Tom Ricketts keeps making it harder and harder to mock him. I mean, he pretty much shut us all up when he went out and hired away the top baseball executive available (and one of the top guys alive) to pull the team out of its nosedive into the ground. He's showing that he understands the concept of a sunk cost, which has helped Theo and the rest of the Superfriends provide the roster with a bit more flexibility to eventually add talent. He's doing his best to bring the ballpark into the modern era in both amenities and revenue potential.
Today, he's down in the Dominican Republic unveiling the plans for the Cubs training facility that should be up and running in about 18 months.
Based on some of the renderings on csnchicago.com, it looks pretty impressive.
It will have four baseball fields (including one turf field), four covered batting cages and eight bullpens. It will also house and educate the players as two locker rooms, a weight room, a cafeteria and kitchen, two meeting rooms, a large classroom and a theatre and video room are included.
Plus it will have an educational center where players can earn GEDs as they learn the Cubs Way, and a dormitory for up to 80 players and coaches.
Once this place and the new Spring Training facilities in Mesa are completed, players are going to wonder why they train in such great places only to actually play in such a shithole 81 times a year.
There is at least one proposed field in the DR and Mesa that will be Wrigley dimensions. I thought that was a nice touch.
I will now self-facepalm to get my daily facepalm fix.
I’m glad the Special bottom of comments link for GBTS. The rest of you should just use the arrows next to reply/quote. link is there. You can’t use the arrows to get to the bottom of the comments if there are no comments.
It looks nicer than Wrigley Field (dying laughing)
@ mb21:
That was my first thought as well. They will have a weight room and a cafeteria that will presumably not have critical violations in sanitation.
;
mb21 wrote:
.
Well I guess that spikes my comment that guys that aren’t even in A-ball have better facilities than the major league guys at Wrigley.
Didn’t Theo say all the fields in the Cubs system would match the dimensions of Wrigley? I’m guessing the artist was probably Dominican.
So with the modifications of the CBA the Cubs are basically training guys that will be drafted by other teams, right?
(dying laughing) my last comment was spam filtered
I wonder if they were ever able to drill down under Wrigley Field successfully to determine if they could build a bigger clubhouse down yonder. Although the labyrinthine tunnel system required to access these proposed new clubhouses would probably be a bit crazy.
@ GW:
Just let one of us know next time that happens. Sorry about that.
mb21 wrote:
I approved it, shouldn’t it have appeared now?
too bad Boston will ask for the complex as compensation for Theo
mb21 wrote:
I just assumed it was a special mish trap instituted by sk
@ Aisle424:
It was the last comment in the last thread.
GW wrote:
yeah i would say despite the on the field product Ricketts has been pretty good as an owner. Now go sign a bunch of Cubans before the cap gets into place
@ mb21:
yeah, i also tried to post it in this one
dylanj wrote:
*ba da bum* *ting*
@ GW:
I deleted two of the three so that’s my fault. Not sure why it flagged it as spam. Maybe just because it was a link only? I don’t know. Others have left SK unapproved links as comments here. Akismet just doesn’t like you.
@ mb21:
undoubtedly it has a good reason.
@ dylanj:
I’d much rather they have that than Jackson or Rizzo. That DR complex is useless. The Cubs already had it planned so they weren’t going to stop it, but they wouldn’t have begun the process if they knew about the new CBA.
@ GW:
Censoring articles about Newt and Bobby V isn’t such a bad idea after all.
mb21 wrote:
Is it that useless though? How much did it cost to sign a Starlin Castro? I’m assuming most of those kids don’t see more than $100K (if that) in signing bonuses but I don’t know that for sure.
@ Rice Cube:
It’s useless because teams have to notify the league about which players they want to sign so every other team now gets a shot to scout them even if they hadn’t. If they like what they see they could offer more money than the Cubs might be able to.
@ mb21:
Well, this can be how the Cubs spend their money, if the draft is going to be less efficient. There aren’t many teams that can outbid the Cubs, if they really want someone, right?
Rice Cube wrote:
Plus, the cap is only for players under 22 or something. Couldn’t the Cubs target a few guys that slip through that age barrier and get them trained up on the Cubs Way? Sure, it would have been even more valuable under the old rules, but I don’t think Ricketts is foolish enough to continue spending money for no reason just because he had already started the process. It’s not like the faciltity was 90% done and they said, “Well we might as well finish it.” they haven’t even broke ground yet.
they have to notify but i dont know if there is then a time out to let other teams scout. You could notify and the sign the guy in the same minute I think. Plus, if our prospects get better nutrition, facilities and education before they get here then maybe they will adjust better. It certainly cant hurt
@ mb21:
Do you recall what the penalties were for going over the allotted foreign free agent pool in the new CBA? Maybe I’m wrong but that seems like a minor concern in the grand scheme of things. Teams are always spying on each other anyway, and if there’s no penalty other than an over-pool tax, then I feel like the Cubs probably won’t care.
@ josh:
There are spending limits on amateur players 23 and younger too.
no RC, the penalties are massive. You lose 1st round picks and get taxed 100 % what you go over. Teams wont do that. The only hope is that teams try this out and fucking hate it but my guess is by 2015 we have a world draft
Rice Cube wrote:
I feel like there are provisions where going over egregiously enough would warrant loss of draft picks, which I can’t imagine would be palatable to Theo and the boys.
agreed. though i’m a little surprised they aren’t scaling it down regardless of the plans they had in place.
If you go 15% over slot you pay 100% of your slot. If the Cubs slot value for international free agents was $6 million and they instead signed players to $6.9 million they’d owe $6.9 million additionally. Teams aren’t going to go over slot that much except on a rare occasion.
Not to mention that an international draft is probably coming within a year. No matter how retarded that is (is it even legal?), it’s likely going to happen and it probably won’t be long.
Also, if a team goes 15% over they’re barred from signing some players the following year. It’s never going to happen.
@ GW:
Same here. It does the Cubs no good at this point. I’d have preferred they just save the money and invest it on the MLB team. A year ago I would have been thrilled. It would have been a huge advantage. Now it’s a waste of money.
If JR Towles still isn’t on this team then Ricketts is still worthy of being mocked.
Theo is dead on when he says the new CBA puts all the emphasis on the quality of your scouts. Its a good time to be a talented scout as teams will be shelling out cash
i guess i dont follow MD’s logic on this one. The new hard cap in the DR isnt going to change the fact that the Cubs and all other teams are still going to sign a bunch of kids it jsut means those kids wont get much money anymore. This isnt like the US amateur’s where they can tell the Cubs to fuck off and go to college, prospects in the DR will sign for 100,000 vs 1,000,000 or 25,000 vs 125,000. That academy will still be full because those kids have no other choice.
These new rules seem very weird to me. Who benefits from all these caps and restrictions? I’ve been struggling with this since they signed it. Are these all designed to keep the status quo? Or were the players looking to limit the talent field?
Maybe the Cubs are building the facility in the hopes that there is a change, or they see it as being long term a better solution, or something. I don’t know. I’m just struggling to see how any of this helps the sport.
@ dylanj:
Yeah, that’s a good point. Plus, if there are spending caps, will other teams be able to outbid DR prospects? Won’t they just focus on their own and avoid bidding wars?
@ Aisle424:
I know in the amateur draft they’d have monetary penalties only if they only went 4.99999% over slot, after that you start losing draft picks. Wasn’t sure on the foreign free agent stuff, but if they flat out lose draft picks for going even a penny over their allotted pool then I agree, not worth it.
I still don’t think the facility is completely worthless though, you can still sign a good pool of talent for cheap.
The following is from the original announcement of the new CBA a couple months ago:
So it sounds like if they’re dead sure about a player, all they’d do is pay an over-pool tax and at most they’d lose the right to sign another foreign free agent for big bucks. Was there an update to this rule I wasn’t aware of?
josh wrote:
small market teams realized the game was up, and their arbitrage in cheaply signing amateurs was gone, so they were for it. large market teams who had never invested as heavily in scouting were also. my guess is that everyone except for a handful of teams (cubs, red sox, rangers?, …) was on board.
josh wrote:
they can have a war up to 2.5 million and then have nothing left for anyone else. All it does is take money from poor kids in the DR and gives it back to the owners. Its a shit move but thats life.
DJ, all international free agents must register with MLB.
mb21 wrote:
Under previous regimes, I would probably jump on board the “Cubs are stupidly pissing away millions of dollars” bandwagon because it was something they did regularly. But given that it is Theo now in charge of where baseball dollars are being spent, we have to look at the likely possibilities of what is going on here.
A) There is still value in building this facility, but we are missing it.
B) There is no value and Theo has been over-ruled by someone in how the baseball development budget is allocated.
C) There is no value and Theo has officially become a Cub and doesn’t see that.
D) There is no value, but these dollars are not coming from the baseball development budget, so no matter how much Theo disagrees, it isn’t his call.
I’d put the probability of C) at near 0% and I have more faith in A) than I ever would have before now, but I simply don;t know and we are unlikely to find out, given the lack of inside information coming out of the Cubs these days.
this is the part that has to be the most frustrating for the cubs
Also, since the Cubs finances are pretty tight, whoever greenlighted this would need a better pitch than “Well we already started talking about doing this” as a reason to divert non-baseball money away from their debt obligations.
mb21 wrote:
i know but that doesnt mean you cant register by faxing in the guys info and then signing him. The purpose of it was to build a database of players to help prevent Fausto Carmona’s. Maybe there is a waiting period where other teams could try and poach but it doesnt say that anywhere i’ve seen.
@ GW:
Not just the Cubs, but everyone with dominican facilities. That’s why I don’t get why anyone but the Yankees would agree to this.
Aisle424 wrote:
or there is marginal value that theo and ricketts are overrating based on all the evidence they had of a large advantage under the previous cba
The reality with the new CBA is that all teams are on equal footing with amateur talent. Whatever gains may be had in one way or another are minimal at best. Maybe the Pirates hire a super hot chick to show these guys the ropes and that makes a small difference for the horny 16 year olds looking to get laid. Maybe those teams who have academies are able to offer something they couldn’t otherwise offer.
As DJ said earlier, this is all about the quality of scouting now. The team with the best scouts wins as far as amateur talent is concerned.
@ josh:
when mid to large market teams (the cubs) start throwing real money around in the dominican/draft, the small market teams no longer see any benefits to what they were doing
@ dylanj:
I think it does. The top international talent must pass drug tests so the registration process is obviously prior to minutes before signing.
again though, i fail to see why there will be less DR talent around. We will still have a full house in the new academy, we just dont have to pay them as much.
@ GW:
Yeah, I’m guessing there is marginal value in having an academy and that they overestimated its real value.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/draft/news/2012/2612723.html
thats a great article about the changes in the CBA
mb21 wrote:
Maybe this is the advantage. Instead of flinging a ahit ton of scouts all over the place trying to keep an eye on all the guys they have targeted, they bring them in with promises of getting an education, having a clean place to sleep, and proper nutrition. And fewer scouts are needed to watch them all. plus the Cubs would control a lot of variables that would make them easier to project. Like since the fields are all Wrigley-size, they’ll know exactly how well a guy can go back into the corner wells on a ball, or how their bat will play in Wrigley’s dimensions.
Maybe they are overvaluing that edge, but the Cubs would control a lot of variables that they can’t control now, which should help in their ability to project and make smarter picks.
Well crap. Maybe the Cubs should sublet part of the facility to the Rays and other poor teams then (dying laughing)
mb21 wrote:
i’m not convinced that there is a significant spread in scouting ability, or even if there is, whether you would be able to see any evidence of it over, say, a five year period.
@ GW:
I see what you’re saying there.
Would a registration necessarily lead to poaching? Knowing someone’s name is different from knowing his talent level, unless they plan to record all stats, too. That might do it.
@ dylanj:
There won’t be less talent. It’s just that the advantage the Cubs had in giving large signing bonuses is gone. The advantage that any team had in being able to scout a player who no other team knew about is also gone.
Who are these guys going to sign with? A team offering $500,000 or a team offering $600,000? That $100,000 more is freaking huge for these guys. $10,000 more for the lesser prospects is huge. That’s the other thing. Eventually we’d like the Cubs to be finishing atop the standings meaning they have significantly less money to spend on international free agents than inferior teams do. It’s quite likely the Cubs in 5 years will have about $2 million to spend on amateur talent while the Pirates have $6-8 million.
Aisle424 wrote:
I agree with this. If anything in a world where all teams have the same amount then you have to have another edge to get the best talent. Having the best facility on the island will help this. I think its a really smart move and $ well spent.
@ josh:
yeah, i’m guessing there will be a fair amount of misinformation floating around now to keep other teams in the dark regarding true intentions.
@ Aisle424:
I was thinking that, something about building brand loyalty. Only, if a kid grew up dirt poor, I don’t know if you can predict what he’ll do when faced with the choice of friends v. $$. Still, it might pay off often enough to give them an edge.
@ Aisle424:
That’s all true, but what happens when the Cubs can only spend $2 million on international free agents and the worst teams from the year before are able to spend $6-8 million? You have to assume if you have $2 million that there’s no way you’re going over $500,000 for any player. Probably not even over $250,000. If a team has $6-8 million they could easily top the Cubs best offer. And if they are playing in a centralized location that allows scouts from other teams to watch.
think about it like this- imagine we find the next Castro and offer 200k and the Pirates use more budget and offer 250k. Its possible the kid would follow the money but if you were his parents and knew that your son would get a GED, English education, nutrition and have access to the best facilities on the DR it might sway you. It damn sure will give you an edge if the money is =.
@ GW:
I don’t think there’s a significant spread, but there is a spread. And that spread can lead to significantly different results.
I do agree that it’s probably not something teams can identify though.
Right now, we are valuing wins at about $5M per WAR, so if this academy works out to adding an extra 1 WAR per year to the team through teaching these guys how to play in Wrigley and take advantage of all the home field variations that can throw off players, it would probably end up being worth it.
Plus, since it will be harder to stockpile talent via draft and international signings, the value of WAR is going to go up as talent acquisition shifts to free agency and the big money teams start piling money onto established players. So any edge in areas that would minimize the need for free agency spending would, in theory, be even more valuable.
I really don’t know, but I refuse to believe that Theo has anything to do with this without some serious study that suggests that this money spent now will translate to increased value over the years.
@ mb21:
I still don’t know if names in an Excel table is going to help other teams. They’d still have to invest money in scouts to check the people out, double check the numbers etc. Like GW said, there’s boudn to be exaggerations and misinformation.
Is there a cap on free agents? Maybe players will become less likely to sign long term deals and more likely to try to get to free agency and the Cubs can make up some lost ground from amateurs there.
@ dylanj:
What team is signing 16 year olds and not providing that? The Cubs don’t currently have an academy, but they do provide it. So do 29 other teams. That the Cubs will have a new facility in which these kids can eat is, at best, a marginal gain. It’s not like the Astros or Blue Jays are signing kids from DR and Venezuela and then not ensuring they have a balanced diet and the necessary tools to succeed.
The GED offer is nice, but I expect that’s something any other team could guarantee with ease too. It’s not like getting a GED costs that much money.
mb21 wrote:
other teams have facilities but when this is done we will have the best. Do you want to eat a McDonalds hamburger or steak?
@ Aisle424:
There will be some bleedout, but overall they expect to gain from this. Maybe their ultimate goal is to be THE team that Dominicans want to play for. It’s not exactly analytical at this point, but maybe that’s one of the things Theo is trying to quantify.
@ Aisle424:
My guess is the discussion went like this.
Theo: Mr. Ricketts, the new CBA kind of fucked us over with regards to international free agents. The academy is still a fine idea and might provide a sizable advantage down the road.
Mr. Ricketts: Well, if there’s any advantage to be had, fuck it. let’s go for it. Team’s been trying shit for 100 years that ain’t worked so let’s try this shit.
And that’s fine with me. I know I sound like I’m complaining, but I’m really not. I like that the Cubs are building the academy. it might provide a slim advantage. It might now. It might be a complete waste of money. My guess is it’s closer to next to no gain and waste of money, but it’s not my money.
i just really wish we could have the academy AND spend fair market value on young talent. Typical Cubs luck to get a GM who understands the value of young talent, get a world class facility in the DR and then have a 2.5 million cap to be followed by an int’l draft.
@ dylanj:
If a team is paying me $150,000 to eat a steak and another is paying me $200,000 to eat at McDonalds, I’ll eat at McDonald’s. For that matter, you can pay me $150,001 and I’ll eat McDonald’s.
Besides, none of this is going to matter anyway because there will soon be a stupid-ass International free agent draft. Of all the things Bud Selig has done or not done that is probably the most ridiculous. I expect an international draft by 2013.
And once there is an international draft, that complex really is useless.
In something completely unrelated to anything, the Cubs logo on those renderings looks funky.
@ dylanj:
Well, now he’s going to be tested to be smart about a lot more. Maybe it turns out he’s a genius at maneuvering around all these regulations and drafts and so forth. Ricketts might have been anticipating all this when he made Theo President of baseball opps and took some of the daily GMing duties off his shoulders.
@ doc_blume:
Maybe because its missing the white background?
i still dont understand how a “World Draft” is even legal.
@ dylanj:
Isn’t it basically a gentlemen’s agreement that teams make that says “this is how we’ll approach signing talent.” The players aren’t really affected, except for who they get to negotiate with. It just becomes the system. It’s not like they are forced to play for that team, just if they want to play this year, that’s the team they have to play for.
@ dylanj:
I don’t even understand how the MLB Draft is legal. It exists because a group of guys not affected in any fucking way by the MLB Draft decided it’s the right thing to do in order to keep their salaries higher. the MLB/NFL/NBA/NHL draft should be eliminated immediately. They’re all bullshit.
@ josh:
The players and owners agree to something that doesn’t affect them. It’s amazing that it’s allowed and recognized as legal in any way. It’s like a group of white men sitting around and determining that blacks don’t have equal rights.
This seems like it’s something that’s five years too late due to the new CBA, but something that hasn’t been mentioned (or is much more obvious to everyone but me) is that there are no rules that the Cubs have to allow other scouts into their facilities. Obviously they can’t compel the players to stay there and have no outside contact with other organizations, since it would be in their best interest $$-wise for teams to get into a bidding war for them, but the Cubs can always say GTFO to anyone who doesn’t work for their org, and thus they’ll have more data on anyone who stays there.
josh wrote:
Racist.
@ mb21:
Part of the legality has to be in the fact that MLB has an agreement with Congress that they will let them be a price fixing monopoly
dylanj wrote:
I don’t know about the nitty gritty details of international law and the players working/playing outside the US, but someday those players will have to play in the US if they advance, and MLB’s antitrust exemption lets them do whatever the hell they want with their workforce. I’d love to see someone finally challenge it. MLB has gone to great lengths in the past to make sure that their antitrust exemption doesn’t go before a judge.
@ Berselius:
Yeah, that.
Berselius wrote:
right, but if you are a team without significant dominican facilities, don’t you just throw money at someone in the cubs org with complete knowledge of the talent there to keep you filled in for the next 2-3 years?
GW wrote:
How do you know who is worth that money though? The Cubs will do all that they can to keep their information on the guys suppressed, the question is the degree to which they can do so.
Out of curiosity, how many teams don’t have an academy in the DR? Does this even give the Cubs an advantage or does it just put them on more even footing?
@ Berselius:
I have little doubt that 1) quality information can and will be bought and 2) other scouts can in some way find out what’s going on at the academy (if not just watching it in some way or another).
These guys are also traded so teams have access to watch these players and scout them. Unless the Cubs have a private facility with no windows and barred access other teams will watch the guys the Cubs are working out.
bert bielema compares urban meyer to newt gingrich:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/chi-bielema-calls-out-meyer-on-illegal-recruiting-tactics-20120202,0,3093232.story
Berselius wrote:
i don’t know, but if i’m the cubs, i try to convince other teams that it’s oneri fleita
we got one of the Cubans. Concepcion
Concepion ———-> Cubs, multimillion deal
Conception————> Cubs, conceivably
I’m guessing he won’t be the only Cuban who the Cubs get
three comments, three different spellings (dying laughing)
i’m going with Conception
http://www.yankeeanalysts.com/2012/01/who-is-gerardo-concepcion-37760
new shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/chicago-cubs/cubs-sign-gerardo-concepcion.html
Regarding the DR facility, even though spending is severely capped and “leveled” amongst the bidders, the kids are still free agents who can choose whom to sign with. So if everyone is offering $100, perhaps you choose the team who has a facility and has been working with you, providing additional stuff like education, etc?? Just guessing, but perhaps that’s the Cubs logic. Is it obvious I’m not a businessman yet? (dying laughing)
left is the actual cubs logo, the right is the logo used in the renderings
[img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R6y2KZ9fdnU/TyteAi68nuI/AAAAAAAABpU/EeuYfAFNUyQ/s800/logocompare.png[/img]