Cubs’ record doesn’t reflect big picture

The Cubs’ start to 2012 has been about as ugly as expected, and yet many are surprised.

But while a healthy portion of the fan base is already aggravated and impatient, the belief around baseball is that the Cubs are going about it the right way.

“You’ve got two sharp executives in Theo (Epstein) and Jed (Hoyer) who know what they’re doing and they’ve built an organization before,” said Washington GM Mike Rizzo.

“It may take longer than it took us, or took them in Boston, because of the changes in the CBA and the lack of (draft) over-slotting.

“We knew there were changes coming in the CBA, so we took it to ownership and we decided to hit the draft hard and overpay for a few years and take advantage of that while we could.”

Rizzo built a playoff team in Arizona that swept the Cubs in 2007, and he’s putting together another great young team in D.C., but he’s got a big head start with years of spending liberally on the draft.

Epstein and Hoyer won’t have that advantage, but they do have Jason McLeod in charge of finding amateur players, and he has done a fine job drafting in the past.

“They’ll do it the old-fashioned way, pounding the draft and hitting the international market hard,” Rizzo said of the Cubs. “They’ll make incremental changes to the major-league roster with the ultimate goal of building from the ground up and having consistent success.

“They’ve done it before, and they’ll do it again.”

As for Epstein, he predicted several weeks ago that the natives would get restless, and that’s already occurring.

“I can go ahead and write your stories for you right now if you want,” Epstein told the writers about a month ago. “At some point you’re going to write, ‘Oh, the honeymoon is over. We’re not seeing enough progress.’

“I don’t know when that’s going to be. It might be two years from now … it might be two weeks from now.

“But because progress as an organization isn’t linear, (we believe) that’s coming and we just don’t let it bother us. It’s important to just focus on what we’re doing internally and understand that everything outside is really — no offense — just noise in the end, whether it comes from you guys (in the press) or even comes from some fans who are deservedly upset at a given point.

“It’s really just noise. And if we let it affect our decision-making, shame on us. As (Bill) Parcells said, ‘If you listen to the fans in the stands, pretty soon you’ll be sitting with them.’”

Just receptive

For three years, Lovie Smith has said the Bears’ receiving corps was “as good as any around,’’ and that too much focus was placed on the Bears’ wideouts.

But in the wake of the Brandon Marshall trade and the selection of Alshon Jeffery in the second round, we’re hearing an entirely different story from the head coach.

“I think we’ve been trying to bring in (receivers),” Smith said. “Each year you try to improve every position. It’s hard to do sometimes. This year, starting with the off-season, we were able to get Brandon and some other guys, too.

“We’ve constantly tried to improve our wide receiving corps, and I feel like we’ve done that.”

Ivan Boldirev-ing

The Blackhawks lost a good man in assistant GM Marc Bergevin, who took the daunting position of Montreal general manager Wednesday.

But the worst part about it is NBC analyst Pierre McGuire reportedly was the runner-up, and with McGuire finishing second it means you get a lot more of him on the NBC Sports Network.

Derrick Rose

After Game 2, one would think that would be the end of the stories, emails, tweets and texts about how the Bulls are actually better off without the reigning MVP.

The quote

The Hawks’ Bryan Bickell on his solid playoff series: “I picked it up at the end. I need to keep it simple, work hard and finish my checks the way I did in the playoffs. They want me to be physical. For me to step it up in the playoffs, it’s huge, but I need to bring it for the whole season.”

Best point

Miami Herald’s Greg Cote: “Nike’s LeBron James shoe designer Jason Petrie mocked Adidas client Derrick Rose after Rose’s playoffs-ending knee injury Saturday, tweeting, ‘you chose poorly.’ Of course the ESPN headline read, ‘LeBron’s Nike designer jeers Rose after injury,’ verifying the media’s continuing intention to put LeBron front and center even in controversy he has nothing to do with.”

And finally …

Omaha World-Herald’s Brad Dickson: “New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie just had his 10th child with eight different women. It’s safe to say that Tim Tebow will have trouble relating to one new teammate.”

brozner@dailyherald.com

ŸListen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score’s “Hit and Run” show at WSCR 670-AM, and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.