Latest / North Side Territory: A Chicago Cubs Podcast / What’s going on in the Cubs’ front office?

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What’s going on in the Cubs’ front office? · North Side Territory: A Chicago Cubs Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: It's something we heard multiple times the two of us
0:02
Speaker 1: from various people was that Jed looks at what Cleveland
0:06
Speaker 1: does fondly. He's very impressed with them. Welcome into North
0:15
Speaker 1: Side Territory, Foul Territory Networks Cubs Podcast. I'm Sahadev Sharma
0:19
Speaker 1: with my partner Patrick Mooney, where your Cubs beat writers
0:22
Speaker 1: over at the Athletic Patrick, I'm not going to take
0:26
Speaker 1: the first thirty minutes of this podcast and talk about
0:29
Speaker 1: freshman Will Riley scoring thirty one points. I'm not going
0:32
Speaker 1: to talk about Illinois basketball for thirty minutes. I promise
0:35
Speaker 1: you I'm not going to take a mag major detour
0:38
Speaker 1: here and turn this into an ALIGNI basketball podcast. Ty
0:43
Speaker 1: Rogers transferred, It's okay, we got Will Riley. I know
0:46
Speaker 1: you have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's
0:47
Speaker 1: all right. I rarely do so it I really do. Obviously,
0:56
Speaker 1: I'm preoccupied with Illinois basketball, but that's all right. We
0:59
Speaker 1: got cubs to to talk about. Patrick. I don't know
1:03
Speaker 1: if if everyone listening read the story that we published
1:07
Speaker 1: uh Monday morning, but it was something that you and
1:11
Speaker 1: I put a lot of work into a lot of
1:13
Speaker 1: time into and and talked to a lot of people.
1:16
Speaker 1: As far as we don't need to get too far
1:19
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, but as far as reporting goes, I
1:21
Speaker 1: think we uh, we talked to a lot of people.
1:24
Speaker 1: We we did a lot of work on this, and
1:26
Speaker 1: we've been digging in on this from the moment we
1:28
Speaker 1: heard little tidbits of it in September. Uh, So it
1:32
Speaker 1: was something that we've been excited to get out there
1:36
Speaker 1: to the public and and uh eager to see the response.
1:40
Speaker 1: And I felt like it was a solid response. And uh,
1:43
Speaker 1: that's that's what we're going to talk about today and
1:45
Speaker 1: address some of the some of the reaction and and
1:48
Speaker 1: uh some of the details in that piece. Uh, Patrick,
1:52
Speaker 1: you want to kind of explain what the piece was
1:54
Speaker 1: and and and why why it's important.
1:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the headline really summed it up well.
2:04
Speaker 2: Inside the Cubs plan to get back into the playoffs,
2:08
Speaker 2: more analytics and fewer scouts, and that sort of encompasses
2:14
Speaker 2: not just some cutbacks recently, but it tells a larger
2:18
Speaker 2: story of kind of how the Cubs have evolved and
2:21
Speaker 2: what they've become. And I know you can get into
2:27
Speaker 2: this more in a moment, but this was not a
2:31
Speaker 2: reaction to a disappointing season. It is really kind of
2:39
Speaker 2: how the Cubs have been moving in a certain direction
2:44
Speaker 2: for a long time. I think they were a little
2:46
Speaker 2: aimless there at one point after the World Series, just
2:50
Speaker 2: Jet Hoyer redefining his baseball operations department. But sort of
2:56
Speaker 2: the bottom line is they've drastically reduced their pro scouting department.
3:04
Speaker 2: They've made some cutbacks in player development, particularly just blowing
3:09
Speaker 2: out a very experienced wing of staffers. At the same
3:16
Speaker 2: time they're hiring in spaces like player development and R
3:20
Speaker 2: and D. And really, I guess the other component of
3:23
Speaker 2: this is every team uses a model, right, they use analytics,
3:28
Speaker 2: but the Cubs have really gone all in on this.
3:32
Speaker 2: And I think part of why we wrote this was
3:35
Speaker 2: we had heard about this, We sort of understood it,
3:37
Speaker 2: but I don't think we had accurately conveyed to our
3:41
Speaker 2: readers and Cups fans just how the depth to which
3:46
Speaker 2: they've gone with this, and that it's the players they draft,
3:49
Speaker 2: the players they trade for, the free agents they signed.
3:53
Speaker 2: It is done underneath this very intricate sort of model.
4:00
Speaker 1: System, right, And and there's a this is something that
4:06
Speaker 1: other good teams do, like that's that's true. But like
4:09
Speaker 1: there's there's there's sometimes pushback on you know here and
4:13
Speaker 1: there who does this and whatnot. But the reality is
4:17
Speaker 1: models are used by a lot of teams. How to
4:19
Speaker 1: what extent and to what degree scouts are involved? Is
4:23
Speaker 1: is the big is the big you know difference I
4:26
Speaker 1: guess between between various teams and and IVY has been
4:30
Speaker 1: built up for since the O and Jed got here,
4:33
Speaker 1: right like, that was one of their big things because
4:36
Speaker 1: they're that that system just didn't really exist for the Cubs.
4:40
Speaker 1: They were behind on that now. I mean, something that
4:43
Speaker 1: we did find out is Ivy's pretty good, like compared
4:46
Speaker 1: to some other teams around the league. They have a
4:48
Speaker 1: good system. They have a good model in place, and
4:52
Speaker 1: like as far as when players use it and players
4:55
Speaker 1: try to get information from it. From what the feedback
4:58
Speaker 1: we got, IVY solid, IVY, he's you know, better than
5:02
Speaker 1: some around the league. Something that I kind of that
5:07
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting. We did get some people saying,
5:10
Speaker 1: like why are they just it seems like year to
5:13
Speaker 1: year they're going from one team to the other trying
5:15
Speaker 1: to copycat. I don't that that's not happening here right
5:20
Speaker 1: Like to a degree sure, Like, look, when Jed hired
5:24
Speaker 1: Carter Hawkins, there was a reason he did that, right,
5:27
Speaker 1: what we were we did a lot of reporting on
5:30
Speaker 1: that as well, the GM hiring process. And something we
5:34
Speaker 1: heard multiple times that two of us, from multiple various people,
5:37
Speaker 1: was that Jed looks at what Cleveland does fondly. He's
5:42
Speaker 1: very impressed with them. How they develop pitching, how they're
5:44
Speaker 1: able to do these things and like basically create pitchers
5:48
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, things like that, Right, Their player development
5:51
Speaker 1: was really intriguing to him. How they did that, how
5:54
Speaker 1: they built their winning teams was something he was very
5:57
Speaker 1: curious about. And Carter Hall comes from there and he
6:01
Speaker 1: knows what they do and a lot of what they
6:05
Speaker 1: do in the international space and amateur space and in
6:07
Speaker 1: those different spaces is where they're model heavy. Right, So
6:13
Speaker 1: he knew this was coming, Like he he wanted this, right,
6:16
Speaker 1: he wanted Carter to present these ideas, and he wanted
6:19
Speaker 1: to embrace this. And and now this is kind of
6:23
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it's the final form, but
6:25
Speaker 1: it's just one more big step in this evolution. What
6:29
Speaker 1: what I think we heard like that was so when
6:32
Speaker 1: when people say it's like they're just following other teams.
6:36
Speaker 1: Here's where that I disagree with that. A lot of teams,
6:39
Speaker 1: majority of pretty much everyone we talked to outside the
6:42
Speaker 1: ORG said what they're doing is kind of extreme. They're
6:45
Speaker 1: not going in person scouting above the complex league outside
6:50
Speaker 1: of rare cases where it's like, Okay, maybe a second
6:55
Speaker 1: look at at a player that we need that we're
6:58
Speaker 1: contemplating trading for. But get like, what we also find
7:02
Speaker 1: out found out is they didn't even do that this year.
7:05
Speaker 1: They didn't do that second look with Eastac Paraitis. This year,
7:08
Speaker 1: they didn't do that with Nate Pearson. So it can't
7:11
Speaker 1: be a reaction because they were already doing it this year,
7:14
Speaker 1: Like no in person looks for guys that were pretty
7:17
Speaker 1: significant trade acquisitions. I mean, they got a look at Paritis,
7:23
Speaker 1: I guess in June right when they when they played him,
7:26
Speaker 1: they got a look at that. They have a lot
7:28
Speaker 1: of background to Pierson because they almost drafted him. Artis
7:31
Speaker 1: was obviously in the ORG. But still it's this is
7:34
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary, right, Like when I think when
7:38
Speaker 1: when I heard that, I was a little like, WHOA,
7:40
Speaker 1: that's wild. You didn't see the person. You didn't see
7:43
Speaker 1: the guy you traded for the deadline in person the
7:45
Speaker 1: month leading up to the deadline. That just like for
7:48
Speaker 1: me as someone that's covered baseball for so long and
7:51
Speaker 1: spend so much time talking to scouts, I mean, what
7:52
Speaker 1: do we do in July when we're in the press boxer,
7:55
Speaker 1: like in the lunch room? Right, who do we run
7:57
Speaker 1: into all the time? Like, we run into scouts because
7:59
Speaker 1: they're there scouting guys that may be traded in that game, right,
8:03
Speaker 1: Like it it's like standard practice, and the Cubs are
8:08
Speaker 1: growing a more video data based, you know, way of
8:12
Speaker 1: going about things. And that's like, I think we need
8:17
Speaker 1: to be clear that that doesn't mean it's a bad thing, right,
8:19
Speaker 1: It's just different, and we'll see, we'll see what it
8:23
Speaker 1: leads to. Right, Well, I'm.
8:26
Speaker 2: Glad you brought up the idea of different. We'll take
8:29
Speaker 2: a quick break here and then get back into like
8:33
Speaker 2: how this is a stark contrast from how the twenty
8:37
Speaker 2: sixteen team was built.
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9:43
Speaker 2: All right, Satu, So we go back to do You
9:45
Speaker 2: and Jedi Rive. They build this thing up. They really
9:49
Speaker 2: get it. Rolling Pro scouting was a big part of that.
9:54
Speaker 6: When you look at trading for Kyle Hendrix trading for Jakerietta,
9:59
Speaker 6: signing John and John Lester to two very good contracts.
10:06
Speaker 2: However, I think something that came through during the course
10:09
Speaker 2: of our reporting is that within these last ten years,
10:13
Speaker 2: the game has really shifted. The amount of information has
10:18
Speaker 2: just exploded, and when we're talking about data and video,
10:24
Speaker 2: that has clearly shaped how they want to deploy their
10:27
Speaker 2: scouts moving forward.
10:29
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean it's it's about allocation of resources, right,
10:36
Speaker 1: Like it's it's like, how are you spending your time?
10:40
Speaker 1: Like the one valid point that I felt I heard
10:45
Speaker 1: about this was you can scout a few players when
10:49
Speaker 1: you go to a ballpark. Right, Maybe, if you're a
10:52
Speaker 1: really dogged scout, you can get to like two ballparks
10:55
Speaker 1: in a day, two or three. It maybe lower levels,
10:59
Speaker 1: they're they're closer and you can get to like three, right,
11:01
Speaker 1: But it's hard to go around to various games. Like
11:05
Speaker 1: if you're doing video, I mean think about that, you're
11:08
Speaker 1: sitting in your office or at your home and breaking
11:11
Speaker 1: down video for eight hours. How many different players and
11:14
Speaker 1: how many different areas can you can you break down?
11:18
Speaker 1: Like it's more efficient, It's a more efficient way in theory, right,
11:23
Speaker 1: of right, the scouting of scouting guys. Of course we're
11:28
Speaker 1: gonna get pushback from scouts, and we did get pushed
11:30
Speaker 1: back from scouts. So the value of in person scouting, right,
11:33
Speaker 1: there's so many things and I think as reporters we
11:36
Speaker 1: probably have fought this that. I mean, we have fought
11:38
Speaker 1: this battle as well. The value of travel right, Like,
11:42
Speaker 1: it's like there's so many things you can see when
11:45
Speaker 1: you're at the game. People you run into and start
11:47
Speaker 1: conversations with, Like scouts do these things too, that they'll
11:50
Speaker 1: they'll start conversations with people like us that may have
11:53
Speaker 1: information other scouts build up, build up those relationships. So
11:57
Speaker 1: when you pick up the phone and are able to
11:59
Speaker 1: call someone, and it's because you have built up that
12:01
Speaker 1: relationship with a lot of in person chats, right, getting information,
12:06
Speaker 1: seeing things on the field, Like a lot of things
12:08
Speaker 1: we heard was about camera angles being not great, right,
12:11
Speaker 1: and really hard to like evaluate talent with the camera angles.
12:16
Speaker 1: So so scouts like not getting a great Like I
12:19
Speaker 1: can't see the guy getting a jump from second base
12:21
Speaker 1: his base running, I can't see how the guy reacts
12:23
Speaker 1: on defense. I only see the end of the defensive play.
12:26
Speaker 1: I want to see how the guy works before the game.
12:28
Speaker 1: I want to see how the guy interacts with his teammates.
12:32
Speaker 1: Like I've picked up gossip about how a guy is
12:35
Speaker 1: after the game, how a guy you know, guy's doing
12:39
Speaker 1: this and that and the other, uh, you know after
12:42
Speaker 1: the game out out at the club or whatever. It
12:44
Speaker 1: may be, that they hear things, they talk to people,
12:48
Speaker 1: they see things that they wouldn't see on video. You're
12:53
Speaker 1: going to get like there are front office people around
12:56
Speaker 1: the game that believe that that's not enough, We're not
13:00
Speaker 1: valuable enough. Right. Scouts are going to push back strongly
13:05
Speaker 1: on that. But the reality is, you go, look at
13:08
Speaker 1: what what did we find? Seven of the twelve playoff
13:12
Speaker 1: teams have robust scouting staffs right two others Baltimore and Houston,
13:18
Speaker 1: we're hiring. There's like I've heard different things over the
13:23
Speaker 1: past couple of days too, like others may be hiring too.
13:27
Speaker 1: I we haven't confirmed that, so I don't want to
13:29
Speaker 1: say for sure, but like, this isn't like it certainly
13:33
Speaker 1: isn't the direction all teams are going right now. But
13:37
Speaker 1: I do believe the Cubs feel like and that this
13:41
Speaker 1: is they're ahead of the game, and this is eventually
13:44
Speaker 1: what what will be the industry standard?
13:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there are lots of different ways that
13:51
Speaker 2: a team can go about this, and our job is
13:55
Speaker 2: to put things in a broader context. So certainly the
14:01
Speaker 2: Guardians are very good at this and consistently sort of
14:05
Speaker 2: outperform expectations. Our understanding is that the Brewers under David
14:10
Speaker 2: Stearns underwent sort of a similar transition a couple of
14:15
Speaker 2: years ago, and we all know how good the Brewers
14:19
Speaker 2: have been. It's totally reasonable to say, well, the Cubs
14:22
Speaker 2: don't play in Milwaukee or Cleveland, and the Dodgers and Yankees,
14:28
Speaker 2: the two teams in this World Series, have a very
14:33
Speaker 2: robust pro scouting apparatus. They view it as non optional.
14:43
Speaker 2: You can see where there are different wrinkles to this,
14:47
Speaker 2: like the Rays obviously are extremely data driven, but they
14:51
Speaker 2: also have a very strong scouting staff that you know,
14:54
Speaker 2: the numbers sort of line it up and then their
14:57
Speaker 2: evaluators can make recommendations or try and find some kid
15:02
Speaker 2: in at edges, anything to get some sort of.
15:07
Speaker 1: Edge, right, Patrick, real quickly, I have to interject there
15:11
Speaker 1: because I heard something about Tampa that I thought was fascinating.
15:14
Speaker 1: Not only is that true, like what you're saying. But
15:17
Speaker 1: the pro scouts, they they themselves are allowed to adjust
15:21
Speaker 1: the model. They'll they'll go like, they'll mess with it
15:24
Speaker 1: because they know enough, and they've been educated enough, and
15:27
Speaker 1: they've been trained, and they'll because of their ability to
15:31
Speaker 1: know the understand how to work with the model and
15:34
Speaker 1: their scouting experience, they'll say, this is all you can't
15:37
Speaker 1: you can't look at it like this, you can't do
15:39
Speaker 1: this you and and they'll adjust it. And I think
15:41
Speaker 1: that's fascinating. I really like, like you want to talk
15:45
Speaker 1: about combining the two and really like really maximizing things.
15:50
Speaker 1: I think that's fascinating. And I thought that was you
15:53
Speaker 1: know that that may be something where you need the
15:57
Speaker 1: right type of scouts that are that are super educating
16:00
Speaker 1: in the model and are capable of doing these things.
16:02
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about how exactly that works, but
16:05
Speaker 1: I thought that was fascinating when I when I talk
16:08
Speaker 1: to someone about that.
16:10
Speaker 2: Well, that cuts right to the sort of heart of
16:13
Speaker 2: this of culture, right and that is still sort of undefined.
16:20
Speaker 2: I think that would be a good place to pick
16:22
Speaker 2: up for our last segment here. So it's side of
16:28
Speaker 2: like what does this mean, Like what are the Cups
16:31
Speaker 2: trying to build their Cubs listeners out there following hopefully
16:35
Speaker 2: our coverage from the GM meetings, you know, reading everyone
16:38
Speaker 2: at the athletic Like how does this sort of influence
16:44
Speaker 2: the Cubs thinking this offseason? Like how should we sort
16:48
Speaker 2: of view every random tweet of you know, team X
16:53
Speaker 2: interested in player? Why? Like what do the Cubs want?
16:57
Speaker 2: What are they hunting right now? Right?
16:59
Speaker 1: So that's interesting, right, Like there's are is there is
17:04
Speaker 1: everything dictated by a machine a computer? Right? Are they doing? Everything?
17:12
Speaker 1: Is is jed just being run by something else? Is
17:15
Speaker 1: the model running the Cubs? That's that's not how it works, right,
17:19
Speaker 1: Like the model is going to spit out the value
17:22
Speaker 1: of the player and and what it kind of strips
17:24
Speaker 1: away in Remember, like I'm not sure how much of
17:28
Speaker 1: this I I one hundred percent agree with or or
17:31
Speaker 1: or whatever. The different people feel different ways about these things,
17:36
Speaker 1: but it strips away some of the bias that that
17:40
Speaker 1: may come with with scouting.
17:43
Speaker 2: Right.
17:44
Speaker 1: Then again, like some of the like a lot of
17:47
Speaker 1: what scouts believe is put into the model too, right,
17:51
Speaker 1: So that's not even And it's also it's also the
17:56
Speaker 1: models created by a person. So there's got to be
17:58
Speaker 1: some sort of bias in there. Uh. But they're like, ultimately,
18:03
Speaker 1: as Jed has told us, they're they're trying to build
18:05
Speaker 1: a sustainable winner, right, Like that is the goal, and
18:08
Speaker 1: they believe that the like this is the way to
18:14
Speaker 1: do it. They're they're headed in that direction right now.
18:17
Speaker 1: I think something that we heard along the way that
18:21
Speaker 1: I think is important is it's not dictating strategy. It's
18:26
Speaker 1: not telling them to uh like what it's what it's
18:30
Speaker 1: helping them understand is like it's giving them, in their opinion,
18:34
Speaker 1: the least biased view of a player's value. Now they
18:38
Speaker 1: debate like do we, like, do we think we should
18:43
Speaker 1: spend more than what the model says? On Corbin Burns,
18:46
Speaker 1: I'm just throwing out a name, right, do this is
18:49
Speaker 1: we need a picture more than a batter, We need
18:54
Speaker 1: this more than that, right? And they debate that, and
18:57
Speaker 1: it's like, we're at this point in our tension cycle,
19:00
Speaker 1: We're willing to spend more than the model says. We
19:03
Speaker 1: can't spend more than the model. Whatever it is. Strategy
19:07
Speaker 1: is debated by and and uh and like dictated by
19:12
Speaker 1: the human beings, which is Jed Hoyer, Carter Hawkins. You
19:15
Speaker 1: know uh S and Bacary, the assistant gms that you know,
19:19
Speaker 1: all these guys in the front office that are that
19:22
Speaker 1: are you know, high up there. They're they're making the
19:25
Speaker 1: decisions and and uh figuring out who they're going to target,
19:29
Speaker 1: how much they're going to spend. But the model gives
19:31
Speaker 1: them a lot of info. It's not dictating strategy, but
19:34
Speaker 1: it is giving them, like they they're they're relying on
19:38
Speaker 1: it to not make terrible decisions, right, Like they don't
19:43
Speaker 1: want to make extreme decisions, and and it kind of
19:45
Speaker 1: gives them something to kind of tether themselves to as
19:51
Speaker 1: they move forward.
19:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to be clear, like, no one knows if
19:56
Speaker 2: this is gonna work or not. If you if you
19:59
Speaker 2: you can totally be optimistic, if that's how you choose
20:01
Speaker 2: to mute, you can push back on this sort of
20:06
Speaker 2: quest for efficiency. I mean, the Cubs have good players.
20:12
Speaker 2: They don't have super bad contracts weighing down their books.
20:17
Speaker 2: They have a cluster of good prospects at the top
20:22
Speaker 2: of their minor league system. Like can totally work. It's
20:28
Speaker 2: just that you see a team that finishes with eighty
20:34
Speaker 2: three wins, whether it's managed by David Ross or Craig Council.
20:38
Speaker 2: You see how certain teams like the Padres or the
20:42
Speaker 2: Phillies have you know, extended their payroll to places that
20:47
Speaker 2: the Cubs really haven't, or done deals out of scale
20:50
Speaker 2: that the Cubs haven't, and you just begin to wonder,
20:55
Speaker 2: you know, when does this emotion or urgency sort of
20:59
Speaker 2: take or how does that sort of manifest itself here
21:04
Speaker 2: for a team that has to win next year and could.
21:12
Speaker 2: But it's just that if you're I think something that
21:15
Speaker 2: we've talked about a lot that you kind of saw
21:17
Speaker 2: on social media, like, you know, this Cups team has
21:20
Speaker 2: good players, you know, professionals in the clubhouse. There's definitely talent.
21:26
Speaker 2: There wasn't a lot. It just felt they were sort
21:28
Speaker 2: of like there right they were, you know, near the
21:32
Speaker 2: third wild card, kind of hanging around, not out of it,
21:35
Speaker 2: and it just felt like to me, at least, that's
21:38
Speaker 2: sort of how the team was constructed, to just sort
21:41
Speaker 2: of put out something respectable, you know, that could help
21:47
Speaker 2: sell almost three million tickets to regular feel give a
21:50
Speaker 2: little bit of hope, but not over extend themselves, not
21:55
Speaker 2: jeopardize any future possibilities of winning. And I do think
22:02
Speaker 2: it's fascinating now that they have gone in this direction
22:07
Speaker 2: to see like how do they adapt again? Right, because
22:11
Speaker 2: there is enormous pressure on this group to not just
22:15
Speaker 2: have what they believe is a very sound process, but
22:18
Speaker 2: to produce great results.
22:22
Speaker 1: Right. And I so something that we heard along the way,
22:27
Speaker 1: and I know I keep saying that, but I think
22:29
Speaker 1: it's important because we heard so many different things, and
22:32
Speaker 1: sometimes there we're recurring themes. Was if the model is
22:36
Speaker 1: so good, why have they just won eighty three wins?
22:40
Speaker 1: Why do they have the top payroll in the NL
22:42
Speaker 1: Central and still struggle to compete in the division? I
22:48
Speaker 1: thought that was a fair point. I thought that was
22:51
Speaker 1: very fair. Some pushback that have gotten over the past
22:55
Speaker 1: few weeks on that, I think makes sense. You know,
23:00
Speaker 1: ultimately they've a lot of what they've done with the
23:04
Speaker 1: model has been pro acquisition, right. I don't know if
23:09
Speaker 1: they've made any awful decisions when it comes to pro
23:12
Speaker 1: acquisition over the past two three years, Right, Say, Suzuki
23:16
Speaker 1: should him a major?
23:18
Speaker 6: Yeah?
23:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dan some people I know people have issue with
23:22
Speaker 1: Dansby Swanson. He's a valuable player, Okay, And then and
23:25
Speaker 1: then you look at the rest of their pro acquisitions.
23:27
Speaker 1: They've been valuable players, if not impactful as far as
23:31
Speaker 1: like much more valuable than what they gave up or
23:35
Speaker 1: what they're spending. The rest of that stuff takes a
23:38
Speaker 1: little while to catch up. Like you can't talk about
23:42
Speaker 1: the draft and and know when that impacts them. You
23:46
Speaker 1: can't talk about international and and say that, like, these
23:49
Speaker 1: things take years to know if it's working. Two hundred
23:53
Speaker 1: and three million dollars payroll. Listen, and I like, something
23:56
Speaker 1: kind of hit me recently, and I don't like this
24:00
Speaker 1: is just the optimistic view. I don't know if this
24:03
Speaker 1: is going to work. And I don't know if I
24:05
Speaker 1: like I think they like this has to work, right,
24:08
Speaker 1: otherwise it's a different front office. Right, So, like they
24:12
Speaker 1: have the pressure on them that they have they have
24:14
Speaker 1: to deliver, But two hundred and forty million dollar payroll
24:17
Speaker 1: with almost no young talent until impacting the team until
24:21
Speaker 1: the end of last year, right, Michael Bush, sure, but
24:24
Speaker 1: then PCA and Miguel Amaya didn't start helping the team
24:27
Speaker 1: until late Porter Hodgeen start helping the team until late
24:31
Speaker 1: this year. This upcoming season, not only should you have
24:35
Speaker 1: those guys that we mentioned, but all these young guys
24:39
Speaker 1: should be helping the team, and you don't have to
24:42
Speaker 1: think that it's going to be around a two hundred
24:44
Speaker 1: and forty million dollars payroll again, right, so you have that,
24:48
Speaker 1: you have the two hundred and forty million dollars payroll
24:50
Speaker 1: plus all the cheap talent, the cheap young, good talent.
24:55
Speaker 1: That's how you build winner, that's how you win games
24:58
Speaker 1: like that is it's been the missing ingredient over the
25:01
Speaker 1: last few years. Young talent coming up and helping the team.
25:05
Speaker 1: And it's not one or two guys. It's Matt Shaw,
25:07
Speaker 1: it's so in Casey, it's Moys's Biosterius, it's Kevin ol Contrez,
25:11
Speaker 1: Kate Horton or all those guys are going to be
25:13
Speaker 1: awesome and help the team. I don't know. I like,
25:16
Speaker 1: I won't say that that that's the case, right, but
25:18
Speaker 1: you add in those five names that I mentioned, and
25:21
Speaker 1: then and then Cam Smith and James Trianto's I don't
25:24
Speaker 1: know who's going to be traded. I don't know who's
25:25
Speaker 1: going to be there. I'm just saying they have a
25:28
Speaker 1: lot of young talent about to hit the majors. This
25:31
Speaker 1: is when you really say, like two hundred and forty
25:34
Speaker 1: million dollars payroll and young talent. That team should win.
25:39
Speaker 1: If you did this right, that team should win. So
25:43
Speaker 1: now that makes sense to me. So eighty three wins
25:45
Speaker 1: the last two years, the model isn't working. I don't
25:47
Speaker 1: know if that's a fair criticism. I think in three
25:50
Speaker 1: years from now, we're saying seventy five wins the model
25:55
Speaker 1: isn't working. That's a very fair criticism. If even a
25:58
Speaker 1: year from now, like we won't be having much more
26:01
Speaker 1: discussion about Jed Hoyer and company. I think being around
26:06
Speaker 1: if they're winning seventy something games or eighty three games
26:09
Speaker 1: and out of the playoffs, right, like, it's just that
26:11
Speaker 1: they're they're on notice to win. But I thought that
26:15
Speaker 1: was an interesting way to frame it, and it got
26:19
Speaker 1: and it did make sense to me, because that's I mean,
26:22
Speaker 1: you want, like I don't want. I don't think it's
26:25
Speaker 1: fair to compare this team to Arizona, right, I don't.
26:27
Speaker 1: I don't like the dumbing down of things and like, hey,
26:31
Speaker 1: they're gonna play under these restrictions, financial restrictions. No, you're
26:34
Speaker 1: the Chicago Cubs. I don't want that. But why did
26:37
Speaker 1: Arizona make it to the playoffs last year, they like
26:40
Speaker 1: and make that run last year because they had this
26:42
Speaker 1: insane amount of young talent impacting their team. There were
26:46
Speaker 1: veterans there, but a ton of good young talent. Even
26:50
Speaker 1: when Texas won it all, Evan Carter was a huge
26:53
Speaker 1: part of that, right, rookie, Like there's there was one other.
26:57
Speaker 1: There were a couple other young guys who, like my
26:59
Speaker 1: brain isn't we're calling them, But like even the ones
27:02
Speaker 1: that spend big, you need some young guys.
27:04
Speaker 3: Right.
27:05
Speaker 1: It's just the reality of baseball, and it's how it
27:08
Speaker 1: works nowadays, and I think that's something that we can't
27:11
Speaker 1: completely ignore.
27:14
Speaker 2: And I think, sort of to wrap up, I think
27:16
Speaker 2: what the Cubs have now, because they've been so deliberate
27:22
Speaker 2: and disciplined, is to be in on who says before
27:28
Speaker 2: just about anyone other than mon Soto like Corbyn Burns
27:32
Speaker 2: is obviously gonna have a huge number. You'll get a
27:34
Speaker 2: huge number. Maybe it's not a winds up being not
27:37
Speaker 2: quite as enormous as you know everyone thinks during the
27:40
Speaker 2: GM meetings and as players linger on the market like
27:46
Speaker 2: a Cody Bellinger, there's book Blake's Now last year comes
27:49
Speaker 2: they're going to be in position to strike for almost
27:53
Speaker 2: anything they need. And at even taking away the thirty
27:58
Speaker 2: million that's going towards Bell for next year, there's still
28:03
Speaker 2: the huge chunk of money available for major league payroll.
28:08
Speaker 2: This year, you go out and get a frontline starter.
28:13
Speaker 2: Maybe the model says one thing about relievers, but maybe
28:16
Speaker 2: you do as you suggest, kind of read that read
28:20
Speaker 2: the room a little bit right and recognize what you
28:25
Speaker 2: need to kind of close out games, Add another catcher
28:29
Speaker 2: and then that way. Yeah, you do have just a
28:33
Speaker 2: steady supply of depth and young players impacting your ball
28:38
Speaker 2: club in lots of different ways over a very long season.
28:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you talk about reading the room, I think
28:45
Speaker 1: I think that that's that's something that is important to remember. Ultimately,
28:49
Speaker 1: these are humans making the decisions right as much as
28:52
Speaker 1: model is being relied upon and used and and and
28:55
Speaker 1: things like that, and and scouts may feel their opinions
28:59
Speaker 1: aren't as valued as much. Others feel like, hey, that's
29:01
Speaker 1: what the model is for. We're putting we're inputting your
29:05
Speaker 1: information into the model, and that's what that's how it's
29:08
Speaker 1: being used. It's not like this verbal debate as much
29:11
Speaker 1: until afterwards, after here's the value and now let's debate
29:15
Speaker 1: these things over and that that's where the emotion that
29:20
Speaker 1: may maybe missing in other ways comes into play when
29:24
Speaker 1: you're having these debates about how, you know, we have
29:27
Speaker 1: to get a high leverage reliever, No, we have to
29:29
Speaker 1: go a little bit out of our comfort zone this
29:32
Speaker 1: time and do this, and you have someone fighting for that. Like,
29:35
Speaker 1: those those debates still happen, and hopefully they're happening in
29:39
Speaker 1: earnest with the Cubs, Right, you don't want everyone being like, well,
29:42
Speaker 1: the model said this and they're all in agreement. If
29:44
Speaker 1: that's happening, I think they will fail, right, Like, you
29:48
Speaker 1: don't want everyone agreeing and everyone being like, yep, this
29:51
Speaker 1: is exactly what we're doing and we're all in agreement,
29:53
Speaker 1: no debate, Like, if that's happening, then it's not an
29:55
Speaker 1: effective front office, and for my understanding, that's certainly not
29:58
Speaker 1: the way it works. I look, Patrick, I think ultimately
30:03
Speaker 1: like I think you and I when we heard all this,
30:07
Speaker 1: we were a little taken aback, and it was a
30:08
Speaker 1: little different than what we're used to hearing, right, I mean,
30:12
Speaker 1: who do we talk to the most scouts? But after
30:16
Speaker 1: reporting it out and coming through everything, I think we've
30:19
Speaker 1: heard a lot of different ways about how this may
30:22
Speaker 1: play out, and ultimately I'm just like, I'm very curious
30:26
Speaker 1: to see what happens. I'm like, we know a little
30:29
Speaker 1: bit more about this front office now, how things work.
30:34
Speaker 1: They haven't been good enough and result wise the last
30:38
Speaker 1: two years, so the pressure's on. We need to see results.
30:42
Speaker 1: How do they execute it this off season? Right, you
30:44
Speaker 1: don't get the results this off season. We won't know
30:47
Speaker 1: until a year from now. But like, obviously huge off season,
30:53
Speaker 1: a lot of important decisions being made, and we understand
30:58
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the decision making. So let's
31:01
Speaker 1: see how it plays out. But it's obviously obviously gonna
31:05
Speaker 1: be very interesting to follow. This week, we'll like next
31:08
Speaker 1: episode will we'll we'll dive into a little bit more
31:11
Speaker 1: about the strategy of it all and what they may do. Obviously,
31:15
Speaker 1: there was big news with Cody Balinger opting in, and
31:17
Speaker 1: that changes a lot of things. Who they go after,
31:20
Speaker 1: what how they upgrade the offense? I think is a
31:22
Speaker 1: fascinating topic we'll tackle next. Next episode will be part
31:26
Speaker 1: of a lot of what we talk about next next episode,
31:29
Speaker 1: probably over the next few months. So this is Northside Territory.
31:33
Speaker 1: Thanks so so much for listening everyone. Make sure to subscribe,
31:36
Speaker 1: rate and review. Would love it if you subscribe to
31:38
Speaker 1: the YouTube page and subscribe to The Athletic. Hey Patrick,
31:42
Speaker 1: We're profitable man, so keep subscribing, subscribe no matter what. Yeah,
31:50
Speaker 1: thanks so much. Relicitating everyone to take care