Standing pat can be good too
Best moves sometimes are the ones you don’t make
When the Cardinals didn’t make a move at the trade deadline in July, the reaction in St. Louis was swift and almost universal.
Team President John Mozeliak had blown it.
Two months later, the Cardinals finished atop the National League Central, fueled by a four-game sweep of the Cubs in late September at Wrigley Field, and went on to the NL Championship Series before falling to the Nationals.
Though he didn’t receive many apologies from talk-radio callers afterward, doing virtually nothing paid off for Mozeliak.
As the winter meetings kick off Sunday in San Diego and fans from all 30 teams wait for news of a big-name trade or signing, it’s best to remember these three hot stove truths:
• Not every splashy move is the right decision.
• Not every executive who makes a flurry of moves is a certified genius.
• And there are no “winners” or “losers” immediately after the annual hot stove meetings, even as the media (guilty!) continue to employ those designations, suggesting it’s a competition that can be objectively ranked.
No matter the spin that emanates from the winter meetings, it might take a year — or more likely years — to fairly evaluate all of the transactions.
Cubs President Theo Epstein spent much of 2018 forced to defend his decision to give Yu Darvish a six-year, $126 million deal that February. Darvish will enter 2020 as the Cubs’ undisputed ace and one of the few pieces Epstein can’t afford to part with as he reboots the organization from yoga instructors to All-Stars.
After Darvish looked like a question mark and the Cubs payroll exceeded the luxury tax threshold, Epstein was given no money to spend last offseason. Chairman Tom Ricketts later claimed he had no money to spend. The result was a second straight end-of-season free fall.
Now Epstein has a little more financial leeway and a mandate for change from Ricketts, who sent a letter to Cubs fans after the season declaring: “We share your desire for change and are committed to building our next championship team.”
Though few fans expressed a desire to change the manager — much less the desire for the departure of a favorite such as Kris Bryant, Javier Baez or Willson Contreras — Epstein has begun the reckoning.
Joe Maddon is gone, David Ross is in and everyone now anxiously awaits the next big change Epstein has in mind to try to catch the Cardinals.
After a two-year reign in the NL Central, the Cubs are once again chasing the Cards and Mozeliak, who acquired slugger Paul Goldschmidt and signed free-agent reliever Andrew Miller last offseason while the Cubs looked for some extra couch change.
But fans have short memories, which is why Mozeliak became a walking, talking pinata at the trade deadline for the crime of being inactive.
“The problem with our industry, and probably sports in general, is if you’re not signing people, if you’re not trading for people, then you’re failing,” Mozeliak said last month at the general managers meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz. “You can sign people and regret the signing, and people are just like, ‘Throw that out and keep trying more.’
“I do feel like in our particular case, as we were approaching the trading deadline, we certainly had some things in mind we were hoping to accomplish. We weren’t able to do it. Rather than looking at it as a failure, it created some other opportunities for others, and they made the most of it. One man’s loss is another man’s gain.”
The old adage about aborted trades that turned out lucky — “The best trade I never made” — no longer seems to apply in the age of Twitter, when success is sometimes judged by the quantity of moves.
Doing nothing leaves a GM open to social media abuse, which Mozeliak said he shrugs off.
“It’s just part of the job,” he said. “Trying to take it as anything more than that would be foolish on my part because in the next six weeks, there are going to be more of that. Disappointment will be everywhere. That’s just a terrible way to think about it.”
The White Sox know this all too well after failing to sign free agent Manny Machado last offseason.
They spent much of the winter fending off rumors about their perceived level of interest, and by the time spring training arrived, they were one of the only bidders remaining.
But when the Padres outbid the Sox with more guaranteed money, it created a sense of failure in the minds of some vocal Sox fans, who questioned management’s commitment to spending.
Fair or not, that perception was revisited after the 2019 season when former Marlins executive David Samson said Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf once advised him to always finish second to leave fans with the “carrot” of having “one more step to take.”
The Sox then started the offseason with a bang, signing catcher Yasmani Grandal to a four-year, $73 million deal before losing out on free-agent pitcher Zack Wheeler on Wednesday.
While the Sox won’t come out and say the rebuild is over and it’s time to contend, the evidence is mounting they intend to try.
Their pursuit of Grandal and Wheeler was much more under the radar than the long, drawn-out pursuit of Machado. And when Wheeler opted to sign a five-year, $118 million deal with the Phillies, the Sox were happy to let it be known they offered more money — in case anyone thought they were being too frugal or were satisfied being runner-up again in a prominent free-agent signing.
Now that the Sox have shown they’re willing to pay the market price for a frontline starting pitcher, it’s incumbent on general manager Rick Hahn to reel in a Madison Bumgarner or Dallas Keuchel — or perhaps both — and add a power-hitting right fielder.
Hahn is a motivated shopper. The last time the winter meetings were in San Diego in 2014, he dealt young shortstop Marcus Semien to the A’s in the Jeff Samardzija deal that allegedly helped the Sox “win” the meetings.
Samardzija left after one subpar season on the South Side, while Semien finished third in American League MVP voting this year.
Like Hahn, Epstein should have his hands full in San Diego, where he signed Jon Lester during the 2014 winter meetings to signal the beginning of the Cubs renaissance.
Epstein reiterated last month he has no “untouchables,” but in a preemptive strike against nonstop Twitter rumors, he warned to take any trade rumor surrounding a current Cub with “a mouthful of salt, not just a grain.”
“These guys whose names keep coming up in trade rumors have done a ton for our franchise,” he said.
Which is why trading any of them would jolt the clubhouse.
Guessing which Cubs star will be first to go has been ongoing since Maddon and Epstein consciously decoupled on the final day of the season in St. Louis.
Some rumors are bound to become reality.
But what if Epstein bets on new manager Ross as the key ingredient to change, believing the talent is there and the only thing missing was a different voice? What if he makes smaller moves, keeps the core and weathers the storm for one last hurrah in 2020?
It’s doubtful, but anything is possible this winter.