How Long Until Jed Hoyer’s Job is at Risk?

[Jacob Zanolla]

As a competitive organization, it's important to set standards. What's expected? What's acceptable? What isn't? Once you do that, you can honestly assess the people who make up your group, and sometimes, that leads to hard decisions. Those decisions, however, are necessary and important.

Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Some portion of Cubs Twitter has been calling for Jed Hoyer to be fired for quite some time. Sometimes it’s warranted. More often, it’s just a bunch of overreactions. As the trade deadline approaches, no one really knows what the Cubs are going to do. Apparently, they don’t even know what they’re going to do. Unless this week goes way better than expected, though, selling is the likely outcome. This begs the question, at what point does Hoyer start to worry about his job?

Theo Epstein stepped down after the 2020 season, handing control of the Chicago Cubs over to his lieutenant. Hoyer had been Epstein’s right-hand man the whole time they were in Chicago, so it was someone with familiarity in regard to the organization. The reason Epstein did this was because of the 2016 core and their expiring contracts, and the fact that he wanted to let his successor decide the future of the team. Something similar may need to happen this season.

Since Jed Hoyer became the President of Baseball Operations, the Cubs are 271-307. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2020 (which doesn't count), and haven’t won a playoff game since the NLCS in 2017. What was thought to be a potential dynasty became a one-hit wonder, with its stars slowly fading away from glory. He’s built one of the best farm systems in baseball, but we still aren’t seeing a sufficient effect on the big-league team.

The fanbase was told that they were not going through another rebuild--that instead, it was a retooling. With the 2023 squad only missing the playoffs by one game last year, the assumption was that they would easily reach the postseason this time around. Instead, Craig Counsell’s squad is 10 games behind the Brewers for the division lead, with no chance of coming back and winning this division.

If the Cubs miss the playoffs once again this season, I think we need to start wondering if Jed Hoyer is the right person for the job. He’s had some good transactions, including two from this offseason. Shota Imanaga has been absolutely fantastic, and the Cubs got him for what could easily be considered the steal of the offseason. (Chris Sale’s trade to the Braves could be on that list as well). Michael Busch has been amazing, as well, although we won’t know the full results of that deal for several years.

With one of the highest payrolls in baseball, though, it’s a shock that the Cubs are this bad. There’s still time to turn it around, but not much. What was supposed to be a quick fix has turned into a failed project, whereby the team somehow got worse after last season. Some people want Hoyer to be fired before the deadline, so that the next executive can choose the direction of the team, Tom Ricketts has put enough trust in Hoyer throughout the years that there isn’t much of a chance this happens, but a change after this season ends isn’t out of the question.

Hoyer is known to be patient, but it could be argued that he is too patient. Sometimes you have to overpay to get a player, but instead, he trusts his prospects and decides to save the money and spend it elsewhere--elsewhere, as in a $177 Million shortstop who currently has a 75 wRC+, but that’s a discussion for another time.

We know that Jed Hoyer is smart, but does he have what it takes to take this team to the next level? If so, he’s going to need to change something fast. He can’t do it out of pure panic come this deadline, but that makes me think that it’s too late to truly fix this team. He isn’t on the hot seat yet, but a few more bad weeks and it’d be justifiable.

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[CubinNY]

Until people stop coming to Wrigley.

[Bertz]

I think it's pretty clear that Jed is viewing contention on a longer time horizon than the fanbase, and it's pretty clear PTR is fine with that.

The team was expected to win ~85 games coming into the year, and they're tracking towards ~79 at the moment.  The standard deviation on preseason projections is in the 6-8 game range.  This season has been a disappointment, but a pretty normal sized one.  We're talking like a 20th percentile outcome?

That's not to excuse the underperformance thus far, but it is to put its likelihood in perspective.  Jed and the Cubs showed very little urgency this winter, and I remember specifically a Carter interview at the Winter Meetings where he mentioned not wanting to block all the kids.  I imagine there was not a ton of additional payroll available, but if Jed's rolling a 1 or a 2 was going to cost Jed his job we would have skimmed more off the farm to bolster the team without majorly impacting payroll.  Instead he stuck to his guns, got some left tail outcomes on a couple of positions that already didn't look great to begin with, and here we are.  

It's been mentioned that Jed's contract runs through next year, I'd guess that next year needs to go well for him to earn an extension, but that there's very little chance he's outright fired.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

I think it's pretty clear that Jed is viewing contention on a longer time horizon than the fanbase, and it's pretty clear PTR is fine with that.

It's been mentioned that Jed's contract runs through next year, I'd guess that next year needs to go well for him to earn an extension, but that there's very little chance he's outright fired.

I think depending on how you think about 'viewing contention on a longer time horizon' these thoughts are potentially in tension, but I think the practical upshot is correct.  IMO, there's little chance of Jed being fired before the end of his contract next year unless something dramatic happens.  Where I think there's some nuance is that Jed pretty clearly created a window that only barely outlasts his current deal, if his plan was simply to be playable until the farm system became a perpetual motion machine of winning talent I doubt he would've created the payroll cliff that he did.  

I also think that if ownership were pleased with the trajectory, they would be looking into extending him at a minimum to see out that window(and practically, probably longer).  If this season doesn't have a pretty significant turnaround, then I suspect next year becomes as must-win for Jed as seasons go. Because while Ricketts has a lot of patience, if you can't get into the playoffs and/or past the ".500ish" level of results on the timeframe that Jed's been given, I think you probably pull the plug, and let someone new retool with all the rentals that make the team prime for a remodel after 2025.

[muntjack]

They obviously have had '25 targeted as the 'arrival' of their formidable stream of prospects.   The hope being they could be a piecemeal playoff team this year, one not married to too many veterans who would dam the river of talent on its way.