubs Convention and told us that we won’t be booing in a year. Well F you Tom, we’re booing and now I think it is time to start asking for you to step down.

Publicly, your family has mostly been a disgrace to the fans. Yes, your name will always be mentioned as one to bring a championship to this organization – we will not take that away. But it is the extra stuff that has been an embarrassment. The outwardly racist emails that were released that included asinine suggestions from the beloved patriarch of the Ricketts family. It was crying poor when Forbes valued the organization at $3.2 billion (when you spent $700k on them). It is us understanding that, even if you took a hit financially in 2020, and even if you mismanaged your (or the Cubs) finances so much that you had little in reserves, you can mortgage against the value of the club and essentially have an endless supply of money.

Here we sit, about to go into the fifth year after a World Series, without a legitimate chance to win since and none in sight. You’ve charged Hoyer with reducing payroll some like $85 million from the 2020 budget. The Cubs are sitting around 12th in baseball with a $122 million payroll. If you cannot handle the finances of a MLB organization, maybe there is someone else that can. Do you know if you can perform a 1031 Property Exchange on a sports franchise? I wouldn’t want you to cry when Uncle Sam asks for his cut of the deal.