MESA, Ariz. — Cubs president Jed Hoyer was just a boy — well, still in his 20s, anyway — when he went to work for the Red Sox as assistant to the general manager in 2002. His boss, Theo Epstein, was the same tender age, if you can believe it. Together, they ended a World Series curse. Epstein became a superstar, and Hoyer something of a made man himself.
Hoyer struck out on his own following the 2009 season, assuming the GM role with the Padres. They were eager for a sabermetrics man to show them the way, and Hoyer seemingly operated with total job security in his two seasons in San Diego.
Next, well, you know where Hoyer went next — to the Cubs, to join anew with Epstein and take down another curse. You hang a World Series championship banner at Wrigley Field, and it becomes awfully hard to get rid of you.
But that 2016 banner has gotten a bit dusty, and Hoyer, entering his 14th season with the Cubs and his fifth as team president since Epstein rode off into the sunset, is experiencing pressure like he never has before.
No playoff trips on his watch. A rebuild that didn’t move all that swiftly and hasn’t gotten the Cubs over the hump yet. A 2024 season that was, in Hoyer’s own words, “immensely frustrating.” And now, right around the corner, a 2025 one in which landing anywhere short of the postseason would be a pure disaster.
Hoyer is in the final year of his contract. It won’t be hard at all to get rid of him if this team — built to win 90-plus games — face-plants. Hoyer, now 51, knows it and is feeling it. The subject was heavy in the room as he met the media on the first day of spring training.
“Does it feel different than it has in the past? A little bit,” he said.
“I’ve been here for 14 years. Sort of generally, in my career, I haven’t had much uncertainty, you know? I think with that uncertainty does come a level of anxiety. I think it would be a lie to say that it doesn’t. Has it caused some introspection along the way? I think that’s fair to say.”
Last month, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts voiced tepid support for Hoyer in an interview with the Sun-Times, saying “no litmus test” exists this season, a reference to making the playoffs.
“ ‘Lame duck’ is not [how] I would describe what Jed is doing right now,” Ricketts said. “He’s working really hard. I think he’s had a really good offseason.”
Some lame ducks, you can hear quacking. Joe Maddon in 2019, his last season as manager, comes to mind. No one thought Maddon’s successor, David Ross, was a lame duck in 2023 — “He’s our guy,” Ricketts said at season’s end — but then the Cubs whacked him anyway as Hoyer went all-in on Craig Counsell. In Hoyer’s case, it would seem he still has quite a good chance to save himself.
“We have a great front office,” Hoyer said, his GM, Carter Hawkins, seated next to him. “We have an incredible manager and a great coaching staff. I think we’ve put together a really good team. We still have a really good farm system. I think every arrow is sort of pointing up in this organization right now. I think there’s a lot more opportunity for me, for Carter, than there is risk. I’m super proud of what we’ve built, with a lot of really good people. That’s kind of how I look at it.”
Whether he intended to or not, Counsell added to the pressure on Hoyer at the end of last season by stating clearly and directly that the Cubs hadn’t fielded a good enough team. The pieces — the bats, the bullpen — added up to an irrelevant finish a full 10 games behind the first-place Brewers. Adding elite hitter Kyle Tucker and proven late-inning reliever Ryan Pressly were strong offseason moves by Hoyer. Pulling the levers to bring in free-agent third baseman Alex Bregman, which still could happen, would of course be another one, though Hoyer tried his best Sunday to shut that subject down.
Meanwhile, the Cubs are 10th in baseball in current payroll and projected to spend less than two-thirds on this team than the defending champion Dodgers will spend on theirs. We’ll probably never know what Hoyer might be capable of if Ricketts reached under his mattress and pulled out World Series-or-bust money.
But it’s postseason or bust for Hoyer, who knows it and is feeling it.
“One of the things about this job, I do take it very personally,” he said. “I think you want to put a winner on the field. You want to be extremely proud of the product that’s out there. …
“It feels like there’s increased pressure. I think there probably should be given that we’ve spent some time to get to this place. And it should be a lot of fun.”