COMMENTARY

Cubs in midst of winter of discontent

CHICAGO - Theo Epstein seldom shows it, but the pressure to turn the Cubs into a perennial winner reveals itself in the more obvious flecks of gray hair on the guy who turned 40 last month.

Epstein never admits it, but his patience with some of the job’s idiosyncrasies must be threadbare compared with when he became Cubs president in October 2011.

Every now and then, Epstein lets his guard down just long enough to make you wonder if he sensed all along the cultural reconstruction project at Clark and Addison would be more challenging than he ever acknowledged.

“One of the things we were smart about was not to put a timetable on it,” Epstein said Friday at the start of the Cubs Convention.

A clock can’t tick more loudly on a tenure if nobody starts it.

Fans still trust Epstein to do it right in due time because of his Red Sox baseball cachet, no matter how long it takes at a place known for waiting, especially if it means tearing everything down completely before building it back up like nobody ever has.

Which brings us to this weekend.

Nothing against the Sheraton Chicago, but a more appropriate venue for this Cubs Convention would have been the Shedd Aquarium. What better place in Chicago for an exhibit depicting rock bottom?

That’s where the team the Ricketts family bought almost five years ago finds itself as fans gather for the organization’s annual midwinter money grab. The only way the Cubs can go from here is up after the worst two-year stretch in franchise history followed by an offseason teetering between irrelevance and embarrassment. With at least one top prospect from a suddenly fertile minor league system expected at Wrigley Field around the All-Star break - infielder Javier Baez - perhaps Cubs fans finally can circle progress on the 2014 calendar if young players such as Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro bounce back.

Even agreeing that the Cubs can sink no lower this season requires a measure of optimism usually in ample supply this time of year. Usually.

But this has been anything but a usual stretch for the Cubs, whose convention could have included a session on crisis mismanagement with Clark the Cub running around the ballroom with a microphone, talk-show-host style. Unveiling the mascot last week invited ridicule the Cubs made worse by responding to the sophomoric critiques that were as easy to predict as a first-pitch fastball - and would have been easier to just ignore. Instead, with little else to occupy attention in a slow news week, the Chicago sports media squeezed every ounce of meaning out of a story that had nothing to do with the team’s commitment to winning.

Smirking, Epstein called the uproar a “Clark-ophony,” a nod to the noise around town that was louder than anything over the Cubs doing so little to change a team coming off 96 losses. That surprised Epstein more than the furor over a furry friend.

“If I was a fan of the Chicago Cubs following the offseason, I would have hoped for more this winter, honestly, I’m not going to hide the ball from you,” Epstein said.

So why didn’t the Cubs do more than make more than a dozen minor league moves and sign a few nondescript players who made everyone Google?

“It’s a tough market, [and] there has been tremendous financial escalation this year,” Epstein said. “When you are in a position to acquire those household names, usually they are long contracts at very significant dollars [or] teams right at the cusp of playoff contention.”

The Cubs aren’t one of those teams, which makes their pursuit of Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka puzzling. Tanaka will command as much as $150 million, which suggests the Cubs are willing to pay for more than just the potential his 24-0 record in 2013 in Japan suggests. Ricketts also would be buying credibility by outspending the Yankees and Dodgers and finally acting like the Cubs are a major-market team. When Yahoo estimated the Cubs would begin the season with the league’s fifth-lowest payroll, it was more embarrassing than anything a mascot could do.

Theoretically, The Plan says one day money will be no object after the Cubs sign a lucrative new television-rights deal (before 2015) and long-awaited Wrigley Field renovations (before Alderman Tom Tunney retires) open more revenue streams. Gleaming state-of-the-art facilities in Mesa, Ariz., and the Dominican Republic reportedly are nice enough to give minor leaguers second thoughts once they report to the decaying building on the North Side. Enthusiastic new Manager Rick Renteria, hired only because Epstein erred in evaluating Dale Sveum, already left an impression talking to rookies in Spanish and English.

“It was a great moment,” Epstein said.

Epstein can’t promise a great season. But it should be a better one for the Cubs, mostly because it would be hard to fathom things getting much worse.

Sports, Pages 22 on 01/19/2014

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