I decided to listen to the Passan interview, to listen to Passan's claims, carefully but with an open mind. The first thing he said (after making silly statements about the importance of the Clark-the-mascot topic) was to say that he doesn't believe that Theo has been given the resources to work on things like "research and development" and "other sorts of budgets that involve baseball operations." That strikes me as flying in the face of everything I have read and heard. Either he knows something no one else seems to or else he's so far off base that everything else he says on this subject should be dismissed out of hand.
When asked if he believed that Theo had no idea when he was hired that the Cubs would be operating under the financial restrictions they currently have, what he said, in essence, was that they were aware that the nature of the purchase of team (the debt structure) provided limitations, but that "I think they expected more." This seems to me consistent with the explanations that Ricketts and Theo have themselves given - that the revenue changes they planned have taken longer to get off the ground than expected (due to the multiple layers of decisions, slowed down by rooftop owners, within city government).
He then said Cub fans should have been aware of this because Gordon Wittenmyer had been writing about it. In fact, he said that Wittenmyer is the guy who got him started on this issue. In my view, that's a far cry from bolstering the credibility of Passan's views - I find Wittenmyer to be a sensationalist whiner.
When asked if Theo could still "find light at the end of the tunnel" even if it takes a little longer? He said, "Look, the plan can always change, that's the danger of writing that two years down the road the Cubs are going to be a disaster." Then he mentioned the Rangers as an example, saying a couple of years ago they "thought they were done spending" but then Yu Darvish came along and changed things. So, basically, if and when the Cubs do what Ricketts and Theo have said they are going to do, Passan will just say, "Oh, they changed their plan."
It seems to me that there were two key things that Passan said. One is that Theo has been denied the resources he expected for baseball operations in general (including research and development) NOT JUST FREE AGENTS. The second is that Ricketts doesn't plan on spending money until the Cubs start winning (whatever that standard that involves). The first appears to be baloney, based on the ton of resources that have demonstrably been put into baseball operations. The second is something that only Passan claims to know to be true, as far as I can tell.
I admit that I was dubious about Passan's claims before listening to this interview, nothing he said caused me to take him seriously on this.
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