Ricketts: Wood Deal Could Have Been Done Sooner

Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts acknowledged on Saturday that the front office could have handled the Kerry Wood signing in a more timely fashion.

Wood said on Friday that he was 25 minutes away from going for a physical with another team, with which he had agreed to a deal in principle. That's when the Cubs closed in and finished off the contract.

"I'm not sure why the timing ended up the way it did," Ricketts said.

"We probably could have had that conversation a month ago. My gut would just say that (Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer) were focused on everything else that was going on. We probably could have done it a little sooner."

Ricketts got involved at the end of negotiations for the one-year, $3 million contract Wood signed late Friday afternoon, which also includes a team option for $3 million in 2013.

"Theo's pretty communicative," Ricketts said. "We talk about all the player decisions and Kerry's no exception to that. We definitely talked about it. And we talked about what was the best for the organization and (signing Wood) was it."

Via Bruce Levine/ESPN.com

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