Be Honest Cubs Fans...

I am surprised at Trade Deadline day as a Cubs fan, but only because the front office did exactly what they needed to do. Under owner Tom Ricketts, the dollar has been the dominating factor in decision making. It's tough to watch the Dodgers make yet ANOTHER blockbuster trade as they continue to extend their window of success, but no other team is doing that.

Now, truth be told Theo Epstein didn't help the Cubs window when he failed to constantly produce talent in the farm as he promised in his opening press conference. After the big wave came to form the World Series core, it seemed to stop after that. There was never a major league starter produced under his tenure and the window likely slammed shut for good when they emptied their farm in the Jose Quintana trade. They over payed and over spent on pitching they couldn't develop and it sank the team.

The writing was on the wall for the success of the Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez core when Chicago sent Yu Darvish to San Diego after his Cy Young season while under contract. As a Cubs fan you are required to have almost bottomless amounts of hope, but I didn't think they'd be able to come to a contract agreement after trying for several seasons. Cubs Twitter is melting down over the sad day of this core being all shipped off, but let's be honest, this is exactly what they needed to do.

Let's not forget how Chicago built their World Series team, they committed to tear it all down and stop mediocre non-championship seasons. Matt Garza, Ryan Dempster and Jeff Samardzija were traded for a haul of prospects, including Kyle Hendricks, they traded for Jake Arrieta and drafted Baez, Bryant and Kyle Schwarber with high picks. Young pitcher Andrew Cashner was flipped for Rizzo and they supplemented it with the signings of Jon Lester, Dexter Fowler and Jason Heyward. Here we are again.

The fact of the matter is no team regularly sustains continuous windows of championship level, besides the Dodgers. The Boston Red Sox (traded Mookie Betts and David Price) had to tear it down, the Yankees have tried to spend big without the championship trophy. The Houston Astros (let George Spring walk and bought pitching) are a team you could look at, but have only won one and that's under very shady circumstances. The big market teams still operate under the command of the mighty dollar and tearing it down is the only real option to get back to a World Series.

The San Francisco Giants won three championships in five years but then bottomed out. That's the sustained success you would hope for from a great core, but it wasn't so much about buying to keep the window open as it really was the core breaking through repeatedly before the window closed. The Cubs had their chance, but couldn't get past the Dodgers and gradually fell a step shorter each season after finally breaking the Billy Goat curse. You hope the success would be more than one, but even the Dodgers and Astros have only won one.

You can't call the team a failure because they made it to two NLCS and won a World Series, and I don't think you can even say it's a disappointment. I have made that case in the past, but Chicago won a World Series just like the Dodgers and the Astros and ran it as long as you could. Yes, they could have signed extensions but the team has gotten worse each progressive season and it was time to do what was needed to do, rebuild.

Despite having some of the biggest trade pieces for the trade deadline, it was still speculated the Cubs could run it out until the end of the season. That would have been a disaster because the fastest way to rebuild is through trades and the future of the Cubs ought to be bright with the returns from all the trades they've made in the last 24 hours. And that's not to say Jed Hoyer and management don't break out the checkbook in the off season to possibly reunite with Baez or Bryant.

While it hurts to see the core all traded off withing 24 hours of each other, the truth is we knew this was coming. Bryant, Rizzo and Baez are some of my all time favorite Cubs players, but even in the weird COVID year the flame out in the playoffs was the sign that change needed to happen. Of course it also takes getting the right prospects back who actually become something, but if the Cubs are going to get back to the World Series this was the first step. Everyone that needed to be traded, those on expiring contracts and Craig Kimbrel in an unhittable year, was and should push the Cubs system way up while already getting their starting second basemen, Nick Madrigal, from the White Sox. Zach Davies was the only player that needed to be traded that wasn't, but management did what they needed to.

Cubs Twitter is complaining about Chicago being left with Hendricks, Wilson Contreras and Heyward's contract, but Hendricks and Contreras are still under team control while Heyward will likely be tough to trade until the off season, if ever. Now, the kids can play and be evaluated as management prepares to make the next moves to build back to contention. We'll see how the prospects are graded once the dust settles, but the farm system has restocked and Chicago will actually have money to spend unlike seasons past. Let's be honest Cubs fans, we knew we were here.