BIG PAYROLLS, NO GUARANTEES.

The Chicago Cubs are off to an interesting opening third of their season, two ten game winning streaks, and a losing streak at ten games and counting.  "Cubs Players Forced to Swallow Bitter Pill as Craig Counsell Makes Unwanted Record."

So it often is with the so-called large market teams, there's no salary cap in major league baseball which offers owners of such teams the opportunity to hire premium players at premium prices.  But they have to perform.

[F]or a few MLB insiders, the Cubs players are to blame and not Counsell.

“I’m not really sure it’s his fault…This has to do with some of the players not living up to the contracts that were signed,” 104.3 The Score’s Mike Mulligan said in a podcast.

The Cubs entered this week hoping to end their losing streak. However, after taking the beatings from the Astros, the Cubs started the week by losing to the Pirates. Their Monday loss against the Pirates is their ninth straight loss. “We’ve gotta play better, we gotta swing the bats better, we gotta pitch better, we need more guys contributing to good stuff,” Counsell said on Monday afternoon. “And as a coaching staff, we gotta figure out a way to get the players there. Offensively, we are equipped to be way more consistent than this and way better than this. We need to show it.”

Against the Astros, the Cubs’ pitching staff allowed 15 runs in three games. On Monday, the pitching improved, giving up just 2 runs, but the offense faltered.

So it sometimes goes in the regular season, the Brewers won all six regular season games with Los Angeles's Dodgers (if they were the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, are they the Roger Rabbit Dodgers in Los Angeles?) and you-know-who made short work of the Brewers en route to another World Series.

The Brewers are in the middle of a gantlet of strong teams that has included sweeps of the Yankees, Cubs, and Cardinals, and they're off to Houston next.  We are, however, only a third of the way into the season.