The Cubs are not far enough along in their rebuilding process to make a major splash in free agency this winter. Chicago has won 13 of their last 18 games, but they are still just 37-53 on the season. "Sometimes that works out for you," president Theo Epstein said, "and more often than not it doesn't. There's a price to pay for that kind of thing. So if you get tempted and you get impatient and you try to solve your problems through free agency, there's always a price to pay, and it usually happens pretty soon thereafter or towards the end of those deals. "Free agency's definitely a nice way to add talent to an organization without giving up talent. But you cannot make an organization that way. And we have a lot of steps ahead of us that we need to take care of before we're in a position to add a finishing piece or two through free agency." Epstein isn't planning to be aggressive in free agency until the Cubs have laid more groundwork. "We'll always look to free agency," Epstein said. "We'll always be on every free agent and see if there's the right player or the right value. But if we sat around and drew up a plan and had free agency as the answer to most of our problems, we'd be on a fool's errand there. "We need to build the foundation. We need to have scouting we believe in, player development we believe in, a steady flow of prospects, a core of young players. And then you can look to free agency. If the right deal is there ahead of schedule, great, but we're not going to count on it. Let's put it that way."