GM Talk, Payroll, and Ricketts Poker Face...

- Tom Ricketts said he wants to get a GM in quickly and sufficiently as possible but says it is a big decision and there is no point in rushing it.

- Ricketts has talked to a lot of industry veterans including owners to get their opinion.

- Ricketts is very optimistic about the Cubs future and says a one-year turn around is not out of the question.

- He says the payroll will likely not exceed this year’s amount but things could change. The payroll going into next season will be 57 million that does not include renewing contracts, arbitration, free agent signings, bonuses, options, and buyouts. Which means the Cubs will have at least 78 million to spend on those things in 2012.

- Mike Quade is confident he will be back and for the most part is happy how he managed. I am pretty sure he is the only one.

- The coaching staff is still very much up in the air.

- Randy Bush and Tom Ricketts may make the decision on what to do with Aramis Ramirez if a GM is not in place.

- Gordon Wittenmyer of the Sun-Times says that Ricketts maybe at least dwindling down the candidate list after talking to other baseball people.

- Wittenmyer also says Josh Byrnes is no longer a candidate for the position. Good move my Ricketts!

- In addition to that Gordon says A’s GM and numbers guru Billy Beane is no longer among the top candidates for the position. Which either means he is a fall back, tier two, or completely out of the running.

- Cubbiescrib.com has a good write up on this discussing Wittenmyers knowledge of the GM situation and applying it to the premise that a GM may already be in place. They state Ricketts fooled all of us by relieving Hendry and waiting weeks to tell everyone, he maybe putting on his poker face again.

- Cubbiecrib.com along with others like me believes the two top candidates for the position are Friedman and Epstein. Epstein can be contacted at any time while Friedman will be called on after his team exits playoffs at the earliest. Which is why no decisions have been made, but that is if you believe Ricketts does not have already someone basically in place.

- Going with the CubbieCrib premise if there is a person in place I can see it being a guy like Rick Hahn.

- There is also a conspiracy theory out there that states that Ricketts has checked with his remaining interested candidates to see if they would name Ryne Sandberg the Cubs new manager and that has been a deciding factor for him. This could explain why Beane went from a top tier to a lower tier guy recently.

- This also would coincide with the report that the Cubs and Ryne Sandberg with “reconcile” after the season concludes. Many have speculated that this means welcoming him back to the organization at any time or named manager or maybe to just make good with the Hall of Famer.

- There are many rumors that Ricketts is going to do his due diligence by asking to interview both Friedman and Epstein hoping they will accept but knowing they won’t. By each declining it looks like he “tried” to get the “top tier big splash GM” which in turn would make a guy like Rick Hahn or Ben Cherington look like a very nice consolation prize. When in all actuality he already has one of them secretly in place and has an informal agreement to make Ryne Sandberg the next manager as well.



Until Next Time…