Sick of Tanking

I, and many others in my camp, have received a lot of grief lately for beginning to voice the opinion that this grand "Cubs Way" plan executed by the Cubs' current front office is misguided at best and a joke at worst. As of the end of tonight's most recent loss, the Theo Epstein era has resulted in a .386 MLB winning percentage.

People who claim to have a view of the big picture will tell us that the Cubs have increased their farm system ranking from consensus bottom 10 to consensus top 5 in that time frame. This is indisputably true. The Cubs have more talent in their minor league system than they've had in a while. However, the issue I have is that it's not that difficult to increase the talent in your system when you lose games a lot at the MLB level. It gives you more high draft picks, more international spending money, and more incentive to sell off anyone on your major league team who has the audacity to not suck. Pretty much anyone can increase the talent in a minor league system if they make absolutely no effort to win games at the MLB level.

So why, then, did Tom Ricketts shoot for the moon and go after Theo Epstein, one of MLB's most famous and successful general managers of all time from his time with Boston, to run the Cubs as team president? If the plan could be summed up as "You know that thing where the Astros are tanking seasons? Let's just do that for a while and get more talent," why hire the guy once known as Boy Genius to do it?

The answer to that is unclear, although there's text from an interview running around somewhere (I tried but could not find it) where Theo Epstein gushed about how, when they were both in Boston, he and Jed Hoyer (now the Cubs GM) would muse about the idea of eschewing free agency almost entirely and building a contender with only homegrown talent. For people like me who are sick of losing, this discussion is a little worrisome with the knowledge that through 3 offseasons, Epstein and Co. have made exactly one long-term free-agent signing - pitcher Edwin Jackson (4Y/52M). Jackson outperformed his peripherals most of his career and is now underperforming them (and doing so in spectacular fashion, I might add).

Anyway, one of the pro-tanking crowd's favorite go-to arguments is that the Cubs' farm system was a gaping hell-hole when Theo and Co. arrived to save us with three consecutive 100-loss seasons. (The funny thing is, every year the Cubs suck under Theo, the more terrible the Cubs' system apparently was when he got here.) While it's true the system was in lamentable shape, the school of thought that the only way out of it was to tank is, in my opinion, flat-out wrong.

Don't take my word for it. Check out this selected list of teams who had bad minor-league systems and bad MLB teams in the same season in recent years, only to rebound quickly and have success.

2010: Arizona Diamondbacks. Arizona lost 97 games in 2010. DeepLeagues.com ranked their farm system 28th. The following season, Arizona, despite the fact that they hadn't tanked any seasons, won the NL West. They're terrible now, of course, but that can be largely chalked up to a bevy of stupid deals that new GM Kevin Towers has made, shipping out Justin Upton, Trevor Bauer, Adam Eaton and probably several other good or talented players I'm forgetting.

2011: Oakland Athletics. Oakland lost 88 games in 2011. Baseball America ranked their farm system 28th (12 spots BEHIND the Cubs' system that was supposedly so bereft of talent) going into the season. The A's have won the AL West the 2 seasons since then, and are projected to do so again this year by Fangraphs. They didn't tank any seasons in the interim. They did trade Gio Gonzalez after the '11 season for a collection of talent that's helped set the stage for their run.

2011: Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore lost 93 games and held the 21st-ranked farm system according to Baseball America that year. The O's made it to the playoffs the following year and were a solid team in 2013, with 85 wins. No tanking involved.

2012: Cleveland Indians. Cleveland lost 94 games in 2012. Fangraphs tells us that the Tribe's farm system was third from the bottom in baseball that year. The following year, bolstered by some shrewd moves and new manager Terry Francona, Cleveland made the playoffs without tanking any seasons. Early returns on 2014 are mixed with an 11-13 record, but the AL Central is mediocre enough that Cleveland can still expect to be in the race all year if things don't go south.

That's four examples just from the last four off-seasons of teams, none of whom are big-market squads that can erase mistakes by spending out of them, who had bad years and had bad systems - all worse than the 2011 Cubs' system that was supposedly so empty - and did not tank any seasons, yet got better quickly with smart moves and some luck. (In the case of Arizona, quickly undid that improvement with stupidity.)

And by the way, early returns are pretty good on the 2014 White Sox, who haven't had a decent farm system in a gazillion years and lost 99 games a year ago. It is, of course, only April, so we'll see, but they're threatening to add their names to this list.

Look. I'm not saying that Theo's Tankapalooza plan won't work. It probably will have some success just due to sheer volume. I'm also not saying it's necessarily all his fault. There's been a lot of chatter that the Cubs' frugal ways of the last few years have had a lot to due with a complex (and stupid) debt structure the Ricketts took on as a condition of their purchasing the team.

What I am saying is that I don't think Tankapalooza was necessary, nor do I think it was becoming of a guy who supposedly was Boy Genius (and did a lot of talking about 'dual fronts' and building a winning organization AND a good farm system at the same time). Those who tell you the Cubs had to do this are creating a false choice. The Cubs didn't have to be bad. They chose to be. And while the Cubs might hypothetically be good in 3 or 4 years due to that, it's very not hypothetical that they blow chunks right now. They've blown chunks for years. And there's no clear end in sight right now. And that really, really sucks.

The Return of Everett Golson

It's been 8 months since I posted in this blog. There just hasn't been much to say. The Cubs suck, Notre Dame sports have disappointed, the Bulls tried (and failed) to tank the 2013-14 season. I guess I could have written about Carolina's playoff season, but most of what I had to say ended up on my Twitter and Facebook accounts.

This weekend is the Notre Dame spring game, the first time Everett Golson will be in a game situation in a Notre Dame uniform since Jan. 7, 2013. It seems like forever and no time at all since that day, a thud ending to a magical season that saw Alabama play a masterful game and crush the Irish 42-14 in the national title game. There was an SBNation article before the 2013 season (which I can't find right now, otherwise I'd link to it) that said that, adjusting for opponent, the Tide's performance in that blowout was the single best college football game played by any team in over a decade. Alas.

Since then, ND played a decent but disappointing 2013 season. They won 9 games, handing Michigan State their only loss and Arizona State one of just two regular-season defeats, and yet they crapped the bed in losses to mediocre Pittsburgh and Michigan teams and had to battle into the fourth quarter to edge out a garbage Purdue squad. The 2013 Irish were an enigma, probably because we and they knew they weren't whole.

That changes in 2014, as Golson returns from a year-long absence necessitated by his suspension from the university for reportedly cheating on a final exam. He has not been anointed the starter just yet, as coach Brian Kelly is giving redshirt freshman Malik Zaire a chance to compete for the job, but it seems clear that Golson will be under center when ND plays its first offensive snap against Rice on Aug. 30. After all, he was probably his team's best player in a national championship game (people remember ND getting blown out - few remember that Golson threw for 270 yards on 7.5 yards per attempt, with no help from the running game, and was responsible for both Irish touchdowns, window dressing though they were). Hard for Zaire to compete with that experience.

There will, of course, be jokes made on social media about Golson all season long regardless of what he does. This comes with the territory of what he did, and ND fans, as well as Golson, know that this is inevitable. However, I'm rooting for him.

Outside of the 'rooting for laundry' thing where Irish fans simply don't have much choice but to root for the junior signal-caller, Golson's return shows a maturity that what got him booted from school didn't. It would have been easy after the embarrassment of what happened for the QB to run off with his tail between his legs and pursue a transfer to a less academically rigorous school (SBNation reported that at least one SEC team inquired about him before he reaffirmed his commitment to play at ND) where he could redeem himself on the field. Instead, he chose to return to the scene of his previous failure and try to atone for what he did. It remains to be seen how that turns out, but I give him credit for choosing to stick it out.

So far, Golson has said all the right things regarding his second chance. How he performs on the football field will go a long way towards what his ultimate legacy will be at Notre Dame. But to many Irish fans, myself included, Golson eventually getting his degree will be just as important to that legacy. The school has always been about trying to compete on the highest level athletically and academically. Golson didn't get that the first time around. Maybe, this time, he will.