Cubs spring training move becoming more and more likely
December 11, 2009 29 Comments
The idea that the Cubs would leave Mesa, AZ and take their spring training facilities east to Naples, FL appeared to be just a longshot a few months and even a few weeks ago. As time has moved forward it is becoming more and more clear that there is a real good chance that the Ricketts family will make that move. Not only have the Cubs spoke of moving their single-A affiliate in Daytona to Naples, but just this past week it was announced that the Cubs are considering investing in the facility.
Meanwhile in Mesa the city is putting $750,000 on the table to improve the Cubs current facilities at Fitch Park (not the new ones they want to build). I sense a shift. Naples appears to be the front runner and it sounds like Mesa is sensing that too.
David Moulton of Naplesnews.com breaks down what has happened over the past few weeks:
Think about what the Cubs have done and said in the first two weeks of this month. They flew to Tallahassee to meet with Gov. Charlie Crist (the Ricketts family — the new team owners — has never traveled to meet with Arizona officials). After that meeting they tipped their hand for the first time.
CEO Crane Kenney openly spoke of moving their Class A franchise from Daytona to Naples. That’s not something you go public with unless you are already in the “planning” stages. Then someone in the Cubs organization leaked that they felt the club wanted to make a decision about spring training within 60 days. Well considering that they are only engaged with the Naples group at present time (Craig Bouchard of Esmark and Fifth Avenue Advisors), Hmmm… I wonder what direction they are leaning?
Finally, in a stunning admission of just how “all in” the Cubs are toward the Collier County move, owner Tom Ricketts told the Chicago Tribune that they would “invest” in the Naples project.
By invest he meant money out of his own pocket by the way. That’s how much the Ricketts believe in and WANT this deal to happen!
He summarizes the deal:
So to review, the Cubs are going to leave Arizona for Naples (in 2012 or 2013), build a 15,000-seat stadium on 120 acres near Interstate 75, without one penny of property or sales taxes being raised. The Cubs, Esmark and the state of Florida have committed to “invest” in the project to make it happen. One-thousand jobs will be generated in the short-term and the yearly economic impact is conservatively estimated at $50 million per year.
The idea that the Cubs would move from the Cactus League to the Grapefruit League is a curious one. The trend over the last twenty years has been for teams to move to AZ. The travel is very light in AZ with all the teams in and around Phoenix. The weather conditions are great in AZ in the month of March, and the desert means there are fewer issues with rain than you have in Florida. Still the Cubs seem to be in position to buck the trend and head east.
In other words, Ricketts can’t come out of pocket to raise payroll and make the team better because he’s coming out of pocket to make a completel unnecesssary move of the ST facilities.
That is positively Tribune-esque.
So, when do we call up Rodney Myers and sign Candy Maldonado?
(dying laughing) I can’t wait to watch the Cubs play nothing by split squad games against themselves comd 2020
Maybe by then I’ll learn to type too (dying laughing)
the payroll issues don’t disturb me that much mo. i think the payroll is set at a fair number for the cubs with several teams freezing payroll and some even reducing for 2010.
i don’t think it is ricketts fault that hendry and the trib backloaded this deals intentionally putting more of the burden of contracts on the new owner. with respect to that happening i would actually expect a new owner to hold payroll and wait for some of these contracts to come off the books.
all of that doesn’t mean 2010 is gonna be too rosey. the cubs are really gonna have to hope for alot of good luck just to be in the race in the nl central.
the quick commitment to the grapefruit league is very concerning to me. as b mentions above, most of the teams are heading to az for spring training for a reason. the weather is more predictable and the facilities are all very close by. an extended roadtrip for the cubs in the cactus league is now a drive up to surprise (i believe tucson is now teamless or soon will be).
i’m not real sure how between the two, naples can be a better value for the cubs. everything i’ve read, nothing has said that the cubs will generate more revenue or have better baseball facilities in naples. it’s a real head scratcher for me. i really don’t get it.
Candy ‘Fuckin’ Maldonado
I remember back in the 80′s when the Cactus League was 8 teams. Many thought all the ST teams would move to FLA. Didn’t happen. I guess these things are cycles.
Cactus League is the leader now. I imagine that will change again someday.
Personally I’m a big fan of the Cactus League. Even if the Cubs leave, I still plan on going to AZ in March when I can. I’ll enjoy the Mariners, Dodgers, Sox and all of the other teams that call the valley home. I won’t be making a trip to Naples anytime soon. I know that.
Who wants to go to Naples in the middle of the rain season in Florida? No one. I live in Arizona and the Cubs are by far the biggest draw down here. Without the Cubs, Mesa will turn into a meth-town (aka the South Side).
The difference here is that the Cactus League was just getting underway. It began with only 1 team and it’s taken awhile to expand it, but it’s now surpassed the Grapefruit League in number of teams and easily has surpassed them in desirability.
Once the Dodgers chose to leave it was all over in Florida. They had been at one location longer than any team in baseball and it was institution. Since then the Indians, Reds, and at least 3 or 4 other teams have been trying to move to Arizona. In a few years the Yankees and/or the Red Sox will make the move as well and at that point every other team will be looking for a home in Arizona.
As far as backloaded contracts go, teams that have limited resources backload contracts. The teams that don’t backload them are the Yankees and teams that don’t sign any expensive free agents. That’s not going to change with the Cubs now and it wasn’t a problem before. That’s how you sign players in baseball.
Ryan Howard: $15 million, $19 million, $20 million
Raul Ibanez: 6.5 million, 11.5, 11.5
Polanco: 5, 5.25, 7.25
Gary Matthews, Jr: 6, 9, 10, 11, 12
Kazmir: 6, 8, 12, 16
Ervina Santana: 3, 6, 8, 11, 14
Juan Rivera: 3.25, 4.25, 5.25
Those are just 2 teams that have a similar payroll to the Cubs. Teams that have a decent payroll (phillies, Mets, Angels, Cubs, etc) backload contracts or they win 82 games every year because they’ve gotten older.
md,
I agree with you on the popularity of the cactus league. I hope it continues to grow. As I’ve said to you in the past I love the Phoenix area and particularly in March. That all being said things can change. My Grandfather lived out there in the 80′s and I remember him saying that he was scared all the teams would move to FLA. It was not an uncommon thought at that time.
I understand what you are saying, but when you backload THE NUMBER of contracts and give players ntc’s you get what you get. You can say the backloading of the deals had nothing to do with Tribune selling the club. It’s just my opinion, but I don’t agree.
I’m not on here to fight with you MB, I just have a different opinion.
not me.
I agree with you about Phoenix, ccd. I miss the area and wouldn’t mind moving back at some point, but I think my wife would prefer to go out East.
I just think there’s a big difference between the early 80s and now. The Cactus League began in the late 40s with just 1 team (another followed). More importantly, there were teams also in California and there were never more than 8 teams in Arizona until the late 80s. It took a long time for it to grow, but it slowly did. Now it’s surpassed Florida as the destination teams want to be located at for spring training. There’s more money, the attendance is higher, and the weather is nicer. 5 years ago I wouldn’t have thought spring training would only be located in Arizona, but the Dodgers leaving killed the Grapefruit League. It literally killed it. Sure they’ll pay the Cubs top dollar to come to Florida. They know that will be their only draw in 15 years because it will be the only team there, but the Cubs trained in California as the only team for awhile so the Cubs making this decision shouldn’t be too shocking. Since the Dodgers left numerous teams from Florida have looked into relocating to Arizona and eventually (when their contracts expire) they all will. People associated with the Grapefruit League were heard saying the Grapefruit League is dead just 2 years ago after the Dodgers agreed to leave. They know it. That’s why they’ve paraded every famous movie star in front of the camera to talk about how glorious spring training is in Florida.
It’s no surprise they’re working their ass off trying to get the Cubs to come to Florida. it’s their only chance of having spring baseball and they know the Cubs don’t mind scheduling games against themselves as they did for a long time in California.
The other thing the Cubs must consider here is that they lead spring team in attendance because they are located in Arizona. Once they move, that is gone. The Yankees and Red Sox will be a far better draw in Florida than the cubs will be, but those teams will be in Arizona before long anyway so they will lead the Grapefruit league in attendance each year. They’ll also have the worst attendance.
This is a bad move by the Cubs and I’m not convinced that whoever is behind it is a sane human being. There’s a reason that not one team is considering leaving Arizona other than the Cubs and there’s also a reason why we’ve not heard a peep about any team following the Cubs to Florida. Whether you play against yourselves or another team in spring training doesn’t really matter, but the Cubs better remember why they left California (so they could actually play other teams). They’ll be back in Arizona as soon as that contract expires anyway, but how much money will they have lost in the meantime?
I’m sure it did, but what we saw was the Tribune acting like they should have been acting for a couple decades. The no-trade clauses are relatively meaningless. The contracts of Lee, Ramirez and Lilly are all up after this season and you never would have traded them before this year anyway and any of them would accept a trade if they could negotiate an extension. Dempster is a 10 and 5 guy. Carlos Zambrano doesn’t sign for $91 million without it. The only one I have a problem with is Samardzija and the Cubs just made a terrible mistake there.
What the cubs have done the last few years is exactly what they should be doing. Jim Hendry has an outstanding record when it comes to free agent contracts too.
I’m fine if Ricketts wants to start over. I really am. I just wish that’s what he’d actually be doing instead of running out an 82 win team that will lose a lot of talent after next year and be much worse because of it. This is exactly what the Tribune did for 25 years. They never made up their mind. Are they going to go for it or are they going to try to rebuild for the future? We’re back to that question once again and we don’t have an acceptable answer. They’re going to be content with a team that should win 80 or 82 games. Same as it was during the TRibune’s ownership.
Either play for now or player for the future. It’s an either/or. In between is failure and that’s what we’re doing.
Well said.
Another thing to consider is the pipeline of transplants/retirees/snowbirds from Chicago to Phoenix. Similar to what you have from east coast cities to Florida. The Cubs will not have the amount of retired Cub fans in FLA that they do in AZ.
I’m not in favor of the move. For personal reasons and for the Cubs as a baseball club. But the Rickettses aren’t asking me.
They should be asking you. They’d get better advice than the crap they’re getting right now. i’m pretty sure even Al Yellon even knows it’s a dumbass move and that’s saying something.
Common guys, splash your face with a budweiser. 16 of the last 19 world series winners trained in Florida. This isn’t a coincidence. In Arizona, they go on vacation, play in perfect weather and light air every day in the spring then come back to Chicago and play in cold rain and snow for the first month and a half. No wonder they stink at evaluating their personnel. They evaluate the major leaguers and minor leaguers at the mesa facilities. Some of these guys just don’t perform well in tougher weather. Most people think this is part of the reason why the Florida trained teams win the series. If the Cubs go to Naples they will go there because they think they can get ready for the season better. They will train with the Red Sox, Yankees, Twins, Orioles, Marlins, Phillies and Cardinals. (the others are up north or don’t matter much.) The Cubs will outdraw all of them quite easily because there are more Cub fans in in the US than all of these teams combined. WGN assures that. And there are a lot more Chicagoans living in Florida than there are in Arizona. No one is noticing but Mesa is a pit. 60% of the homes sold there over the past 10 years were financed with sub prime mortgages. If you drive 10 minutes from Ho Ho Cam you see every other house boarded up. The State is nearly bankrupt and the Mexican gangs are all over the place. Is this where you would want to invest $100 million and the next 30 years of the franchise? Hardly. Give Ricketts a little more credit. He just bought the team 60 days ago. He is a devout cub fan and a smart businessman. He sits in the bleachers. Lets give him a chance. He can’t fix all the cubs problems in one year. But, he can start making good long term decisions.
“And there are a lot more Chicagoans living in Florida than there are in Arizona.”
Arizona far surpasses the number of Illinois and Midwest transplants. The Cubs would be out of their minds to move. They would be fourth place behind the Yanks, Red Sox, and Phillies in attendance.
There is a reason all of the teams have been leaving Florida but leave it up to the Cubs to try and buck the trend and fall flat on their face.
The area they are looking at in Arizona is as upper class, if not more so then Naples by the way.
…as one of the people who has been calling for the cubs to blow the whole fucking thing up for years it pains me a little to see where they find themselves. I agree with you that the team is not much better than a .500 club right now.
While, I understand the frustration. Still it’s not even Christmas during their first offseason as owners. Never having owned a sports team before I expect we will see some mistakes. It’s gonna take them some time to learn tnis business and figure out how to run it and who they want running the baseball side of things. Not to go all Yellon, but I think in this case some patience is probably a real good thing. LOL.
one more thing to keep in mind. is the fact that the cubs are paying between $30-40 million in interest every year due to the terms of the purchase which were dicated by sam zell to avoid taxes.
Those same terms were also accepted by Ricketts. It goes both ways here. Zell is a tax-dodging prick, but so is Ricketts. You don’t get to be as wealthy as those two without learning how to dodge some taxes. I don’t blame Zell for exploiting a fucked up system. That’s exactly what I’d do and to be honest, Zell would be crazy to not exploit it. The system needs repair, but until Congress gets off their lazy asses and rewrites the tax code people have the right to do what Zell did. Ricketts will do the same thing when he sells the team if it’s still possible.
Here’s what I don’t like, ccd. A novice can tell you that the best way to succeed is to build an organization that can get better each year. There are two different ways to accomplish that. You can spend money (something we’ve all wanted to see the Cubs do) or you can build from the ground up. I really don’t care which way they do it to be honest. I’d be fine with a $65 million payroll if the minor league system was top notch. I really don’t care that much about payroll. As far as I’m concerned they could have a $10 million payroll if they have a ridiculously good farm system. I don’t care.
The other way to win is to spend money, which is what the Cubs have done the last few years and more impressing than that is how they’ve rebuilt their farm system over the last few years. It’s still just average, but it’s the best in the NL Central and a hell of a lot better than it’s been in the last 4 years or so. That’s pretty amazing considering the Cubs haven’t had many top picks. They’ve rebuilt it through trades and nice finds that other teams passed over.
Those are the only two ways you can win. There’s a combination of the two, which is what you want, but in order for the Cubs to get there the best way is going to be to forfeit the next 5 years and build one of the best minor leagues in baseball. Then you can spend money to go along with all of that talent.
The Cubs aren’t doing either of these. I guess I don’t see this so much as an on-the-job mistake by Ricketts since every baseball fan understands this. He’s not an idiot so he knows damn well how to build a winning team. They all do. I don’t know what it’s going to be like in 5 years or even next year, but right now Ricketts doesn’t care about winning now or in the future. Hopefully next year he’ll go one way or the other, but you’re missing out on trading guys like Lee and Ramirez who would have a lot of value on the market right now. Instead, the Cubs are talking about re-signing Lee to a 1-year extension, which isn’t all bad, but I don’t see any plan in place where that even makes the least bit of sense.
I really don’t care how much the Cubs spend or how much Ricketts makes. It’s his business. I couldn’t care less about that. What I care about him meeting what’s required of him by MLB and to this point he has not. Every owner is required to make his team competitive. Ricketts isn’t. Not now and not in the future. Just pick one. I think it would be silly to have a fire sale. This team can win with a few investments and that’s what he should do, but at least a fire sale is a plan to win. it’s not a plan to win now, but it is a plan to succeed. I’d be patient if he chose that plan. So far he’s chosen the same plan that the Tribune did for 25 years and patience was never rewarded.
A lot of things will change yet, but the one thing we can say with 100% certainty is that Tom Ricketts is not like the Red Sox owner who he said he wanted the organization to be like. Henry made sweeping changes to a team that just won 82 games. They won 93 the next year, 95 the following (blew that 3-0 lead to the Yanks), won the World Series and won another one 3 years later. Henry came in and said his only goal was to break the curse of the bambino. Ricketts said he wanted to win as well (of course) and the difference is that Henry didn’t sit on his hands and do nothing. In a couple years he had helped create what was arguably the best organization in baseball. He didn’t sit back and take a wait and see approach.
He quickly hired Larry Lucchino as part of that plan. Henry’s actions were that of an owner who wanted to win. Ricketts saying he wants to the Cubs to be like that organization is fine and dandy, but do something about it. The Red Sox made several moves after the 2001 season to improve the club and it did. They continued to improve the team after that. All while investing heavily in player salaries they built one of the best minor league systems in baseball and improved Fenway Park considerably.
When the Red Sox renovated their bathrooms, they got rid of the troughs.
Ricketts is nothing like John Henry.
And if teams really believed that’s why they won the World Series they’d be moving to Florida rather than away from it.
mb, while i don’t agree with your early judgment of ricketts. i do agree with you on the state of the team as a whole. they are going backwards and it sucks that they don’t have the same chance to win in 2010 as they did from 2007-2009.
“16 of the last 19 world series winners trained in Florida”.
Even from a disappointed Cub fan logic should eventually set in. There are only two potential explanations of this stat:
1) Training in Florida instead of being on vacation in Scottsdale makes a positive difference in preparing for the season opener and/or evaluating players. We all know its a game of inches and if a better Spring preparation leads to a few extra victories during the season it can make a difference getting into the playoffs… a necessary condition to get into the WS.
2) If you think 16 of 19 is a “coincidence”; um ok. Try flipping a coin until you get that result. It might happen some time in the first few thousand times you try. But assuming you’re still not convinced then you would reluctantly conclude that its not a 50/50 chance…meaning, of course, that the higher quality teams (Yankees, Red Sox, etc) must be training in Florida, since these teams have won 16 of 19.
If you are the Cubs either reason is a good reason to make the change.
Forget the fact that Arizona is right behind California lon the verge of Bankrupcy. Which means there is a big risk doing a $100 million deal there with local municipalities. Forget crime rates in Phoenix. Forget that Ricketts will never put his team on sovereign Indian land where gambling is the only industry. (the other lead proposal in Arizona is on Hilo land). Forget the water shortages. Forget the fact that Secretary of State Drivers license Stats (thats where you go to look it up…)make it obvious that Florida has 3x the number of Illinois transplants vs Arizona. Forget all that.
The Cubs are the top brand in major league spring baseball having set attendance records in 3 of the last 4 years. Everybody knows this. The Yankees are 2nd and Red Sox 3rd. Those three teams want to hang around each other in the Spring and there has been an active dialogue between the owners. The Cubs could care less about the White Sox, Dodgers, Reds and other mediocre Arizona teams. This is a big reason it will happen.
Stolenbases- the math isn’t with you on this.
First, next season is the first that both states will have 15 teams each. Much of that time, AZ only had 10 or 11. The more releveny fact is that NO team has move to Florida is 20 years.
The more accurate ruler to use is how many big payroll teams have won. Almost all were big payroll teams.
You are also wrong about the number of Illinois and Midwest transplants. Arizona lead the nation by a good margin.
OK Stolen Bases, you’re right and every team that wants to move to Arizona is ignorant. I guess in about 5 years we’ll be able to bet on one of the two teams still in Florida to win the World Series and Vegas will lose miserably.
The fact that you could flip a coin that landed on head or tails 16 of 19 times explains what has happened. You even knew the answer, but ignored it.
Real Numbers is right. Look at who 7 of those 16 teams were. The Yankees and Red Sox. I guess the Yankees would suck if they moved to Arizona.
Maybe Stolen base works for the Florida Department of Tourism. LOL
Moving out of Arizona is a silly move, but stolen base says 16 of the last 19 WS winners trained in Florida. I’m surprised he didn’t take it further:
2009- Yankees (FL)
2008- Phillies (FL)
2007- Red Sox (FL)
2006- Cardinals (FL)
2005- White Sox (AZ)
2004- Red Sox (FL)
2003- Marlins (FL)
2002- Angels (AZ)
2001- Diamondbacks (AZ)
(For those scoring, 3 of 9 WS winners are from AZ, including a stretch of 3 of 5).
Pre-2001:
2000- Yankees (FL)
1999- Yankees (FL)
1998- Yankees (FL)
1997- Marlins (FL)
1996- Yankees (FL)
1995- Braves (FL)
1994- NO WORLD SERIES (but White Sox and Expos had best records, both train in FL)
1993- Blue Jays (FL)
1992- Blue Jays (FL)
1991- Twins (FL)
1990- Reds (FL)
1989- A’s (AZ)
1988- Dodgers (FL)
1987- Twins (FL)
1986- Mets (FL)
1985- Royals (FL)
1984- Tigers (FL)
1983- Orioles (FL)
1982- Cardinals (FL)
1981- Dodgers (FL)
1980- Phillies (FL)
1979- Pirates (FL)
1978- Yankees (FL)
1977- Yankees (FL)
1976- Reds (FL)
1975- Reds (FL)
(That’s 24 of 25 WS winners training in Florida). If anything, the correlation is weaker than it had been.
The other point stolen base made was that the Cubs are making bad personnel decisions because AZ climate is nothing like Chicago’s climate early in the season. Let me suggest that the Cubs, White Sox, Indians, Brewers, Cardinals, Tigers and Twins start the Little Egypt League down in downstate Illinois to best replicate the conditions you might find in early April.
Good idea TJ.
Re: WS winners training in AZ: http://xkcd.com/552/