Chicago Cubs:
After missing out on David Price, to sign a blockbuster free-agent arm this offseason, the Cubs will need to pay up, big time:
“At some point, the Cubs are going to have to deliver the “wheelbarrow’’ of cash that business-side guy Crane Kenney has promised baseball-side guy Theo Epstein. I have no earthly idea when that will be, nor does anybody else.
We can argue until we’re Cub blue in the face whether David Price is worth the $217 million contract that Boston just gave him. But next time it will be some other big-ticket pitcher in his prime for whom the Cubs aren’t willing to pay market value. The Dodgers’ Zack Greinke, for example. And so on.
One of the interesting byproducts of baseball analytics and the proliferation of would-be and wannabe general managers is the knee-jerk response to other teams doling out massive contracts: “No way I’d pay that guy that kind of money!” Well, why not, especially if you’re a supposed big-market team like the Cubs? There’s no salary cap (though there is a luxury tax), so why should you, a fan, care? With a billionaire family running the team, there should be room for expensive mistakes. There sure seems to be in Boston.”
Chicago Sun-Times, “To get a star pitcher in his prime, Cubs are going to have to spend big,” December 2, 2014