Bears lose to Packers again

A suitably in-depth look at the game. And, some Cubs stuff.

Bears lose to Packers again

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The Bears went to Lambeau Field with a chance to show off their “most improved” status.

And they lost again. It was basically a variation of the same thing we’ve seen for two decades, give or take.

So…fuck it.

And you laughed when I wondered if we should just be as skeptical as possible about the Cubs’ big move to hire an expensive manager, and that maybe their plan was to pay Craig Counsell a bunch and then give him a low-mid-major roster and tell him to figure it out.

Ha ha…uh…oh boy.

So far with five weeks to go before spring training, the Cubs have made one move involving a Major League player, and it barely qualifies. Last week they signed former Rockies nobody, backup catcher Brian Serven. Serven hasn’t hit at all in limited big league action (.195/.248/.314, in 73 games over two seasons), and that’s not a shock because he never hit in the minors, either. (.240/.310/.418, with 49 homers in seven years.)

I’m sure his fan session at this weekend’s Cubs Convention will be packed to the gills.

Speaking of, there was a day when the Cubs would respond to the looming convention by making some desperate move to try to head off the arrival of the horde of sweatpants enthusiasts with some news…any news…anything at all.

Even Theo Epstein wasn’t immune. After vowing he wouldn’t do anything like that he saved a surprise “Kerry Wood is coming back, again!” announcement for the opening ceremonies of the 2012 convention. Wood had returned from this exile to Cleveland and the Yankees and been OK in 2011, clearly inspired by playing for Mike Quade. He had a 3.35 ERA in 51 games with 57 strikeouts. But it made little sense for the tanking Cubs to double his salary to $3 million for 2012, especially after Theo famously said, “If you start making baseball decisions based on PR, you’re losing.”

When did Theo say that?

Literally a half hour before they announced the return of Wood for his age 35 season. Kerry was the “big surprise” at the end of the opening ceremonies introductions. I’m sure they can do something nearly as crowd pleasing at this year’s. What’s Brad Brach up to these days?

Wood pitched in only 10 games in 2012, and walked 11 and struck out six in 8.2 innings with an 8.10 ERA. But hey, at least his contract included a long personal services component which Dan Bernstein has been assuring us for a dozen years that includes Kerry joining the Cubs broadcast team. Any day now, I’m sure.

In 2012, Kerry had a new manager, Dale Sveum, but in his memorable final appearance Dale had been tossed from the game so bench coach Jamie Quirk had to make the pitching changes. Wood struck out the only batter he faced, Dayan Viciedo, and walked off the field to rapturous applause and stopped to hug teammate Tony Campana on his way off the field.

Huh? That was one of Kerry’s kids? Whatever.

Anyway, rumors were flying the other day that the Cubs were out on Japanese lefty starting pitcher Shota Imanaga and then moments later, one of the final four teams in on him (with the Giants, Red Sox and Angels.) The second report was pushed out by Jim Bowden, so…it’s almost certainly bullshit.

But I think the idea that the Cubs are still in on Shota makes some sense. Why wouldn’t they be going hard after a guy who is old (30), short (5’10…sure), and who many teams have crossed off their boards because he needs to pitch up in the zone to be effective and being short gives him a bad angle to do that, and he doesn’t have the kind of stuff that gets big league hitters out up in the zone. Other than Pete Crow-Armstrong. He’ll have no problem with Pete Crow if he faces him.

Sounds perfect.

What I did enjoy was the gaggle of Cubs fans confused by why the Red Sox are telling players that they are interested in signing that they need to move a salary or two off the books.

After all, the Red Sox are a big market team (like the Cubs) and own their own regional sports network (like the Cubs.) So they should be immune to money woes, right?

Well, yes. They should be. But as we have to remind people over and over, baseball teams’ money problems are all self-inflicted, and imaginary. It’s not that they can’t afford players, they don’t want to.

And yes, teams like the Cubs, Yankees and Red Sox who own their own RSNs have less financial uncertainty than teams relying on Sinclair to cut them their TV rights checks, but the RSNs aren’t the cash cows that they once were.

It’s good for the Cubs to own Marquee even if Marquee sucks and is mostly unwatchable, because they know how much money they will get from it. Teams like the Cardinals are supposed to be getting $80 million checks every year and now are very worried that they won’t get them.

Tough shit.

But, the reality is that the promises Crane Kenney made to the Garbage Family That Owns The Cubs™ about how much money Marquee would bring in are impossible to actually realize, for several reasons.

  1. The Cubs were too late to start their own network. The monthly fees they are getting from cable and satellite operators are a fraction of what they would have been just two or three years earlier.
  2. Their decision to just ride out their Comcast Sports Net deal was moronic. They needed to buy their way out of it early, but they didn’t. When they let their WGN Superstation deal expire they should have held their nose and cut a check to leave CSN. Instead they stayed and aired roughly half their games on it while they made almost nothing from the games they pushed off to the non-Superstation version of WGN and WLS. That delay is why they missed the window for big TV money.
  3. Their decision to not rope in a partner like the Blackhawks still makes no sense. There is zero reason to watch Marquee in non-baseball months, unless you are a big fan of the Chicago Sky or Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball. The Yankees’ YES Network has the Nets, and the Red Sox’ NESN has the Bruins. But hey, at least there’s plenty of room for all those $12 dollar a spot Prevagen ads to run on Marquee.
  4. Even in-season, the low quality of the programming effects ratings and basic viewer interest. The Cubs pre and postgame shows are basically worthless. Their lack of ambition in creating other Cubs-related programming is alarming. They claim to have the entire WGN-TV inventory of past Cubs games, but they do very little with it. Maybe they don’t really have it. There’s a decent chance that much of it was lost in a Ron Santo toupee fire.
  5. Even when they use the network properly like they will this coming weekend, it costs them. You don’t need to pay big bucks to go to the convention because you can watch whatever parts of it you want on Marquee. And if you’ve never heard or seen an Ian Happ podcast, do yourself a favor and set aside five minutes on Saturday to check it out. You’ll be amazed at how terrible it is.
  6. It will be interesting to see if the Cubs say anything about how the streaming only subscriptions to Marquee are doing. If they do, it’ll almost certainly be Tom Ricketts saying they’re “great.” But the fact that there’s no business operations panel at this convention is a glaring sign that there’s nothing to actually brag about, or believe me, they would be.

All that said, nothing external is preventing the Cubs from spending. Marquee’s underperformance certainly cuts into their profits some, but the Cubs have many other ways to bilk us out of our cash. Money is not an issue. Having the balls to spend it continues to be.

I’m sure Jed is frustrated that he’s taking shit every day for not doing anything when the vast majority of moves made so far are ones he never seriously contemplated (Shohei, Yamomoto, Juan Soto), and the market has yet to move on guys the Cubs are likely actually interested in like Cody Bellinger, Rhys Hoskins, Matt Chapman, etc.

But you know, Jed, nothing is stoping you from making THE offer that gets one of them to actually move.

What is likely is that the Cubs sign one of those free agents, and then fill their other needs (well, some of their other needs) via trades. Given how many teams already realize but don’t want to admit they will be forced by their owners to cut payroll because their TV money isn’t coming, players are going to be available by trade.

But Jed does know he’ll have to actually trade FOR those players, right?

Maybe one of you should ask him this weekend.