Peter Gammons joined the Mully and Hanley Show on 670 The Score in Chicago this morning to talk about the Cubs’ new manager, Rick Renteria. Here are some excerpts from the interview.
On what Renteria brings to Wrigley Field:
Peter Gammons: Well I think, a couple things, I think the fact that he is bilingual and is a development guy is very important. I don’t really care about the past, I care about where they’re going in the future. And if that team is going to be really good in a couple years from now, they’ve got some young arms now starting to develop pitching. The most important thing is gonna be getting the four or five of their best prospects, Kris Bryant fine, but [Albert] Almora, [Jorge] Soler, [Javier] Baez is really important to getting to develop those guys and make them stick.
Power has become pitching because there’s no power around. The Cubs have four legitimate power hitters that have potential. They have more than any other team in baseball. How those guys develop, plus getting Castros’ attention back, is really important.
I’ve thought Brad Ausmus because of his longterm relationship with Theo Epstein and with Jed Hoyer would’ve been their first pick, it wasn’t because, they had to find someone who was really good in development, particularly Latin players. So once the decision was made and it wasn’t going to be Brad Ausmus, I think it was going to be Renteria all along.
Managing isn’t something that’s done all by itself, managing is five coaches, the minor league development, and I think we’ve seen it evolve. I think we saw it really well carried out in Boston. There’s about 30 people that get involved in what a manager really does and he can’t be isolated. So it will be very interesting to see how it works. I have great confidence in Jed and Theo. My guess is that this guy [Renteria] has the best chance to succeed of anybody that was out there. They made the choice of him versus Sandy Alomar and a couple of others. They know him really well and Jed of course had him out in San Diego.
“The assumption that our team won’t be able to play at a high level, I don’t make that assumption,” Renteria said in a conference call to announce his hiring Thursday afternoon. “I assume that every team that is put on the field … has a chance to win a ballgame every single day.”
Would Lovullo have been the first option despite the Red Sox, Theo Epstein relationship:
Peter Gammons: No, he [Renteria] would’ve gotten it over Lovullo. What’s unfortunate about the whole Lovullo thing is early on, while the Red Sox were in the playoffs and when they were starting this search, Jed and Theo let the Red Sox know that they would like to talk to Torey. Right away they had that three year separation clause which was negotiated … that is that the Cubs can’t take anyone from the Red Sox organization for three years. Now Torey Lovullo was in Toronto at the time that agreement was made, he was a coach for John Farrell. But that’s the letter of the law. It was so deep in the process by the time the World Series was over, it would’ve had to been cleared, really almost, last Friday or Saturday. By then, I think that if Theo and Jed had gone to Ben Cherington and said ‘look this is the guy we really want’, then I think he might have been able to convince John Henry, the Red Sox owner, that yeah they can talk to him. At that point, they couldn’t call up and say, ‘oh by the way, this is the guy we really want’. They didn’t know that. It really got to a point that it was impossible. I think in the end, I know in the end they would’ve picked Renteria. But it was just unfortunate. The hard feeling between Red Sox ownership and Theo Epstein, it’s gotta go at some point.
I don’t know everything that went down as Theo was leaving but at the same time, let’s get over it. I mean, let’s move on. They’ve just won the World Series, enjoy that. And also, I think what Boston ownership sometimes ignores is look at the structure that Theo set up in Boston, I mean all the levels of that organization. Let’s see, Josh Byrnes was in that organization under him, he’s general manager of San Diego, was in Arizona. Jed Hoyer. Ben Cherington.
His ability to find really competent people, the guy that is now the assistant manager in Boston, Mike Hazen, I think will be the next huge name on the general manager search list. He was brought in by Theo. So I mean they should be very happy that this what was set up. They have Buchholz and Lester and Ellsbury and Pedroia that were all drafted under Theo Epstein that helped them win the World Series. I don’t get why this thing has to continue.
But when the Cubs come to town next year, come to Fenway Park, in the tenth anniversary year, there’s going to have to be recognition of Theo Epstein and Terry Francona and Jed Hoyer, who was a major part of it as well, and Jason McLeod, who was huge part of it as well. I don’t think it impacts the Cubs managerial position as much as it impacts peoples’ lives. Oh please, get over it, move forward.
Theo said to me that he was watching the celebration after the Red Sox won last week, and he would say he probably didn’t know how he would feel because of the hard feelings with ownership but he just sat there and he smiled. He ate it up, he loved it. It’s just really unfortunate and again, I don’t know all that was said and all that went on, we know that there was some contentiousness as far as compensation. Although there’s never been meaningful compensation for a general manager.
What to look forward to this season for the Cubs:
Peter Gammons: Well one, the position players they have. At shortstop, Avayes, stays at short or goes to third and the three bats. Bryant has been the absolute talk of the Arizona Fall League. [C.J.] Edwards was the best prospect in the Texas organization and they got him for Matt Garza. They’ve got pitching coming and I don’t see any other team with that many potential power bats and they’re all reasonable athletes and it’s not like everybody’s the next Matt Adams. I think that’s a reason and yes, there’s been a lot of disappointments and yes the team, because they have to pay for the rebuilding of the ballpark, there are some financial restraints. We’re not talking a payroll the size of Detroit or Boston or San Francisco.
Rebuilding, and I’ve talked to Neal Huntington a lot l about this because Neal took a lot of heat in Pittsburgh. All of a sudden the Pirates not only were in the playoffs but had one of the best organizations in baseball. It’s a minimum of six years in most cases and today it takes longer because they’ve basically taken the draft out of the equation. You can’t go out and invest in 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th round picks who might have been 1st or 2nd round picks. You can’t go out and spend internationally the way you could. It’s much more difficult to develop today than it was ten years ago. It’s much more difficult than it was as Theo and Jason and Ted and Ben were developing the Red Sox.
On the Cubs offseason:
Peter Gammons: Are they going to spend $140 million on Jacoby Ellsbury? No. He’s the number two guy out there. People talk about Shin-Soo Choo, guy had a .250 slugging percentage against lefties. He has to be dropped out of the lineup in 16% to 20% of team’s games. He’s not a $20 million dollar player. And certainly Robinson Cano, they’d likely be paying Robinson Cano $25-$30 million a year. They may be able to pack for some free agents, I just don’t see in this climb where every team is now getting $52 million from television where they used to get $25. I think in this climb, the whole free agency thing is something of a canard.
Unless you get to a certain point and Seattle might go out and do it and we’ll see where they are. I asked Jacoby Ellsbury, ‘I think it’s great, I’m sure you’re going to get 140 million from the Mariners but have you now forfeited the right to go for one more World Series ring?’ The 2009 Yankees were the last where free agents actually bought a championship.
Listen to the entire podcast here: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/show/the-mully-and-hanley-show/ or download it for free on iTunes.