Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer has spoken a number of times recently, thus we dissect and discuss. It’s what we do. You can find his full comments with additional context at The Athletic (Patrick Mooney) and at ESPN (Jesse Rogers). I think you’ll find much of this enlightening, if not also a mix of a little frustrating and a little hopeful.
The Trade Deadline
Hoyer was asked (again) about not trading Willson Contreras and Ian Happ at the trade deadline, delivering the same generalized response about not forcing a deal.
“Each offseason and trade deadline, you try to make the right decisions in the moment,” Hoyer said this week. “I think we’ve done a good job of doing that, but you can’t force your way in one direction or another. If a trade doesn’t line up, you can’t force it. You have to realize there may be another option the Cubs can benefit from.”
There’s nothing particularly wrong with this statement, but I do find it a little hard to believe that Ian Happ wasn’t able to fetch a worthy return or that the Cubs couldn’t have benefited by cutting ties with Willson Contreras when everyone already expected it — not to mention what holding onto him is going to do to his free agent market this offseason (the qualifying offer, if extended and rejected, is going to crush Contreras’ free agent efforts, which I’m not fond of).
(Brett: All correct, though I’ll surmise what Hoyer’s response would be for the moment, which is that the Cubs instead now get another year of Ian Happ, and get the opportunity to make that qualifying offer to Willson Contreras. Those are non-zero value propositions, even if there are still reasons for frustration.)
Worse, this was all extremely predictable on Contreras (Me from November 29, 2021):
Surprise.
This has also gone mostly unsaid, but I think the reason this deadline was so frustrating was because we had all the build up and emotional toll of trading away two more All-Stars with none of the payoff (in terms of shiny new prospects). It was like the worst of both worlds.
For what it’s worth, Hoyer didn’t have fun, himself, and hopes to change sides ASAP: “I don’t enjoy the process of selling. I want to flip that to the buy side as soon as possible.”
Hold that thought on the timing for a second. I want to transition to the returns.
Adding All the Pitching
At the deadline, the Cubs traded four relief pitchers (David Robertson, Mychal Givens, Chris Martin, and Scott Efross). In return, they added three pitching prospects (Hayden Wesneski, Ben Brown, Saul Gonzalez) and a big league utility player (Zach McKinstry).
And that was after drafting 16(!) pitching prospects in the 20 rounds of the draft, including two first-round talents, plus their one undrafted free agent signing is also a pitcher. Point there being, the Cubs have, in the last month, added nearly 20 pitching prospects to their system. That is a LOT and it was all by design.
“The goal has been to add as much pitching as we possibly can,” Hoyer said. “I look back on when we built up the first time, we had position players lined up, but we never got to the point of having pitchers lined up at every level.”
Now, in general, I’m all about adding pitching. Pitching prospects are notoriously difficult and fickle beings. Sometimes, guys break out out of nowhere, other times the very best prospects flame out before even reaching the majors. There’s a reason for the existence of the saying “There’s no such thing as a pitching prospect,” and I do trust the combination of Craig Breslow, Dan Kantrovitz, and Carter Hawkins to find the right guys. Or at least different types of guys than the Cubs were targeting for the previous decade. Adding as many as possible is certainly an understandable approach, especially given how many quality positional prospects the Cubs already have.
I will say, however, that any time you see an all-out approach like this, it can make you a little nervous. Like, maybe the Cubs are trying to overcorrect a bit? But I think that’s probably not something we can accurately judge right now. In a few years, we’re going to have to seriously dissect the decisions made in July 2022, because the Cubs certainly chose a path.
Spending This Offseason
And now onto the juiciest comments: Free agency.
Over the past few weeks, the Cubs have been dropping hints either directly – via Tom Ricketts, and now Jed Hoyer – or indirectly through rumors from national reporters like Ken Rosenthal and Jon Heyman.
And Hoyer continued that trend this week:
“I expect to be aggressive this winter,” Jed Hoyer said via The Athletic. “There’s no question. I think we’ll have some money to spend. Certainly, we want to invest that money wisely. The goal is to build something special. Trying to do that too quickly or trying to do it all at once can be a mistake. But certainly there’s going to be good players in the market, and I’m sure we’re going to be involved in those discussions ….
“When we build this and get to the point that we’ve built something special, I know the money is going to be there. We want to be strategic and make good decisions with how we spend that money. I feel good about the money we spent on Stroman and Suzuki.”
Like Brett said yesterday, we can’t do much with these comments other than save them to hold the team accountable over the winter, but I suppose this is better than the alternative. At this point, following all these breadcrumbs, anything less than adding a top-shelf bat (likely one of the shortstops, because that’s where the concentration is of the best bats in this class) and at least one true front-half of the rotation starting pitcher is going to be an enormous let-down. Not only because the Cubs ABSOLUTELY need both, but also because of the position they’ve put themselves in with these comments.
… But Keep in Mind It’s Not 2014?
But as I mentioned in the intro, some other, related comments become almost immediately concerning. Because even as the President and Owner call for an aggressive approach in free agency, they are also pumping the brakes.
“In 2014, we may have had three to four (prospects) in the top 10,” Hoyer said when asked how this season compares to that of 2014, when the Cubs were starting to get competitive. “We had a whole team of prospects on the field at the beginning of 2015. This is less so [now]. But that is what we’re building toward. My vision is the same. We’re not quite as far along as we were at the end of 2014.”
You’ll recall that Theo Epstein famously declared back in 2014 that it would be the last year of seriously selling off at the deadline. And that winter, the Cubs went out and signed Jon Lester to the then largest free agent contract in team history, before also adding Dexter Fowler and Miguel Montero via trade. But Hoyer is reluctant to commit to the same schedule, which does leave you wondering about the extent of the commitment to spending aggressively in free agency.
I’m not arguing that the Cubs’ minor league system is in the same place it was in 2014. It’s not. Although the system is much deeper in legit prospects, it is nowhere close in near-big-league-ready impact talent.
But I am arguing that the Cubs’ capacity and willingness to spend this offseason should be more or less where it was after 2014, regardless. It needs to be. The Cubs *must* be in an entirely different position by Spring Training, at least in terms of projected contention, and the only way to get there is by spending in a manner commensurate with their market size and financial advantage. The group in place will justify that spending, even if they’re not in a position to immediately build out a 97-game winner.
Targeting what?
Assuming the Chicago Cubs do add this offseason, what are they going to target?
Hoyer re-confirmed something we discussed previously: “We have to reconfigure our offense,” Hoyer said. “We don’t have enough power right now. We have to get the ball in the air. Those are things we’ll be focused on this winter.”
Adding power and elevation to a lineup that hasn’t done enough of either is going to be key, and I took similar comments from a week ago to examine which of the four biggest free agent bats might be able to help the most: