Rozner: Right on cue, Cubs plan comes together
For the love of Todd Haney and all that's holy, the plan has taken shape nicely, regardless of how baffling it remains to a few.
The Chicago Cubs' plot to gut the team, rebuild the farm system and put in place a club that can make a run at the World Series every year for the next five or six seasons is troubling for those who can't fathom how this occurred right before their eyes - even while seven remains more than six.
And the Cubs should know that those troubled souls will be on the offensive this season.
With every defeat, Theo Epstein will be a failure.
With every injury, the Cubs will be a disaster.
And with every stumble, the Cubs will be the most overrated baseball team in the history of the game.
Get used to it.
There's a lot of unhappy folks right now because the plan has worked precisely how Epstein hoped it would.
He said it would take five years to rebuild the organization and field a competitive team, though it took only four to reach the NLCS.
The next step is winning the pennant and four more games beyond.
It could happen this year, but there's no guarantee. There never was. But just as Epstein imagined in Boston, the idea was to build something that would last and give the Cubs multiple shots at the big prize.
He didn't trade off valuable pieces for one shot at it. He didn't waste money for a single turn. He didn't make the mistakes Cubs executives had made for the last 30 years.
So some experts were mad when the Cubs didn't make a play for Albert Pujols or Price Fielder.
They were mad when the Cubs tanked and drafted Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber.
They were mad when the Cubs took a flyer on Scott Feldman, and then mad when they flipped Feldman for Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop.
They were mad when the Cubs traded Ryan Dempster for Kyle Hendricks.
They were mad when the Cubs traded Matt Garza for Justin Grimm, Neil Ramirez and Carl Edwards.
They were mad when the Cubs traded Andrew Cashner for Anthony Rizzo.
They were mad when the Cubs traded Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel for Addison Russell and Billy McKinney, insisting the Cubs didn't get enough.
They were mad when they didn't keep the likes of Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano.
And they were wrong.
So now they're uncomfortable, and if the Cubs don't win the World Series this year it will be called a colossal disaster, the likes of which, well, no one has ever seen before around these parts.
It's nonsense, of course. The plan wasn't about a single chance to win it all.
Maybe most amazing is that the Cubs have built this team without moving a single top-notch prospect, hanging on to Bryant, Schwarber, Russell, Jorge Soler and Javy Baez, even when so many called for trade-deadline deals that would have netted a two-month rental.
They still have McKinney, Albert Almora, Ian Happ, Gleyber Torres and Jeimer Candelario as chips to play when they go shopping for pitching help in June or July.
And it's been done with a transparency rarely seen in Chicago sports that should have made it easy to understand, explaining from the first news conference how they would go about doing it, that it would be painful, but that it would pay off in the end.
Nothing about it has been easy and there have been mistakes along the way. There will be more mistakes because Epstein does not walk on water and he is not without flaws.
But he has built a team that - on paper - is the best in the National League, and even if they don't win it all this year they will - barring extraordinary circumstances - have many chances over the next decade to win championships.
The tournament is unpredictable, but the more you get there, the more chances you have to win at least one.
For those still confused, that is the essence of the plan.
brozner@dailyherald.com
• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.