Late Tuesday night is when the news broke; Carlos Correa to the Giants. Great, just great. First it was Trea Turner, then it was Xander Bogaerts, and now, Carlos Correa. All the top free agent shortstops have come and gone, and… the Cubs got none of them. Zip, zilch, nada is what they got. Sure, Dansby Swanson is still available, for now, and yes, he is a good player, but… I thought the Cubs had just as much money as the Yankees and Dodgers? OK, surely as much as the Phillies, Padres, and Giants? Whatever the “books” may say, the Cubs are acting like they don’t have money coming out of their ass, like they just “average”. When you put together Bellinger and Taillon with Suzuki and Stroman from last year, you have, well… an average team. So while other teams are anteing up, the Cubs sit and twiddle their thumbs; just can’t wait for the 2023 season…
As any fantasy owner knows, in an auction draft, you have to overpay to get your guy; that’s just the facts. Surely, the Cubs are smarter than your average fantasy owner. The price to play poker has went up, way up. Sure, does ANYBODY really deserve that much money? No. Yet, that’s the going rate. If the Cubs want to “get in the game”, they’re going to have to pony up. It’s not like we’re sitting on a short stack… No, on the contrary, the Cubs have stacks of chips, but they’re playing tight… like super tight… like stupid tight… throwing away a pair of Kings pre-flop because you think somebody has Aces. Sure, that would be a super smart move if you knew that, but… the Cubs don’t know that; I’m starting to think the Cubs don’t know shit.
No, that’s not fair… they’re just waiting for the “right time”… OK, geniuses, when is that? Any idea? Hold on, surely the Cubs are holding all their chips, waiting for those Aces to be dealt, like next year with Ohtani, right? Wrong. Don’t be fooled. The Cubs are playing checkers, while everybody else is playing chess, although maybe I’m giving them too much credit. More likely, it’s like last year, where the Cubs are throwing away the hand before the season even begins. There’s nobody in their right mind that thinks our roster as it sits today will be competitive. Sure, we’ll try to spin the hell out of it; everybody at Marquee get your talking points ready. And yes, we have some nice players, some prospects that look promising; it’s not a complete shit show. It’s just, like I said, average. Is that what the Cubs “average” fan base deserves?
I don’t care what anybody says, Cubs fans are some of the best fans in the world; to endure all that losing most of our lives, to keep supporting the team, to keep coming back, like gluttons for punishment, is what “die hard” is all about. And yes, we were finally rewarded for all of that pain in 2016; thank God for 2016… really. Because, you know what? We’re done now… for a while. There is no “plan”. The same folks that helped bring us a title, the holy grail, are the same folks who are now not interested in winning any longer; tough to wrap my head around that. So thankful for the one, yet, so pissed at the current situation. Like I mentioned before, it’s like that thing with John Paxson… love him forever for the 1993 shot, hated him in the front office.
But it doesn’t matter, because they all know, that WE are not going anywhere. We’re Cubs fans until we die, period. We’re still going to wear our gear; we’re still going to Wrigley. Heck, we’ll still try to plan part of a summer vacation around a Cubs road game. Yeah, we’ll still follow and root for them as hard as ever. And although I’d love to say that we’ll still believe… deep down that is ingrained in us… it’s a tough sell right now… really tough. Anyone care to change that? Your move Jed…
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