With the White Sox having an off-season to remember, it has only made Cubs fans anxious and ready for the team to make a move of their own. To a lot of people’s dismay, the team has pretty much been silent when it comes to making splashes in the open market. In a recent article from The Athletic, senior writer Patrick Maooney was able to sit down with Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts and fire off a variety of questions that have been on almost all Chicago Cubs fans minds.
Why hasn’t the team signed a Major-league free agent?
One of the more prominent questions fans are asking, is when the team will make a splash? Here is the Cubs chairman’s response when asked:
“That’s a question for Theo, in many respects,” Ricketts said. “Once again, (it’s) going back to the fact that just spending money doesn’t guarantee you wins. We also understand (that) as we’ve had this core of talent, every year they have built-in raises through the arbitration model, so a lot of the financial resources are going to the players that we already have, which is great. That’s the way it works”
At first, Ricketts almost went with the well known deflection technique but in the end he did make some very valid points. He also went on to mention previous teams who landed a big name but are yet to really seen that acquisition pay off.
“There’s no magic free agent out there, anyway. You look at what happened last year with the Padres or the Phillies and it doesn’t always solve your problems.”
The chairman isn’t wrong
Again, very hard to argue with anything said above. In retrospect, the Cubs have actually made several aggressive moves in the past. The most recent being the signing of All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel and the trade for now free agent Nick Castellanos.
Those were all signs that the team was doing their absolute best to give their club one last run at the playoffs last season. Even though it’s disappointing right now, the Cubs front office does have the teams best interests in mind. Right now we can only wait and see what the team decides to do next.
