Ricketts found a new way to mess up Cubs GM search

Hello, and sorry to bother you on this holiday weekend. I don’t usually show up here today, and certainly not during a long weekend, but Cubs Fanboy Owner Tom Ricketts just did something so dumb that I couldn’t control myself.

Here’s the deal: The Fanboy Owner just gave a four-year contract extension to Oneri Fleita, the Cubs’ player personnel director who oversees all minor-league operations and heads up international scouting.

Why is that stupid? Because that’s one of the prime positions that general managers want to fill. That’s not a position that a Fanboy Owner should be filling, and certainly not a Fanboy Owner who doesn’t seem to understand much beyond bison dogs and urinals.

So, now the situation in the Fanboy Owner’s search for Jim Hendry’s replacement is this: The new guy will have to take Fleita if he’s going to take the job.

Which means the situation is really this: The Fanboy Owner can forget about the top-shelf candidates he blathered on about hiring. Or maybe he already has. Maybe he was wrong or lying about that. Maybe he found out that what he’s offering is a joke as long as Clown Kenney remains his team president and no one else can get that title.

To recap, the Fanboy Owner wanted a sitting GM in a winning environment who meshes the eyeball test of players with the mind-numbing math stuff.

So, ask yourself this: If you come from a winning organization, why would you take a job in a  losing organization where an inexperienced Fanboy Owner is sticking you with someone who had a hand in this losing environment?

Nothing against Fleita, you understand. He might be good at his job. Point is, he should have that job unless the new guy wants him to have it. This is simply a stupid thing for a Fanboy Owner to do. It’s the new GM’s job to know who does what well and who would fit.

But the Fanboy Owner won’t give the new GM that chance, so it’s a long shot that the new GM will be a sitting GM that you’d actually want to steal from a quality organization, which means the Fanboy Owner is shopping in the juniors department, and from the looks of things, if you wanted to bet that the Fanboy Owner was the wrong guy to be making this decision, you just hit the jackpot.

Now, back to your holiday weekend.