Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer brought up “star players” in his end-of-season press conference before any reporter referenced the term quite so directly.
“You guys have asked me a few times this year about, do we need a star ? — star players and stars can help get through those slumps,” he said last month.
Hoyer had just fielded a question about the team’s May and June skid this year and whether the Cubs have a hitter on the roster that can carry them through such stretches by minimizing his own offensive lulls, the way Cody Bellinger helped stabilize the Cubs offense in 2023.
It will be a theme to follow throughout the offseason, which kicks off in earnest this coming week as baseball operations leaders gather in San Antonio for the GM meetings. Hoyer’s answer last month didn’t give away the team’s winter strategy.
“When you look at our season, we had a lot of guys on the team that had good years; they got back to their numbers, maybe on-projection, a hair above, a hair below,” Hoyer said. “No one really had that carrying year that Cody had last year. And I do think we missed that.
“I think there’s a number of guys on our roster that can absolutely do that going forward. And I think that’s what we have to think through: How do we put every guy in position to do that? Because, certainly, we can look for external things, but also looking for, how do we push these guys to have a five- or six-win season?”
The last time a Cubs player had a five-plus WAR (wins above replacement) season, as measured by FanGraphs, was 2019, when Javy Báez led the team with 5.6 fWAR. This past season, Dansby Swanson led the team with 4.3.
It’s clear that the Cubs will be targeting pitching this offseason, but their plan for the offense is more opaque.
Hoyer acknowledged that all 12 playoff teams had at least one player who had posted a five-win season.
“But on the flip side of that, of the 14 five-win players on playoff teams, only five of them were projected to be five or more win players,” Hoyer said. “The rest of them just had career years. They had fantastic seasons and outperformed.”
Publicly available projections vary, and teams have their own internal projections. But FanGraphs’ figures told a similar story. Of the 14 players who posted five-fWAR seasons for playoff teams, only six were projected to do so.
As the postseason went on, however, the teams that ended up in the World Series were flush with star power, led by the presumptive MVPs in both leagues, the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge.
So, will the Cubs leverage their market size and resources to earnestly compete for a top free agent like Juan Soto (8.1 fWAR) to complement their efforts at internal improvement? Will they boost their offense by trading for a slugger? Or will they count on an ability to outperform projections?
While actual transactions usually don’t pick up until later in the offseason, often around the Winter Meetings in December, the GM meetings are a time for teams to set the groundwork.
They also have a little more clarity on their rosters. Five days after the end of the World Series serves as a deadline for contract option decisions – including Bellinger’s opt-out. Free agents also can’t sign with new teams until five days after the conclusion of the World Series.
While this year’s GM Meetings aren’t expected to be as eventful as last year’s for the Cubs, who unexpectedly fired manager David Ross and replaced him with Craig Counsell in one fell swoop last November, they are looking to fill several positions on Counsell’s staff this winter.
After a month of reflection and preparation, in the wake of missing the playoffs for the fourth straight year, the Cubs will begin putting their offseason plan in place. And Hoyer will continue to field questions about star players.