Picking up on a theory that hasn’t been used in Major League Baseball since the World War II years, the Cubs have chosen to employ the “Nero fiddles” strategy of rebuilding the ball club.
Compared to teams like the Tigers, Cardinals and Yankees, who have made several trades and free agent signings, the premise of the Cubs’ approach is to do absolutely nothing the entire off-season hoping that the ball club doesn’t collapse into a fiery ruin before the start of the 2014 season.
Scolding a local reporter for asking about the practice, a clearly miffed GM Jed Hoyer barked, “Simply not true. We’ve already signed catcher George Kottaras, reliever Wesley Wright and added a new first base coach, Eric something or other.”
