You can’t have it both ways on Cubs’ megabucks spending

Under their old system, the Cubs would not even have considered signing Alfonso Soriano (image via Wikipedia).

I’ll always give an even higher profile to my good buddy Nick (The Young Hunk) Friedell of ESPNChicago.com.  Check out the adjoining link to Nick’s blog, where he throws up a strong caution light to the Cubs’ spending $2.4 million over three years on new hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo.

Nick’s stream of consciousness is part of the usual emotional flow you’ll find around the Cubs these days. Fans and pundits alike are yelling about the team spending too much money, just throwing greenbacks away and conducting a personal stimulus plans for a lucky few players and, in this case, the much-admired Jaramillo.

The only response here: Nick and Co., you can’t have it both ways. You can’t complain about the Cubs not spending market rate on talent and then a few years later, after a couple of deals like Milton Bradley went awry, cry that they’re throwing money away.

I like to give history lessons in this space. Start with the recent past. Remember how the Cubs front office was discovered to be grossly understaffed, ranking 29th of 30 teams? They did not have enough scouts and player development people for a big-market team. That’s pinned on deposed president Andy MacPhail, who in July 2005 told me he preferred to be understaffed; he’d rather be “one man too short than one man too heavy” so that all his employees could be suitably “engaged.” MacPhail’s Tribune Co. overseers were shocked to find he was not spending the money on player payroll and baseball operations they expected. Just recall how you all howled when MacPhail let all the prime free agents each winter sign with other teams.

Next, I’ll wind the clock back almost five decades and then work forward with these nuggets:

–Legend had New York-area scout Ralph Di Lullo watching a young, raw left hander throw harder than anyone he had ever seen. He called the front office at Wrigley Field to ask permission to come up with a good bonus. Di Lullo was denied, and he thus lost the chance to sign Sandy Koufax.

–In 1962, owner P.K. Wrigley was shocked at all the bonus money he had paid out to young players who had flopped. So he banned his scouts from signing any new amateur players! The scouts could write reports and go on day trips, but could not embark on overnight excursions. Eventually Wrigley was talked out of yet another of his foolhardy edicts, but the scouts ended up signing just six players out of high school and college for the remainder of 1962. The effects on the already-weak farm system were catastrophic for years to come. Incidentally, Wrigley sold $100 million in chewing gum in ‘62, a huge number for the time. He was wealthy enough to own five teams.

–In 1963, West Coast-based Cubs scout Gene Handley, one of the game’s best,  zeroed in on a prime high-school pitcher named Larry Dierker. He offered Dierker $35,000 to sign, not a dime more. The expansion Houston Colt .45’s (now the Astros) blew in with a $50,000 offer, and Dierker went on to a good career in Texas.

–William Wrigley, P.K. Wrigley’s son, was so much in the hole due to a $40 million inheritance-tax bite in 1981 he ordered the Cubs stripped to an expansion-team talent level. Rick Reuschel was traded to the Yankees for Doug Bird, Mike Griffin and $400,000. Who’d ever think a blue-blooded Wrigley needed 400-grand?

–After purging the Cubs of big spender, farm-system-developer Dallas Green, Tribune Co. bossmen were proud that their 1989 NL East champion Cubs, chock full of rookies and young guys like Greg Maddux, had just an $11 million payroll.

–Anticipating a player’s strike in 1994, Cubs Chairman Stanton Cook ordered GM Larry Himes to dump payroll in the off-season of 1993-94. A number of serviceable veterans were jettisoned. Himes made the ridiculous trade of decent lefty reliever Chuck McElroy to the Reds for a schlub pitcher named Larry Luebbers. Who?

–MacPhail’s early Cubs teams in the mid-1990s hovered in the mid-$30 million payroll range, far below comparable big-market teams. Meanwhile, MacPhail estimated his minor-league and scouting budget was just “middle of the pack.” Only after the embarrassing 0-14 start in 1997 was MacPhail shocked into boosting the payroll to more than $50 million for 1998. The Cubs won 90 games and the wild card as a result.

OK, history class over. We know Cubs GM Jim Hendry had a lousy off-season a year ago. He whiffed badly on Bradley. The Alfonso Soriano contract looks like an albatross now. Hendry overpaid Jason Marquis. He and his scouts apparently have some holes in judging character. Money needs to be invested wisely in a farm system that has produced very few position players.

But a big-market, big-revenue team like the Cubs has the ability to take some gambles and make mistakes with money. Imagine: Hendry now is under fire for throwing money at problems rather than being a supposedly cagey wheeler-dealer  like Sox counterpart Kenny Williams. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, using an old cliche.

Holler if you’d like to go back to the old Cubs system of spending $1 when you’ve got $2 in your pocket.