Pressure

I feel sorry for the Cubs’ front office, I really do.  Theo Epstein and company break a 106-year World Series championship famine, and their reward is to be constantly reminded what they have to do now.  That championship is so 2016.

You could see as much in the sports’ pages on Wednesday.  According to the Tribune, “Shutout [against the first-place Brewers] isn’t Cubs’ deepest concern/Offense should be OK, but Epstein may seek some pitching help.” Over at the Sun-Times, it was, “Too soon to know where Cubs might need help.”  I imagine social media and talk radio are saying the same, to which I would respond: Shut up.

The trade-deadline deal is almost always stacked in favor of the seller.  You want Aroldis Chapman (or Jose Quintana)?  Well, it’s going to cost you.  Yes, Theo Epstein can say Chapman was worth the cost of Gleyber Torres, but I’d still contend the last-minute deal should be viewed as a course of last resort.

It should also be seen as an admission of failure: the front office failed to provide the manager with the right players to win; the manager failed to find the winning combination; the coaching staff failed to develop the talent at hand.  Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon is supposed to be a genius; let him prove it.  Theo Epstien is a proven genius, as evidenced by his three World Series championship.  Why not put the pressure on his manager and coaches to produce?

Last July, the Cubs traded outfielder Eloy Jimenez and pitcher Dylan Cease to the White Sox.  Jimenez is tearing up AA pitching (and probably would be tattooing MLB pitching if he weren’t playing for an organization so intent on following a plan based on slow motion).  Cease is 8-2 with a 2.97 ERA in high-A ball, and who knows what he could be doing at a higher level.  But the Cubs will never know what Cease could do for them.

The Cubs need more pitching?  See Cease.  More relief pitching?  They look to have a conveyor belt of relievers coming up from Iowa, all of whom have performed well when called upon.  That would seem to suggest new pitching coach Jim Hickey knows what he’s doing, or that Joe Maddon is in fact a genius, at least when it comes to relief pitching.  That’s winning from within.

But the second you yield to the pressure of armchair general manager to “do something,” the odds are it’ll be something dumb.