This was really an exciting year for Chicago Cub baseball fans, and with recent trades and free-agent signings this off-season, the future looks very bright. Imagine if we could upgrade our Naperville city council, the same way the Cubs have upgraded this winter, by trading city council members elsewhere to other towns, while releasing others and signing free-agent council members to take their place.
The most important roles we’d need to fill is having a general manager (GM), like Epstein of the Cubs, who is committed to building the council with the most talented members available, and hiring a manager (city manager) who is considered one of the best, if not the best in the business.
With those positions in place, we could evaluate current council member talent to see who is tradeable. Why do we need three attorneys on the council, when one would do. It’s like having three second-baseman. In fact, many would say, three lawyers is three too many. So let’s keep one (Coyne) and put two on the trading table (Gallaher and Obarski). Coyne is solid and we need someone who is reliable if not flashy.
We don’t need two retail store owners (Chirico and Anderson); one is enough. The team needs a proven leader who can motivate, hence Chirico stays and Anderson becomes trade bait.
Do we really need a teacher when we can have someone who brings so much more to the game. A single’s hitter with no speed on the base path, and doesn’t come through in the clutch is definitely expendable. That gives the GM four available for upgrading.
We’d want to explore the trade market first, but Aurora, Bolingbrook, and Joliet wouldn’t give us the talent we need, so we’d have to look to comparable talented teams (cities) for trade possibilities. This would include Barrington, Geneva, Hinsdale and Lake Forest. They’re loaded with desirable talent, but there’s no way any of them will take an even trade for what we have. We could toss in Patty Gustin and do a two-for-one trade, but with Gustin being error prone and not open to improving, a trade still wouldn’t work.
That means the GM would have to unconditionally release Anderson, Brodhead, Gallaher, Gustin, and Obarski and go to the free-agent market and bring in some winners to round out the team of Chirico, Coyne, Hinterlong (plumber), and Krummen (engineer, not train).
Free agents could include:
- Joe the Hotdog guy, he knows a thing or two about red tape and bureaucracy.
- A downtown bartender; who better knows what’s really going on in town.
- Scott Huber, our formerly homeless resident (now our resident street dweller); if anyone understands perseverance, it’s Mr. Scott Huber.
- How about a former council member who’s name rhymes with “First to go”. He’s been a free agent for quite some time and definitely available. Who can remember his so many forgettable moments.
- What about a package deal and get a taxi driver and a Uber driver. Talk about adding some excitement.
As good as any of the above would be, the gold standard of free agent acquisitions for the Naperville city council would include the following five:
- A finance person who can say and understand big numbers
- A minister who knows a lie when he hears it
- A farmer who knows BS when he sees it
- A philosopher who can tie it all together and make sense of it
- And a psychiatrist who can figure out what’s wrong with the other eight council members.