I've Officially Hit Rock Bottom And It's Unfortunately All Too Familiar
It's totally depressing that the most memorable moment of the Cubs season will be a late July embrace between homegrown players that are destined for the trade block. Even worse is that we did the same shit last year and the team is marketably worse. Notably. Objectively. Without a shadow of a doubt, hesitation, debate or distrust - there is no arguing that the Cubs are continually getting worse at the MLB level. And now on the heels of a 6-game win streak, the Cubs have leaked the fact that Happ and Contreras are on the move. 10 years after the rebuild officially started, we're back at it again in full force. As Theo always says though, things come in 10 year spurts and then you move on. My only thing is that I didn't think they'd build a team to collapse by year 10. Obviously I was wrong.
I'm not the only one. Basically every Cubs fan on the planet is sick to their stomach right now. And somehow it stings just as much as last year and I think that's because leadership failed miserably in all respects. They lied in the offseason about building a competitor in free agency. They failed to spend the kind of money the revenues and demand dictates. And now we're getting rid of the best players while we stare at Marcus Stroman's salary? It's so hard to make any sense of that I really just want to give up. The best path forward is for Tom Ricketts to sell the team to an ownership group that is wiling to compete with the Dodgers. We don't need to make it any more complicated than that. If you own the Cubs and can't wrap your head around that, then just sell the team and move on. The distrust is real and certainly not going anywhere soon.
But I'm also compelled to this unshakeable state of apathy. Why do I care so much about what this team does when they so clearly don't care about the fans? What's the point of unloading $200 for a night with Mrs. Carl at the Friendly Confines if I know that 100% of the margin on my spend is applied to the Ricketts' property expansion? If anything it's been demonstrated, conclusively, that those in charge are incapable of sustaining success. So much so that quite literally ANYBODY reading this would have delivered at least the same level of growth since the 2016 World Series. And that's without a single algorithm, super computer, MIT nerd or anything of the quantitative-like.
I'm working through this as it plays out so excuse me if I don't have some grandiose ultimatum prepared right now. I'm just sick and tired of watching Tom Ricketts and his buddies set this club on fire. And more importantly, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired about it. We've reached the part of the movie where people are just leaving the theatre without even stopping to take a piss on the way out. I haven't crossed that bridge since Eric Bana played The Hulk and quite frankly I thought these days were over.
And yet again - for an incalculable number of times - I was dead wrong about the Cubs under Tom Ricketts.
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