Ricketts: FO put Cubs in position to compete

MESA, Ariz. — Ahead of the primary full-squad exercise of the spring on Monday, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts was amongst those that addressed the gamers in a gathering on the workforce’s complicated. Ricketts then watched the group start what he hopes is a seven-month journey to the postseason.

“We’re all just pretty excited to get started,” Ricketts mentioned. “If you look at everything our manager has to work with this year, compared to last year or the year before, this is a team that should compete for the division.”

Here are 5 highlights from Ricketts’ session with reporters on Monday afternoon:

“The way Jed did it this offseason was really good,” Ricketts mentioned. “We brought in a lot of talent without blocking future talent. Because we have a lot of good guys coming over the next few years. And we want to make sure that there’s opportunities for them when they’re ready.”

2. Swanson “best fit” amongst shortstops
The free-agent class was loaded at shortstop, with Carlos Correa, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts and Swanson. The Cubs inked Swanson to a seven-year, $177 million deal as their greatest offseason addition.

“Jed had conversations with a handful of the different shortstops,” Ricketts mentioned. “But with Dansby, along with his nice make-up — an amazing teammate and somebody that everybody, to a person, says he is a great man to have in your squad — we checked out him as somebody who is a good defender and a fairly good offensive participant, however prone to keep at shortstop for so long as the contract.

“Whereas, there were some other guys where you weren’t certain that [staying at shortstop long-term] was the case. So he was the best fit for us all along and, really, the player that Jed wanted the most in this offseason. And we’re very fortunate that it worked out.”

3. Moving out of the rebuild
The Cubs misplaced 88 video games in 2022, following a 91-loss season in ’21. Both seasons included franchise-altering trades that introduced in a wave of prospects. Ricketts mentioned the hope now’s to maneuver again to a long-term run of profitable.

“It was a goal that we laid out a few years ago — try to be more consistent,” Ricketts mentioned. “The boom-and-bust cycle that has been with so many golf equipment in baseball, we wish to form of get out of that, out of that routine. It did not work out, popping out of the nice groups we had in ’16, ’17, ’18. It simply did not work out to have the ability to make the personnel strikes that might preserve a extra constant winner on the sphere.

“So we had to adapt to that situation, and I think Jed did a great job with that. Going forward, we’d very much like to be a team that’s known for the consistency of competing for the division every year. And ultimately, that’s how we’re going to get back to the World Series, is just make the playoffs as many times as you can.”

4. Raising the payroll
As issues at the moment stand, the Cubs’ payroll with regard to the Competitive Balance Tax sits round $225 million. The first CBT threshold is ready at $233 million for 2023. Ricketts mentioned the Cubs will take a “year to year” strategy to weighing if it is smart to go over the CBT limits.

“You want to be careful going over the CBT because there are penalties,” Ricketts mentioned. “Some of the penalties are merely financial, but over time, they become Draft pick slots and those kinds of things. So you want to be thoughtful about it. And you want to just be alert and manage around it, if you can. If we’re midseason and we need a player, we’ll do what we have to do then.”

5. Sportsbook not prepared for Opening Day
Ricketts famous that the sportsbook being constructed outdoors Wrigley Field on the nook of Addison Street and Sheffield Avenue won’t be prepared for the beginning of the season. He estimated “late spring” because the earliest timeline.

“We don’t have a hard date yet,” Ricketts mentioned. “It’s definitely not Opening Day. It’ll be sometime maybe late spring, early summer. … What we primarily get out of that is DraftKings as a sponsor. And all the sponsorship revenue goes back through the team to the baseball guys to spend, more or less.”