2012 MLB Free Agents: Cubs Smart to Back off Prince Fielder

Barring a sudden change in organizational philosophy, it sounds like Chicago Cubs fans won't be getting Prince Fielder for Christmas this year.

According to David Kaplan of CSNChicago.com, the Cubs are not planning on presenting Fielder with a "major offer." No doubt the Cubs have the finances to make a deal with the free agent first baseman, but Kaplan says they have other plans.

What kind of plans, you ask?

How about tearing this team apart and rebuilding it from the ground up. 

"After speaking with several baseball sources over the past few days I am hearing that a complete and total rebuild of the Cubs is more likely than ever to take place during the remainder of the offseason," writes Kaplan.

If you wanted to know how the Theo Epstein regime was going to do things differently than the Jim Hendry regime, there you go. Epstein does want to build a winner, but he doesn't want to do it by throwing money around.

And that's not really a surprise. Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer are looking at a roster that has some pretty awful contracts on it (Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano), and it doesn't help that it has few bright young stars the organization can build around.

To be sure, bringing in Fielder wouldn't necessarily be a bad move. He's an outstanding hitter, and he's still pretty young. If the Cubs wanted to, they could try their luck at signing Fielder and then building around him.

But this is precisely what the Cubs would have done under Jim Hendry, and that's not a good thing. The bad contracts the Cubs have to deal with are Hendry's fault, and there is a danger that Fielder would be yet another bad contract.

Especially when you consider Fielder's demands. Per ESPN's Buster Olney, Fielder and agent Scott Boras are looking for a 10-year deal. The Cubs apparently were interested, but they're clearly not willing to go out of their way to land Fielder. Some Cubs fans may not like it, but this is the smart thing to do given the circumstances.

Instead of landing one big fish, it looks like Epstein is going to gather as many little fishes as he can and then watch them grow.

This is not a bad idea. Let's not forget that he drafted and developed some pretty good players in his time with the Boston Red Sox, and some under-the-radar free agent signings paid off in a big way (see Ortiz, David).

If this is how Epstein is going to rebuild the Cubs, it goes without saying that patience is going to be a virtue. 

Hopefully, it will be worth it. Goodness knows Cubs fans have waited long enough for a championship.