Cubs President Jed Hoyer Talks All Things Trade Deadline: What Happened and Why

Cubs President Jed Hoyer was just on Marquee before tonight’s Cubs-Cardinals game, and I did my best to take notes here on the important things he touched on. These are paraphrased comments from Hoyer, and I imagine I’ll have more to say on the specifics in time:

  • We explored trades for Willson Contreras. Last year of his contract, and teams were interested. Last year we were willing to listen if someone gave us a piece that could really help our future, and this time we never crossed that threshold. (My read on what he was really saying? The offers sucked, especially compared to last year.)
  • Juan Soto probably held the market up a little bit, and we felt like there would be some dominoes. But ultimately don’t think that’s what primarily held it up – things have just trended later and later in general.
  • Yes, when considering a trade, you do think about what the value of a comp B pick would be, and how does draft pick compensation impact the free agent market, etc., it’s all part of the calculus.
  • Last year, there were really motivated buyers at the right times. This year makes me realize how fortunate we were last year from a prospect standpoint. The value in offers for Willson Contreras just never got to the level that would make us do it. So it’s not really a missed opportunity. Sometimes it depends on having the right motivated buyer.
  • Simply trading players to get prospects that you don’t believe in doesn’t really make your organization great. The whole point is to get prospects you’re really passionate about and believe in, and think can make your organization better.
  • Hoyer declined to talk about extension thoughts on Contreras. He never does talk about that stuff.
  • We did make some deals where we got some really talented arms. We feel good about those. We wanted to add power arms in these deals, so that’s what we targeted.
  • Last year maybe created an assumption that we would trade Contreras, but that’s not something we ever said to anyone that it was going to happen no matter what. I feel for him on the emotional toll of this past week.
  • Wonders if the new playoff structure limited the aggression on some of the buyers. It didn’t feel like last year on the position players.
  • Aggressive market on Scott Effross, by contrast. I think the world of Scott and what he’s gone through. Respect his journey. But we felt like the ability to add a really talented starting pitching prospect made a lot of sense.
  • The pitching market is tight right now, so you have to draft and develop well. You really need to have good internal options.
  • I want to sit down and talk to Willson and Ian because I know there was an emotional toll this week, and we really value them.
  • Credit to the pro scouting department for being really good at identifying pitchers we wanted to go out and get (this was about the success of the bullpen in years past). Player development staff gets a lot of credit, too.
  • General point: It’s valuable to have guys around who’ve experienced what winning looks like, day in day out. The grind that it takes. The focus and prep that it takes. It’s a big deal to have those guys around.
  • Zach McKinstry was a guy the Cubs had talked to the Dodgers about before, but the timing/value never lined up until now. We think he can be versatile and be really good with the kind of opportunity he could get with the Cubs that he couldn’t get with the Dodgers.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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