Jed Hoyer vs. Mother Nature: The Winds of Wrigley

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Do the Cubs' head baseball honcho's claims about wind and weather patterns at Wrigley Field this season hold water?

Image courtesy of © Melissa Tamez-Imagn Images

If you’ve been around the Chicago sports scene for any period of time, you’ve obviously heard of Bear Weather. But Cubs president Jed Hoyer wants to make sure you’ve also heard of Cub Weather.

At his year-end press conference on Tuesday, Hoyer said a lot of words. Many of those words we’d heard before. “Disappointing” this and “outplaying the projections” that. Sure. But one of the more interesting points of the presser came when Hoyer blamed… climate change?

As expected, the offense was a point of emphasis throughout the discussion on Tuesday. Within that, Hoyer pointed out the weather putting hitters at Wrigley at a disadvantage over the course of the year.

“It was really difficult to assess," Hoyer said of the offense, "when you think about how Wrigley Field played this year. Last year, Wrigley was the seventh-best offensive park in baseball. This year it was 29th, and after last weekend it might be 30th.”

More specifically, Hoyer was referencing the wind blowing in at a much higher frequency than we’ve come to expect when the Cubs take the field on the North Side.

On the surface, it’s a frustrating explanation for what was a questionably constructed lineup to begin with. At the same time, it’s also not an entirely unreasonable framing of the team’s woes on that side of the ball. In terms of wRC+, the Cubs were 24th while playing at home (94). They ranked 25th in home runs (78) and 27th in ISO (.142). On the road, however, they went for a wRC+ of 108 that was tied for fifth-best. They ranked 12th in homers (92) and 10th in ISO (.159). 

Interestingly, some of the outcomes you wouldn’t expect to be impacted by the weather are also fairly stark in the home/road splits for the Cubs. They struck out at a rate tied for 11th-highest (23.3 percent) and were dead last in Hard Hit% while at Wrigley (27.0). When you flip to the road splits, the K% fell to 21.4 (9th best), and the Hard Hit% bumped up to 31.8 (also 9th). 

Regardless of what those figures ultimately look like, how much merit is behind what Hoyer had to say about the weather being such a looming factor in the Cubs’ offensive woes this year?

In terms of the ways in which the wind manifested, Hoyer appeared to be spot on with the team spending more time with it blowing in. Wrigley featured 3,227 plate appearances under those circumstances in the 2024 season. That’s up nearly 300 from the previous year and up about 1,000 from 2021. Conversely, only 1,155 plate appearances occurred with the wind blowing out this season. That’s down roughly 800 and 600 from each of the two prior seasons, respectively. Of note, crosswinds also experienced an increase, but there’s been year-to-year variance there, anyway.

Baseball Savant’s Park Factor doesn’t paint a pretty picture for 2024 Wrigley Field, either. In 2023, Wrigley had a home run factor of 105 (100 is average, higher means more), and a 102 in runs. That indicates an above-average observance in each category. This year, however, it was at 85 and 91 in the two categories, respectively, which is not only a massive dip from the prior year, but one that indicates Wrigley as a suffocating offensive environment. The overall Park Factor checked in at 97 for the season, which was the fourth-lowest mark in the sport, ahead of only San Diego and Tampa Bay (tied at 96) and Seattle (91). 

Hoyer certainly wasn’t wrong in his analysis. It seems worth pointing out, though, that while the Cubs were at a disadvantage in their home setting, they weren’t super able to take advantage of those sparse occasions where the wind was blowing out. They experienced quality of contact decreases reflected in their average exit velocity and Barrel%, while posting a massively lower xwOBA; that latter figure was at .325 in 2023 before dropping to .281 in ’24. 

As with almost anything in this life, this is far from a black-and-white concept. Yes, Jed Hoyer is accurate in his line of thinking that the weather had an impact on the Cubs’ ability to produce on the offensive side of the ball this year. The conditions flipped in a very stark manner that left Wrigley Field as one of the worst offensive environments in Major League Baseball. 

But the volume of blame we can assign to the weather for the Cubs' lack of run production remains to be seen--especially given their decrease in success when the wind conditions were actually working for them, as well as the team’s struggles at home in areas that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the weather. The important thing to note about the complexity of the weather conundrum is that, as much as the weather is a factor, it doesn’t excuse the Cubs from making a run at improving the offense this winter. Because it’s not solely on the wind.

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