Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts has been gathering information about Rays executive vice president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti, according to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. The Cubs, who are on the hunt for a new general manager, also appear to have interest in Rick Hahn of the White Sox and Josh Byrnes of the Padres.
The Cubs are drawn to Colletti, a Chicago native and former Cubs employee, since they believe he could bring Hall of Fame second baseman turned minor league manager Ryne Sandberg back as the team’s Major League skipper. Sandberg has said he’d return to the Cubs now that former GM Jim Hendry has been fired, according to Wittenmyer.
Ricketts has also discussed the possibility of trying to lure Yankees GM Brian Cashman to Chicago along with New York manager Joe Girardi. Cashman’s contract expires after the season, but Girardi, a Peoria, Illinois native, is under contract with the Yankees through 2013.
Wittenmyer hears from associates of Friedman that the Rays executive isn’t likely to leave Tampa Bay for Chicago.
The best news I have heard yet. They want Sandberg as the coach. I do believe the Rickett family is starting to move in the right direction.
Don’t get your hopes up it is the Ricketts were talking about
But it is also the Ricketts that fired Hendry, so I do think that shows some commitment to making the team better. Not to mention all the stadium renovations, the increase in money to sign draft picks and international players, and his most recent tour of all the Cubs minor league facilities and demanding upgrades. I think it took the Ricketts a little time to evaluate what they had, and being the good businessmen that they are, are starting to take action and fix this troubled franchise.
Stadium renovations that won’t happen because he is asking the city to pay to fix his ball park.
Guess where the financing for The Cell came from.
But its also ricketts who didn’t hire/ allowed hendry to not hire sandberg so there might be bad blood there. Remember ricketts is the biggest fanboy this city has seen. He even sat in the bleechers once.
PLEASE GO TO THE CUBS FRIEDMAN
the yanks will always give the redsox fits more than the rays anyway
so you ought to be saying go ahead cashman or friedman go to the cubs please
The Yankees would give us fits with or without Cashman, in all likelihood. Friedman heading to the other league would be much more advantageous for us than Cashman.
Yep. They would/did with georgie pretty much acting as his own GM and making any move HE wanted for years, much like Hankie is doing now.
They could hire Hendry or Minaya and be super competitive.
In fairness, an incompetent GM WOULD be problematic for the Yankees. Hendry and Minaya both had huge payrolls and both had a tendency to just throw tons of money at the wrong players. Without a lot of luck, Hank DOES at least need someone to say “No, sir, signing Chris Carpenter to an eight year deal next offseason may be ill advised due to his age.” Sure, he’s going to get overridden by a Steinbrenner from time to time, but I sincerely doubt Hank would fail to run that team into the ground unassisted.
Was there some beef with Hendry and Sandberg?
There is a huge beef between sandberg and hendry. Go back into the cubs archives and read the sun times article about sandberg and you will see. That article brought me to a whole new level of hate for hendry. Sandberg interviewed for the cubs managers job when the cubs hired pinella hendry said that they wanted to hire someone with more experience for the job but said that if he wanted to he could get that experience in the minors as manager so sandberg spent 4-5 years as the manager in the minors and when pinella retired it was basically that hendry promised the manager job to sandberg ,then he interviewed sandberg after the retirement and a bunch of other people then hired quade and told sandberg that he wasnt even 3rd or 4th on the list of people that he would hire as manager. AND SANDBERG wasnt even offered the managers job in AAA Iowa either so he left the orginization and privately vowed to never return to the cubs until hendry was completely gone. So yeah there was some bad blood there.
100% agree. The Cubs groomed Sandberg for the managerial job. With no managing experience, Sandberg went to A, AA, and AAA ball and won at each level. Though my understanding was that the offer for coaching at DSM was on the table and Sandberg turned it down, and I don’t blame him for doing so. I figured Sandberg felt shafted by Hendry’s decision to hire AAAA manager Quade, but I wasn’t sure if there was any other issues between them. It’s funny that a lot of people were speculating that Sandberg would be a candidate for the 2012 managerial position before Hendry got fired, but I guess with him gone now that could actually happen, and I hope it does.
But why would ryne leave Philly it s a better situation for him there he is likely to take over for Charlie either next season or 2013. And already have a world series team waiting for him.
Manuel got an extension. Short of him retiring early or something happening to him, Sandberg would be waiting until at least the 2014 season.
There’s little doubt that the Phillies would have a better team for him if and when he did get the job, but the reason Sandberg left is to get to the show fast which the Cubs could offer him. Plus it’s the Cubs. For some people that might be a detractor, but not for Sandberg.
that phillys team will be completely different in 2014 than it is now.
sandberg would return to the cubs because he loves the cubs as much as ron santo did and even said that he would return now that hendry is fired
Not really in 2014 they would still have Howard pence lee utley. Probably shane and hammels still and I doubt they let halladay walk after next year. Still a good team.
And they will all be older by 3 years and will probably be without rollins for starters and as far as hammels lee and halladay goes pitchers dont stay the same especially lee and halladay when they age 3 more years. To a lesser degree of skill look at how zambrano has declined as 1 example he used to be 1 of the top pitchers in the NL and now look at him.
Carlos Zambrano couldn’t hold Hamels jock let alone SNIFF Cliff or Doc’s. Awful, terrible, embarrassing comparison.
I SAID TO A LESSER DEGREE.
How quickly fans forget about the glory years of Z.
If Z had that phillys defense behind him in his prime then you would be saying that comment completely different and that phillys offense would have made him more than a 20 game winner more than once.
Zambrano isn’t declining with age. He is a lunatic and can’t stay composed.
If you are offered a manager job in the majors you take it. There are only 30 jobs and opportunity is very rare.
what coaching job was offered and turned down by sandberg and what is DSM
Why would the Cubs need Colletti to bring Sandberg in? That sounds
ridiculous. “Hey Ryno, would you like to manage the Cubs?” “Nah…you
guys didn’t hire Colletti”.
It’s completely backwards, you don’t select a GM based on who he’d put at manager. The emphasis is misplaced. The GM is far more important. If this were true, it would indicate a new level of incompetence.
The other huge problem with this scenario is that Colletti stinks.
I agree completely, that didn’t make sense to me. And even IF it were true, while I would like to see Sandberg as our manager I would have no interest in him if it meant we had to take Ned Colletti as the GM. Hell, I’m not even sure he’s an upgrade from Hendry.
If that is the case, higher Colletti, hire Sandberg, fire Colletti, higher better GM.
Please take Colletti off our hands. Let him trade away someone else’s farm system for washed up veterans for a change.
The cubs have a farm system?
hahaha, love it.
Yes a pretty decent 1 especially after this years 1st year player draft.
Doesn’t every team’s farm system look better after a draft?
not like the cubs getting Maple and the #9 overall signed as well as the other studs/duds signed like gretzky jr.
Actually, they do. You may want to research it. Or maybe you have them mixed up with the White Sox horrific farm system?
Not as bad as the Brewers.
What can you say about Ned Coletti’s time with the Dodgers that hasn’t already been said about Afghanistan.
That’s totally offensive! Afghanistan is no where near as F-Up as DodgerLand.
On a serious note , why would anyone in their right mind want Coletti.His decision making skills are on par with Paris Hilton or dumb people who get into cars driven by their clearly intoxicated buddies.
Does anyone thing Ricketts is in his right mind
Colletti? COLLETTI???? F*!K
Friedman will either remain with the rays or goto houston right? He loves the rays owners but they will never increase payroll.he grew up an astros fan, and there is potential to increase payroll significantly in the future.I know crane wants payroll low now.but that its so he and his staff can target free agents they want and start new.with lee and lyon of f the books after next year and wandy maybe getting traded in off season.friedman would be able to add free agents he wants with less restrictions then currently.plus houston will probably pay top dollar to get him.
I maybe wrong but it seems either rays or houston for friedman
Crane has said he wants Astros payroll down to around 50 mil next year. Friedman would be wise to take the Cubs if they offer. If he rebuilds that he is a hero to a huge fan base and they do have money to spend. If he stays in Tamp to long they will keep getting worse and his rep will decline with them.
I said in the near future they can raise payroll. There is a “rumor” Crane wants payroll 50-60 million next year, true. Houston has had a payroll over 90 million often though and have drawn fans well till the last couple of years with a horrible team and loss of players to grow with. Like I mentioned Crane wants to strip the club of all it’s current high priced players and build “HIS” team. You have to believe after Lee is off the books next year, and some of the young players grow and the farm system builds even more after the # 1 pick next year that the payroll can and will increase. You have to remember starting 2013 the new TV deal kicks in too. SO maybe 50 million next year and 90 million the year that deal kicks in to attract fans to it.
There is a good chance that you will be right with that prediction.
ooff, going from Hendry to Coletti? Cubs fans just can’t win…
If Colletti is hired at least we won’t get our hopes up. And we wouldn’t have to worry about a culture change scaring everyone. It’d be business as usual.
Sigh.
Ricketts is going to shock us all and hire one of the big boys. Friedman, Cashman or maybe even Theo. The Cubs would have to give up something to Boston to get him out of the last year of his deal. They would also have to give him 3 boatloads of money, and show Crane Kenny the door. Am I dreaming again?
Please take girardi… and then if you want cash that’s fine as long as we get friedman
First I believe Cashman and Epstien won’t leave their
positions in New York or Boston (even though I would like to see them in
Chicago). Those are too prestigious to
leave. I realize Cashman’s contract is
up but he’ll only use the Cubs to drive up his price in New York.
Coletti has a history of not developing players so I can’t
see him in that position. It is rumored
Andrew Friedman won’t leave Tampa (another one I wouldn’t mind seeing take the
position).
I believe this leave the following candidates:
Ben Cherington (from winning tradition)
Damon Oppenheimer (from winning tradition, but as Scouting
Director what type of experience does he have at developing players).
Rick Hahn (he had a hand in scouting and developing players,
and he is a Cub fan. Are the White Sox
considered a winning tradition?)
Brad Pitt would be a great GM for the Cubs. It would be nice to see what he could do with a larger payroll.
Sorry, I meant Billy Beane.
why would friedman NOT leave for the Cubs position?? I can only think of 2 reasons, he loves the people he works with and loves being the lowest spending team in a division where literally every team is moving upward AND capable of outspending them EVERY year.
Reasons to join the Cubs: We have a $125M payroll, and that’s after having it CUT, we’ll be outspending the Rays EVERY year in every manner from payroll to the draft and amateur signings, huge crowds everyday, unlimited resources given his cred, his pick of managers, assistants, bench coaches, ANYTHING. Cards are aging + Pujols will prob sign a huge contract that’ll soak up a good % of their payroll, Brewers are prob losing Fielder, the Astros are the Astros, leaving just the Reds & Pirates as teams that are improving instead of worsening.
Long post, but let’s hope Friedman’s fire to build a powerhouse like Boston and NY are greater than his relationship with Tampa… which would seem odd coming from a stats guy.
i saw this headline earlier in the day and came back hoping colletti was a typo. colletti is in im out, pony up and go get andrew. could ricketts have gone on that boston trip with his sights on ben?
why did Buster Olney mention Theo Epstein that Tom Ricketts was thinking about for the Cubs GM?