Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts had his usual meetup with reporters at the Cubs Convention over the weekend, and said a number of things that I think deserve comment.
He was quoted in this article by Meghan Montemurro in the Tribune. Here are his comments, followed by mine.
“I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t be favored this year,” Ricketts told the Tribune on Saturday at the Cubs Convention. “I think that Jed (Hoyer) had a great offseason addressing the needs that we had, and we’re healthy. We have a great manager, we have a really solid lineup all the way across, a little more depth than last year. I think we should win the division.”
COMMENT: As Montemurro notes, Ricketts said the same thing last year. Truth be told, he might not be wrong. The Brewers have taken a step back from their 93-win season and the Cubs, as constituted right now, are probably better than the 83-win team they were a year ago. In fact, the 2024 Cubs were probably better than an 83-win team, as their Pythagorean W/L record was 88-74.
But they still need to add on to this roster, and help the bullpen and rotation — and note, those are things not mentioned above.
As the Cubs focus on improving their bullpen and bench in the coming weeks, the organization is approximately $40 million under the Competitive Balance Tax, which is set at $241 million for 2025. Ricketts expects the Cubs’ 2025 payroll likely will end up “CBTish, más o menos (more or less).”
“But we don’t get too specific because it’s a little bit of a competitive disadvantage to talk about it,” Ricketts said. “But in the range of one of the top payroll teams, not the Dodgers or Mets or Yankees, but in that next group.”
COMMENT: Okay, then show us the money. As noted in our most recent look here at the Cubs payroll and luxury tax figures last week, the Cubs are somewhere around $40 million short of that “CBTish” number of $241 million. In fact, you can take $1 million away from the estimate made there, because we had Kyle Tucker listed at his requested figure of $17.5 million, and since that article he settled at $16.5 million.
The Cubs have plenty of room to add a starting pitcher — Jack Flaherty, maybe? — and perhaps a reliever with closing experience. I suspect Tanner Scott will be too expensive, but why not look into Kyle Finnegan?
Again, show us the money. It’s there, Jed.
“We’re still way behind financially from the Dodgers and the Yankees, and obviously the Mets have outside resources through their owner, and what I say to Jed and the guys is, like, we can’t do anything about that,” Ricketts said. “Let’s just put our best team on the field. We have enough resources to win our division. And in baseball, if you get to the playoffs you have as good a chance as any other team in the playoffs and making the World Series. Just try to be consistent, try to make the playoffs.
“I think we have all the resources to win. We can’t worry about what the Dodgers or Mets do.”
COMMENT: This comes to the crux of what a lot of Cubs fans complain about the ownership style of the Ricketts. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is my feeling that many here think the Cubs should spend like the Dodgers, Yankees or Mets.
Here are numbers from 2023, via Forbes. They do indeed have the Yankees and Dodgers at significantly higher revenue levels than the Cubs had that year. The Mets are lower, though that number might have changed for 2024. Forbes usually comes out with their numbers sometime around Opening Day, so we can revisit this then.
Here’s another comment from Ricketts that has been making the rounds, from this USA Today article:
“I think our fans somehow think we have all these dollars that the Dodgers have or the Mets have or the Yankees have, and we just keep it. It’s not true. We just try to break even every year.’’
COMMENT: I think the “try to break even” is what made some fans’ jaws drop. The operating income figures at the Forbes link tell a different story. For 2023, the Cubs were listed as having $68 million in operating income. Now, that isn’t necessarily related to “break even” and we don’t have profit and/or loss figures because MLB teams don’t open their books (except for the Braves, who are owned by publicly-traded Liberty Media, and you can read about Braves finances here).
Here’s the bottom line for me, in an article essentially about the Cubs’ bottom line: Whether you feel the Cubs should break the bank or they should stay within the CBT number, they clearly have around $40 million of money they could spend on this year’s player payroll — and that’s not even including a holdback of $5 million to $10 million for mid-season acquisitions.
Ricketts further said, quoted in this article:
“If we trade Cody Bellinger for a starting pitcher, that’s a trade,” Ricketts said. “If we trade Cody Bellinger to get the resources to sign a pitcher, that’s a salary dump. It doesn’t make any sense.”
COMMENT: Well, yes. That’s exactly the point. Bellinger was traded and Kyle Tucker was traded for, and the team saved money by doing that. And yes, essentially, the resources freed up by the Bellinger trade could be used to sign a pitcher.
Time to get it done, Jed. Stop being timid. Go sign some pitching. You have the resources.
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