Cubs Contract Situation – Among Worst In History
Mark McGwire admits steroid use. Five of the most obvious words in sports, finally made official. But I couldn’t help but let that awful publicity tour and Tony LaRussa’s baffling double talk make my day. After all, as a lifelong Cubs fan any news that quiets the toothless Cardinal fans is good news. I’ll take my Sosa lumps someday when he makes the same decision that coming clean may make him some money.
It's going to be a long decade.
But then I had to surf over to the boys at baseballprospectus.com and find my buzz kill. There I found an article called “The Cubs’ Contractual Cul-de-Sac” by Kevin Goldstein breaking down the ball clubs contractual situation which he dubbed “among the worst in history”. Ugh. Back down to earth.
Yeah the disaster is obvious but I hadn’t heard it put into historical context that way. Basically the article breaks down the top eight salaries on the Cubs for 2010 and that paints a very bad picture. Like modern art bad.
The low side of the scale is Carlos Silva at $11.5 million for the fat and oft-injured “hurler”. This contract is a pretty fair punishment to the club forced upon us because of asshat Milton Bradley and Jim Hendry’s predilection for bidding against himself for career year Texas Rangers. If that money makes the team as a number 5 starter it will be a miracle.
The top end of the scale is hoppy outfielder Alfonso Soriano with his $18 million this year and $72 more owed through the end of 2014. It’s already bad money now and by the last couple years of the contract that will look like Congress level bad spending. The article points out that Marlin’s Cody Ross has the exact same stats as Alfonso during the same time frame as his Cubs contract. Ouch.
I’m not going to break down every name on the list, but let’s just say there’s a whole lot of bad contracts on the book for 2010. And the darkest part of it is that all but two of the names have even bigger money owed for years to come. These cement shoes are not coming off any time soon. The only two names that can come off the books this year are Derrick Lee and Ted Lilly. Laughably these are the most value per dollar contracts in the list and with a good showing this year might be in line for a raise.
That fading light at the end of this tunnel is that the Cubs could still somehow luck their way into a World Series in the next year or two. With half the teams in your division accurately described as an abortion you are never too far from winning the division. And we all know that getting to the end of October is all about getting hot at the right time. Even over priced players can piece that together.
