Cubs rebuilding not made easier by new CBA

Jason McLeod didn't try to pretend it was a happy day for the Cubs when he caught wind of the new MLB collective-bargaining agreement.

“It hurt. No doubt about it,” said McLeod, the Cubs' director of scouting and player development. “It's like they canceled our credit card right before we were going to the mall. Not a good feeling.”

And then McLeod chuckled and shook his head, resigned to the new draft rules that penalize teams that overspend.

“Either way, ultimately it comes down to scouting,” McLeod said. “You still have to do the best job finding and evaluating players. You scout the best and you'll do the best.”

There had been rumors last summer of amateur spending caps in the new CBA, but the radical nature of the alterations caught some by surprise.

And it occurred just weeks after Tom Ricketts put his dream team in place, starting with Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and McLeod.

The plan was to rebuild from the bottom up, and it still is, but now overspending to get international free agents and draft picks considered unsignable is not much of an option, considering the heavy penalties involved.

Epstein essentially invented the concept of collecting extra picks near the top of the draft through free-agent compensation, combined with overpaying some of the better draft picks other teams passed on, allowing the Red Sox to restock their farm system more quickly.

For example, one of Epstein's favorite moves was picking up a player just months away from free agency, and in turn getting a high draft pick when that player walked after the season.

Sometimes, Epstein would have to pay that player only a fraction of his salary and for only a month or two, and snare a high compensation pick in exchange, but now the rules state the player must be with that team for an entire season in order to collect an extra pick.

“It's something we pioneered in Boston,” McLeod said. “It helped us win a World Series.”

At the same time, the Red Sox were out in free agency spending money as well.

“They were getting after it from all directions and they passed us up in the process,” Yanks GM Brian Cashman said last year. “I had to go to ownership and tell them we had to do the same thing, and that's what we did.”

To Ricketts' credit, the Cubs over-slotted throughout the draft and international signings in 2011 to the tune of $20 million as they began to rebuild the farm system.

Former GM Jim Hendry stayed on even after he knew he'd been fired just to complete the process and get those players signed.

“Everyone saw what the Cubs did last year, and it opened a lot of eyes,” McLeod said. “They acquired several players that teams wouldn't go near because of their signability.”

But a month after Ricketts put Epstein in place, and Epstein got his Boston band back together — collecting Hoyer and McLeod from San Diego — the new CBA derailed many of their plans.

“In some ways, the game has really come full circle,” McLeod said. “You can't just overpay anymore.”

One of the reasons for the current flurry of international signings is the $2.9 million cap that goes into effect July 2 for the following 12 months, and then teams will be able to spend from $2 million to $5 million in reverse order of record, with the worst teams allowed to spend the most.

With that cap on its way, the Cubs probably would have been very interested in Yoenis Cespedes if he hadn't insisted on free agency after four years.

The $36 million certainly didn't scare them, but the Cubs don't know when they'll be able to compete, and they're not in the market for players who might not be around four years from now, or who cost a lot of money the next few seasons.

But in the future, the tax for busting the cap on international players is considerable, and for overspending on the draft it's even more severe, first in dollars and then in forfeited draft picks.

“How many players coming out of high school will now go to college because of this is unknown, and it may not be as bad as everyone originally thought,” McLeod said. “What you lose is the opportunity to get a guy in the fifth round with first-round ability and then pay him first-round money.

“The more you could do that, the more quality players you get into your system and the faster you can rebuild. That's now a thing of the past.

“There might still be a player worth doing it for, but you better be sure because you're going to pay a huge price in tax and in lost draft picks the next June. You better not make a mistake with that player if you have to give up first- and second-round picks the next year.”

McLeod, however, still believes the Cubs can succeed.

“Like I said, you just have to scout better and evaluate better,” McLeod said. “We have a certain way of gathering information that we really believe in, and that's not going to change, not the method or the kinds of information that we gather.

“At the end of the day, it's probably not that much different than what most teams do, and no matter what you still have to get scouts to the park and identify the right players.

“If you don't do that, it doesn't matter how you do it or how much you spend.”

brozner@dailyherald.com

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