Theo arrives at Wrigley, Cubs still only won 71 games last year

Wrigley- I know exactly what Theo is thinking in this picture. How fast can I get rid of Soriano and how much will I need to overpay Pujols to get him to come here? At least that's what I thought when I saw it.

So Theo is now in Chicago and he met with Ricketts and his bosses today. Let me explain why this is the most overblown story in sports right now.

Theo Epstein sits an office and luxury box and observes the players on the field. He will not win 20 games. He will not hit 45 homers. He will not drive in 100 runs in 2012. Rather, he will use his Harvard education to watch baseball players and determine how much he should or shouldn't pay them to come play baseball in Chicago. Does this change the fact that the team led baseball in walks last year and only won 71 games? No. Soriano is still waiting on his $55MM that he has left. Zambrano is still owed $15MM for next year. Ramirez might not be coming back unless he wants to take a pay cut. In all likelihood, this team is going to be substantially worse next year. In an ideal world, Epstein could move Soriano, Zambrano, and Dempster, throw young arms into the rotation for a year and see who wants to join Garza in the rotation. Any discount on those wastes of roster spots would be a godsend to this underachieving team.

The good news for Theo is that any move he makes is going to come with the idea that it's all part of his master plan to build a winner. He will do no wrong in the eyes of the fans for the first few years of his tenure. That rhetoric gets old quickly and especially considering, unless major moves are made and there's some upheaval with this team, the team is going to be about the same if not worse than it was this year. I'll take a year of being worse if it means clearing house, and getting rid of the absurd amount of deadweight contracts on this team, and simultaneously building for the next decade.