The most exciting day of the 2024 baseball season unfolded Monday in Atlanta. Mets and Braves, two games, two wild-card-clinching final outs, two clubhouses with plastic hanging in front of players’ lockers and champagne and goggles for everyone.
What a sport. God bless America.
Then came Tuesday, when Cubs president Jed Hoyer showed up to an otherwise empty clubhouse at Wrigley Field and — try to contain your enthusiasm — held another “wait ’til next year” press conference after a second straight 83-79 dud.
Nothing to see here, folks.
“The last two seasons haven’t ended in the postseason,” Hoyer said. “Obviously, I have to take accountability for that. Consecutive 83-win teams, we have to push beyond that. But in terms of positioning this organization for success next year and success in the future, I feel great about where we are as an organization and I think the fans should feel good about it, too.”
Any right-minded observer is going to take that with a grain of salt, or even a thick pinch of it between their cheek and gum. The Cubs had talented enough teams two years in a row to get to the playoffs, but they didn’t get it done. They fired David Ross and replaced him with the most expensive manager ever, $8-million-a-year man Craig Counsell, but lost exactly as many games and fell considerably further out of the division and wild-card races. The Cubs’ highest-paid players appear to be good but not great, while a who’s-who of the sport’s true superstars moves on to vie for the World Series mountaintop over the next month.
The Cubs have gotten better under Hoyer since the end-of-an-era sell-off in 2021, his first year running the show. Their farm system has come a long way, too. But let’s not sugarcoat it: The Cubs are 26 games under .500 (311-337) — without a playoff appearance — since Theo Epstein walked away, taking some of the shine of the club’s World Series glory with him. Over four years’ time, they’ve been a combined 26 games worse than the rival Cardinals (337-311) and 55 games worse than the rival Brewers (366-282). Considering how averse to the word “rebuild” Hoyer was from the get-go, his time at the helm can only be viewed to this point as — in stark, binary terms — a failed experiment.
Unless Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts puts an extension offer under his president’s nose — and why would he? — Hoyer will have only one year left on his deal, one last shot to deliver on his “next great Cubs team” promises with, at minimum, a trip to the playoffs in 2025. Of course, the real standard should be winning the division. In either case, actually getting somewhere in October after that sounds like a fine idea, too. But if the Cubs flop in 2025? Hoyer has to go.
“I guess I look at it as an opportunity,” he said, denying he feels any more pressure than usual.
But as we were reminded Monday when the Giants fired their president, Farhan Zaidi — a recent MLB executive of the year whose team won 107 games in 2021 — the pressure in certain markets can be acute. Chicago, and particularly at Wrigley, where ownership is printing money, damn sure should be one of them.
Counsell and Hoyer have referred to closing the “gap” between the Cubs and the Brewers — who ran away with a 10-game lead — as their next big goal. What they haven’t done is adequately explain how such a huge gap could exist in the first place.
It would be absurd to try to make a case that the Brewers should have been so much better in 2024. They traded one of the best starting pitchers in the game, Corbin Burnes, before the season and were without two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff in the rotation from start to finish. Two-time National League reliever of the year Devin Williams missed four months. Star outfielder Christian Yelich played in 73 games before being shut down. Two other starting pitchers had short runs before needing Tommy John surgery. The Brewers faced a mountain of adversity and had a new manager in Pat Murphy, to boot.
Yet catcher William Contreras and shortstop Willy Adames thrived, and rookie outfielder Jackson Chourio broke out. There was solid pitching, elite base running, rock-solid defense and clutch homers galore. Even with only 10 players on the postseason roster who were in the playoffs with the 2023 team, it somehow all added up.
First, David Stearns schooled Hoyer while running the Brewers. Then came Stearns’ successor, Matt Arnold, who apparently has been doing likewise since. Now with the Mets, Stearns tried to lure Counsell to Citi Field but didn’t get his man; instead, the Mets hired Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza. As a result of that, the Guardians, who’d been very interested in Mendoza, turned to Stephen Vogt, who has opened eyes across baseball in his first season as a manager. All those teams, skippers and heads of baseball operations are in the playoffs, is the point.
The Cubs? They had a press conference.
“We need to get back to the postseason for these fans,” Hoyer said. “That’s what the fans deserve — and we’ll get there.”
It’s far from too late for Counsell, the signature hire of Hoyer’s career to the tune of a record $40 million over five years, to help make that happen. Hoyer bet on Counsell — went all-in on him — to do just that.
“You don’t sign someone like that and just evaluate him on Year 1,” Hoyer said. “I’m very confident that when we’re staring back at that contract in Year 5 that it’s going to be pretty clear it was a great decision.”
But Hoyer doesn’t have that kind of time — certainly not if 2025 comes and goes without a major Cubs celebration. Plastic, champagne, goggles, the whole bit. Anything less is unacceptable.