Jed Speak

[Tryptamine]

Expanded playoffs might be the death blow for me.

 

This was the first season since I was a toddler that I did not watch a single game from beginning to end. Between the owners being terrible people, the team being bad and covid, I just don't have much interest beyond checking box scores anymore.

[CubinNY]

Expanded playoffs might be the death blow for me.

Yes, baseball is an everyday grind where the season matters, having a bunch of mediocre teams in a playoff is not good.

[jersey cubs fan]

Was updating this in the Offseason Tread but screw it, we had a Theo Speak thread so here is the Jed Speak thread

 

Jed's giving his EOY press conference:

 

Hoyer sounds a lot like our old pal Jim Hendry. I'm waiting for the, "compete within the division" quote.

I believe that was a directive from Andy MacPhail (changed spelling of his name to illustrate my dislike)

[Sammy Sofa]

Really wish this thread had been called "Jed Jalk".

[David]

Was updating this in the Offseason Tread but screw it, we had a Theo Speak thread so here is the Jed Speak thread

 

Jed's giving his EOY press conference:

 

Hoyer sounds a lot like our old pal Jim Hendry. I'm waiting for the, "compete within the division" quote.

I believe that was a directive from Andy MacPhail (changed spelling of his name to illustrate my dislike)

 

 

lmfao omg there's still a filter and i vaguely remember it

[jersey cubs fan]

 

Hoyer sounds a lot like our old pal Jim Hendry. I'm waiting for the, "compete within the division" quote.

I believe that was a directive from Andy MacFail (changed spelling of his name to illustrate my dislike)

 

 

lmfao omg there's still a filter and i vaguely remember it

Unacceptable

[SouthSideRyan]

You horsefeathers.

[sneakypower]

https://theathletic.com/2947765/2021/11/10/how-jed-hoyer-can-stay-nimble-and-leverage-the-cubs-financial-flexibility-in-his-favor?source=user-shared-article

 

“You try to be prepared and opportunistic as much as possible,” Hoyer said. “Some team could come up today with an idea we haven’t thought about and we have to be able to be nimble, not stuck in our ideas and think through things quickly. The real benefit of a really good front office staff from top to bottom is that constant state of preparedness where you can be nimble and move quickly. There’s also the benefit of the two forms of currency. When you’re able to be more nimble in prospects and financially, it allows you to do those things more quickly. When you’re less nimble, you can’t do that.”

 

[...] “There are those cycles in the game where some of those teams that are shedding were teams that were adding very recently,” Hoyer said. “Things change from an economic standpoint for certain teams so you always have to be on alert for that. Throughout the summer, you try to gather information about teams’ financial situations for that reason, to maybe anticipate that this team may need to shed payroll or this team may be adding a lot. Certainly, that’s a reason to be nimble because you never know what opportunities are going to present themselves. What I’ve definitely learned in this game is that they always will. If you’re in a position to be nimble, there will always be opportunities, you’ll never lack for them. You just don’t know what they are at that point.”

 

[SouthSideRyan]

He’d hears a question posed to him on the Teams meeting he’s been ignoring

[sneakypower]

Mooney inferring that we're likely not meaningfully spending this winter

https://theathletic.com/2946459/2021/11/10/the-next-free-agent-to-sign-a-megadeal-with-the-cubs-is-to-be-determined/

 

There’s a level of internal skepticism about those long-term commitments — otherwise the sell-off at the trade deadline might not have been so drastic — and that strategy doesn’t necessarily make the Cubs unique in a copycat industry.

 

“As you layer on years, obviously, you’re layering on a lot of risk to any transaction,” Hoyer said Tuesday at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa. “By definition, projecting a player’s performance gets harder and harder as you get away from their last year and their last couple years. Any time you do that, you’re introducing risk. Listen, I’ve been a part of long deals that worked exceptionally well. And I’ve been a part of long deals that didn’t. You just accept that going into them, by definition, you’re introducing more risk into the transaction when you layer on years.”

 

This does not sound like someone who will be asking Tom Ricketts when he’s free to have dinner with Carlos Correa this month.

Miley deal is probably the mold

“You can’t spend the same dollar twice,” Hoyer said. “Sometimes people focus on how much you’re spending on just this year. But if it takes you a lot of years out into the future to get that player, you have to think about how that’s going to impact future teams. What I’ve learned is that it will. You have to always keep that in mind as you think through these things. You’re not just spending 2022 dollars. You could be spending 2026 dollars. And is that a good dollar spent in 2026? Because the future is going to come. Ultimately, we’re really focused on: How do we build the next great Cubs team? Overly focusing on right now at the expense of that would be a mistake.”

(best i can tell, we have a whole $7m earmarked for 2026 [bote])

 

some patented Jed gobbledygook

“Certainly, it’s something we have to factor in,” Hoyer said. “You just have to weigh it accordingly as you think through it. I wouldn’t go past that. It’s a calculus that we have to do if we’re going to swim in those waters.”

[Clem Fandango]

Mooney inferring that we're likely not meaningfully spending this winter

 

[CubinNY]

Brett posted some highlights of the Jed Hoyer interview on The Score. As predicted, he talked about Atlanta having the worst odds to win the WS and winning. He talked about just getting in "the tournament" and being competitive. They're going the Tribune route of looking like they want to win but not really trying.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I think your preconceived notions are doing some pretty heavy lifting there.

[sneakypower]

Mooney/Sharma casting doubt on the "looking like they want to win" part

 

But unless either of [Correa/Seager] markets comes down to the point where they have very few bidders, which seems highly unlikely, and the Cubs suddenly view it as a real value signing, neither is a realistic target for this team. Jed Hoyer’s front office doesn’t view this team on the verge of a legitimate contention cycle. We’ll touch on timing later in the mailbag, but it certainly isn’t 2022 and 2023 is pretty unclear at this point.

 

also floats Didi Gregorius as an "intriguing" option; would at least be novel to have a whole team one day with arthritic shoulders/elbows

[Bertz]

Mooney/Sharma casting doubt on the "looking like they want to win" part

 

But unless either of [Correa/Seager] markets comes down to the point where they have very few bidders, which seems highly unlikely, and the Cubs suddenly view it as a real value signing, neither is a realistic target for this team. Jed Hoyer’s front office doesn’t view this team on the verge of a legitimate contention cycle. We’ll touch on timing later in the mailbag, but it certainly isn’t 2022 and 2023 is pretty unclear at this point.

 

also floats Didi Gregorius as an "intriguing" option; would at least be novel to have a whole team one day with arthritic shoulders/elbows

 

Sharma also said he thinks the team needs to add 5 (?!) starting pitchers and that Steele has a better shot at being a SP than Alzolay or Mills. I'm starting to worry that spending too much time with Mooney is turning his brain into mush.

[Bertz]

Mooney/Sharma casting doubt on the "looking like they want to win" part

 

But unless either of [Correa/Seager] markets comes down to the point where they have very few bidders, which seems highly unlikely, and the Cubs suddenly view it as a real value signing, neither is a realistic target for this team. Jed Hoyer’s front office doesn’t view this team on the verge of a legitimate contention cycle. We’ll touch on timing later in the mailbag, but it certainly isn’t 2022 and 2023 is pretty unclear at this point.

 

also floats Didi Gregorius as an "intriguing" option; would at least be novel to have a whole team one day with arthritic shoulders/elbows

 

Sharma also said he thinks the team needs to add 5 (?!) starting pitchers and that Steele has a better shot at being a SP than Alzolay or Mills. I'm starting to worry that spending too much time with Mooney is turning his brain into mush.

 

Like, let's say Jed is as dour on next year's team as is portrayed here, and that he's planning to "probably assemble a group that could win 87 games next year if everything breaks right, which rarely happens." Not unreasonable. Let's say Jed has this huge boner for financial flexibility going forward. Less reasonable (Bote's literally the only money on the books past '23), but sadly pretty believable.

 

Taking those as a given though, a lot of the other stuff Sharma and Mooney are putting out there make no sense.

 

- You certainly wouldn't consider a Willson Contreras extension. He's a catcher, and not a super durable one, who's about to turn 30. That is not a guy you give extra money to now expecting him to still be generating surplus value in 2024

- You do not close the door so hard on Hoerner at shortstop. The durability is an issue, clearly, so you certainly bring in another shortstop. But you get a guy to put behind Hoerner, not in front of him. You want to give Hoerner every opportunity to be the guy, both because he's higher upside for this year and because he's cheap and team controlled for the next several

- And biggest, by far, is that's not at all how you handle the rotation. If the team's dual goals are "2022 upside" and "future payroll flexibility" you definitely need to add a starter or two. Jon Gray or Yusei Kikuchi or Steven Matz make a ton of sense as they're likely to be mid-rotation types, but have a chance at being a lot more than that. But why the hell would you consider the guys a tier below? Dylan Bundy, Anthony Desclafani, Alex Wood, etc. are all good enough to warrant multi-year deals, but limited enough to limit their upside to "nice July flip candidate." Much like the Hoerner example, you're also blocking a rotation slot that can go to a Steele/Adbert/Thompson, guys who have higher present upside and who offer future financial gains if you successfully develop them. Adding those types of starters is something you do when you're trying to raise the floor on the current team, not something you do when your big moves on the position player side are Freddy Galvis and bringing Rizzo home

 

Like I'm not deluded into thinking the team's only two options are "AJ Prefer on a bender" or full on tanking, but their vision for the offseason seems to be "let's take as many half measures as we can" when just about the only thing we can say about Jed's tenure at this point is that he's been trying like hell to avoid them.

[CubinNY]

Mooney/Sharma casting doubt on the "looking like they want to win" part

 

 

 

also floats Didi Gregorius as an "intriguing" option; would at least be novel to have a whole team one day with arthritic shoulders/elbows

 

Sharma also said he thinks the team needs to add 5 (?!) starting pitchers and that Steele has a better shot at being a SP than Alzolay or Mills. I'm starting to worry that spending too much time with Mooney is turning his brain into mush.

 

Like, let's say Jed is as dour on next year's team as is portrayed here, and that he's planning to "probably assemble a group that could win 87 games next year if everything breaks right, which rarely happens." Not unreasonable. Let's say Jed has this huge boner for financial flexibility going forward. Less reasonable (Bote's literally the only money on the books past '23), but sadly pretty believable.

 

Taking those as a given though, a lot of the other stuff Sharma and Mooney are putting out there make no sense.

 

- You certainly wouldn't consider a Willson Contreras extension. He's a catcher, and not a super durable one, who's about to turn 30. That is not a guy you give extra money to now expecting him to still be generating surplus value in 2024

- You do not close the door so hard on Hoerner at shortstop. The durability is an issue, clearly, so you certainly bring in another shortstop. But you get a guy to put behind Hoerner, not in front of him. You want to give Hoerner every opportunity to be the guy, both because he's higher upside for this year and because he's cheap and team controlled for the next several

- And biggest, by far, is that's not at all how you handle the rotation. If the team's dual goals are "2022 upside" and "future payroll flexibility" you definitely need to add a starter or two. Jon Gray or Yusei Kikuchi or Steven Matz make a ton of sense as they're likely to be mid-rotation types, but have a chance at being a lot more than that. But why the hell would you consider the guys a tier below? Dylan Bundy, Anthony Desclafani, Alex Wood, etc. are all good enough to warrant multi-year deals, but limited enough to limit their upside to "nice July flip candidate." Much like the Hoerner example, you're also blocking a rotation slot that can go to a Steele/Adbert/Thompson, guys who have higher present upside and who offer future financial gains if you successfully develop them. Adding those types of starters is something you do when you're trying to raise the floor on the current team, not something you do when your big moves on the position player side are Freddy Galvis and bringing Rizzo home

 

Like I'm not deluded into thinking the team's only two options are "AJ Prefer on a bender" or full on tanking, but their vision for the offseason seems to be "let's take as many half measures as we can" when just about the only thing we can say about Jed's tenure at this point is that he's been trying like hell to avoid them.

I like this post, but Adbert is a middle reliever who they’ve given starts to unless he can find a way to get lefties out or at least keep in the yard.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Mooney/Sharma casting doubt on the "looking like they want to win" part

 

But unless either of [Correa/Seager] markets comes down to the point where they have very few bidders, which seems highly unlikely, and the Cubs suddenly view it as a real value signing, neither is a realistic target for this team. Jed Hoyer’s front office doesn’t view this team on the verge of a legitimate contention cycle. We’ll touch on timing later in the mailbag, but it certainly isn’t 2022 and 2023 is pretty unclear at this point.

 

also floats Didi Gregorius as an "intriguing" option; would at least be novel to have a whole team one day with arthritic shoulders/elbows

 

Sharma also said he thinks the team needs to add 5 (?!) starting pitchers and that Steele has a better shot at being a SP than Alzolay or Mills. I'm starting to worry that spending too much time with Mooney is turning his brain into mush.

 

I would distill it to this: Sharma in particular is repeating the idea that the only way that they're signing a player beyond ~3 years is if someone's market tanks and becomes incredible value. The reasons for that are mostly where they are in the competitive cycle and a dose of prioritizing financial flexibility. What's less clear is if this is:

 

1) Sharma is hearing clearly from inside the org this is the plan

2) Sharma doesn't know for sure but without hearing conflicting information he's assuming it to be true since it's what he thinks the smart decision is

3) Sharma knows very little of the actual plans, and is inferring based on his understanding of what a smart team should do in this situation

 

The wording in all of these is fairly careful to avoid #1(And Mooney who is more aggressive in sharing this type of info hasn't said as much either), which is annoying since that's the one that would matter most. It's especially annoying because while I think there are long term deals a team in the Cubs situation should avoid(QO pitchers, 31+ FA, etc), the blanket removal of that option is categorically wrong and not the way a smart team in the Cubs position should operate(IMO). Given the lack of conviction in the words being used I'm (optimistically) willing to stack that against Jed's 'aggressive' language and some rumblings that they're interested in a few top of market guys, but it'd be nice if we had to do less tea leaf reading.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Oh the other thing that confuses me about the message here is that the logic that gets trotted out is inevitably in response to questions on if the Cubs should sign a Seager or Correa to 300 million dollar deals, but then the lines that get drawn would conceivably exclude guys like Jon Gray or Suzuki too, who those same writers list as compelling and reasonable targets.

[UMFan83]

Some reaction from Jed over the first 10 games of the season: https://theathletic.com/3260398/2022/04/20/good-or-bad-cubs-president-jed-hoyer-wont-overreact-at-the-start-of-a-transitional-season-at-wrigley-field/

 

A couple (but not all) of the comments

 

“We’re definitely way less explosive than we were,” Hoyer said. “I also feel like we faced some pretty good pitchers so far and we’ve been able to limit the strikeout numbers for the most part and put the ball in play. We’ve got to get the ball in the air more. That’s obvious. The double-play numbers have to normalize at some point a little bit. They’re exceptionally high (15) right now. On the positive side, there’s the contact. On the negative side, the ball’s on the ground too much. That’s what we have to address.”

 

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Hoyer said. “We didn’t have a normal spring. We can’t pretend that we did. It’s good to use your depth early in the season, get everyone involved. There will be a time where you get a more steady lineup, you get more normal bullpen usage, but I don’t think we’re ready for that yet.”

[Cubswin11]

The double plays are probably a little high, especially for Willy, but it’s kinda a feature and not a bug with the offense profile of low Ks, OBP and a lot of contact.

[squally1313]

We were also 5th in the league last year, granted at comfortably less than 1 per game. You'd think our lineup being a little quicker would help a little, but to echo the above point, probably going to have a lot more chances to ground into one than we have in the past.

[Bertz]

The crazy amount of groundballs is definitely a red flag, but I think a less deep shade of red than an equivalent plate discipline or contact deficiency.

 

It can and often is a canary in the coal mine that something is wrong. Like I remember Starlin's last year here he ran a 60+% GB rate for a month or so, BABIP'd his way to solid production, and then cratered the rest of the way.

 

But at the same time, I believe it's been empirically shown that GB rate is more on the pitchers than the hitters. I don't know if the Cubs' slate of opposing pitchers has been exceptionally GB heavy, but it's easily possible in only 11 games.

[squally1313]

The crazy amount of groundballs is definitely a red flag, but I think a less deep shade of red than an equivalent plate discipline or contact deficiency.

 

It can and often is a canary in the coal mine that something is wrong. Like I remember Starlin's last year here he ran a 60+% GB rate for a month or so, BABIP'd his way to solid production, and then cratered the rest of the way.

 

But at the same time, I believe it's been empirically shown that GB rate is more on the pitchers than the hitters. I don't know if the Cubs' slate of opposing pitchers has been exceptionally GB heavy, but it's easily possible in only 11 games.

 

You would assume the Rockies would try to build their rotation with a bunch of GB pitchers. But then again, it's the Rockies, so who knows.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The crazy amount of groundballs is definitely a red flag, but I think a less deep shade of red than an equivalent plate discipline or contact deficiency.

 

It can and often is a canary in the coal mine that something is wrong. Like I remember Starlin's last year here he ran a 60+% GB rate for a month or so, BABIP'd his way to solid production, and then cratered the rest of the way.

 

But at the same time, I believe it's been empirically shown that GB rate is more on the pitchers than the hitters. I don't know if the Cubs' slate of opposing pitchers has been exceptionally GB heavy, but it's easily possible in only 11 games.

 

You would assume the Rockies would try to build their rotation with a bunch of GB pitchers. But then again, it's the Rockies, so who knows.

 

I forget if they tried this more explicitly in the past, but I think the un-virtuous cycle is that the pitches that lead to ground balls move less in Coors and therefore more of them become barrels into the gap/over the fence.