I was asked all year whether I thought Chicago Cubs President Jed Hoyer was going to be fired at the end of this season if the team didn’t make the postseason, and it just never felt likely to me. The relative newness of the scouting and player development infrastructure, the effectiveness of which takes years to evaluate and last looked quite promising, felt like enough of a cover when combined with the new and expensive manager. These things have a feel to them, and this one didn’t feel like a do-or-die season for Hoyer.
Whether Hoyer SHOULD be fired was, of course, a different question. It’s one about which there are plenty of arguments, though I’d probably wind up on the side that gives him another year. The progress on the farm side, as well as with some key young players, has me wanting to see the group work together another year to see if they have laid some effective tracks.
There’s a lot I don’t like about how the last four years have gone, of course, and I think the mistakes are not difficult to articulate, even if they aren’t all entirely attributable to Hoyer. Still, some of the big league roster construction the last two seasons has proved, quite clearly, to be less effective than it should have been.
In any case, I do like a lot of what has been institutionalized in the organization, particularly on the scouting and player development side (and internationally). I don’t want to see that fundamentally disrupted just yet. One more year is, I believe, appropriate.
Then you get into the whole ‘lame duck’ thing, as Jed Hoyer’s deal is believed to run only through next season. I don’t see him as the kind of guy who’s going to sell completely out just to try to save his job, however, so I don’t necessarily have huge concerns about the Cubs entering the season with Hoyer atop the front office depth chart in his final year under contract. I’d certainly prefer it wasn’t that way, as you’d always rather have decisions being made by someone who is expected to be around to bear the consequences of those decisions. But, the thing is, I don’t know that the Cubs would be justified in signing Hoyer to an extension right now. So playing it out for a while yet may be the best course.
And it sounds like that will be the course, as reported by Bob Nightengale, who also drops a vague bit of drama:
“There is internal friction in the Chicago Cubs’ front office, high-ranking officials say, but despite their disappointing season, Jed Hoyer, president of baseball operations, will return in 2025.”
Internal friction is, I suppose, to be expected when a team disappoints as much as these 2024 Cubs have. This team was supposed to be quite competitive by 2023, let alone by 2024 after adding Craig Counsell. That they are about to miss the playoffs once again has to rankle a whole lot of key members of the organization, many of whom undoubtedly disagree with decisions and approaches taken by other members. That’s just the nature of the beast.
That is to say, even if Jed Hoyer returns for 2025, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Cubs will proceed all offseason without making front office changes. New voices are routinely sought out, just as opportunities for promotions elsewhere pop up. I expect some turnover. I’ll just reiterate that I very much hope the core of the scouting and player development infrastructure returns intact.