The Cubs Chronicle

The Chicago Tribune’s Rick Morrissey thinks the Cubs didn’t fight hard enough in the Carlos Beltran sweepstakes:

We spent all those weeks thinking about what Beltran would look like in a Cubs uniform, when being comatose would have been a much better use of our time. Beltran apparently is off to the Mets. Just like that. Without much of a fight from the Cubs.

If the Cubs didn’t believe Beltran was the franchise player other teams thought he was, that would be one thing. Then we’d be having a broader discussion on scouting. The Cubs’ decision would have been based solely on talent evaluation. You could respect that, even if you might not agree with it.

But the Cubs obviously think Beltran is a star. Otherwise they wouldn’t have made him a five-year, $75 million offer. The Mets and Beltran agreed in principle Sunday on a seven-year, $119 million deal.

The Cubs had to know their offer wasn’t going to be nearly enough, but they made it anyway. So this was all about money and wishful thinking, as it almost always is, and the Cubs came up short, as they historically have been known to do.

So, apparently, the Cubs were to just hand Beltran a contract and say, “Here, there’s a blank for ‘years’ and a blank for ‘dollars’. Kindly fill them in.”

As Derek Smart explains at The Cub Reporter (here and here), no thanks.

Number of times Beltran has finished in the top-10 in the league in OBA.: 0.
Number of times Beltran has finished in the top-10 in the league in Slg.: 0.

Carlos Beltran is very fine player. I would have loved to have had him for 5 years, $75M. But he’s not Mickey Mantle, who, by the time he was Beltran’s current age, had already led the league in adjusted OPS 4 times (and finished second 3 other times).

Something else that (as far as I can tell) has been ignored: Signing Beltran for the years and the dollars the Mets gave him would have restricted the Cubs’ ability to sign Aramis Ramirez to a long-term contract, and after him Mark Prior and Carlos Zambrano.