The Chicago Cubs are finalizing plans on their new training facility in the Dominican Republic per Carrie Muskat at Cubs.com. This new facility that I have talked about before will house 100 players and will be a much better facility than the current one. Per Cubs.com the facility will break ground in 2012.
This new facility goes into Tom Ricketts thinking of building the team through the minor league system. The Cubs have invested a lot of money in the development of Latin players over the last few years, but since Tom Ricketts acquired the team the Cubs have really upped the stakes in obtaining international talent.
The Cubs invested 7 million dollars in international players this year and it looks like they will continue to invest. The Cubs slashed payroll from the major league team and transferred that money to the MLB draft as well as the above signings. The Cubs acquired several acres of land in the Dominican Republic for the upcoming facility and even signed VP of scouting Oneri Fleita to a four year deal to continue the continuity of the minor league development of these players.
I fully expect an announcement to be made on Tim Wilken soon since he is the other part of the scouting development and just presided over one of the best overall drafts in Cubs history. I believe Tom Ricketts values Tim Wilken and Oneri Fleita equally so this would not surprise me at all.
It is good to see that the Cubs are building a new facility in the Dominican, the current facility did not get a good review in a Sports Illustrated article last year. The new facility is said to have plans for state of the art amenities for the players, but also not forgetting that this is a development facility and the teaching of the fundamentals of baseball is its main objective.