Jed Hoyer Will Sink Cubs If He Repeats His 2025 Trade Deadline Performance

Let’s take ourselves back to October of 2025. The Chicago Cubs, facing a winner-take-all Game 5 against the Milwaukee Brewers, sent Drew Pomeranz to the mound to open the game. One swing from William Contreras later, and the Brewers led 1-0 before the first inning had even ended. 

Unfortunately, despite the poor result, Pomeranz was probably the best option that they had. Matthew Boyd couldn't be trusted after he failed to complete the first inning in a Game 1 loss. They couldn’t trust Shota Imanaga after he gave up four runs in less than three innings in Game 2. The cupboard was bare.

So after Pomeranz, they turned to Colin Rea. While he maintains his status as a decent and useful arm, Rea is not someone any team should be turning to in a tie game in the playoffs. He performed admirably before eventually giving up a home run to Andrew Vaughn to make it 2-1 Brewers, who went on to win the game 3-1. 

Running out of pitching in the final game of the NLDS is a precarious place to be, especially when you consider that the Los Angeles Dodgers were waiting on the other side of that Game 5. The root of the issue is traced all the way back to the trade deadline, when Jed Hoyer knew his team needed pitching, and all he came away with was Michael Soroka, Taylor Rogers, and Andrew Kittredge. 

Our @Jeremy Tecktiel recently revisited the 2025 deadline here, so we won’t get too in-depth in this piece. In case you’ve forgotten, though, let me jog your memory: the Cubs sorely needed pitchers to help out an offense that was one of the best in baseball. 

The Cubs then acquired the three guys above, and none of those guys made a huge impact. Soroka got hurt in his first start as a Cub, returning in time to give up three runs in one inning of postseason work. Rogers made little impact and threw just one, low-leverage postseason inning. And while Kittredge was key to beating the San Diego Padres in the Wild Card round, he only threw 2.2 innings. One impactful bullpen arm was not enough. 

You might argue that it’s hard to pin the Game 5 loss on the pitching, given that the offense only came through with one run that game. That’s fair, though I am here to say that Jed Hoyer never even gave the offense a chance. After Michael Busch got the Cubs off to an early 1-0 lead with a lead-off home run in Game 1, Boyd promptly surrendered six runs in the bottom half of the first. After Seiya Suzuki spotted the Cubs to a 3-0 lead in Game 2, Shota Imanaga immediately gave that lead back by allowing a three-run home run to Andrew Vaughn. 

The offense failed to come through, sure, but that offense was good enough to do damage in the playoffs. The fact of the matter is that they never had a chance to win the World Series, or even the Division Series, because of the pitching. And that is because Jed Hoyer failed to appropriately supplement his team at the trade deadline. 

Now here the Cubs sit in 2026 in the exact same situation. They have a top five offense by almost any measure. Their pitching, on the other hand, sports a 4.19 ERA, which is 15th in baseball. Frankly, that number is propped up by an elite defense. FIP, which is a stat that attempts to isolate what a pitcher can truly control, rates this Cubs staff as 25th in baseball. FanGraphs WAR rates them at 27th. Their strikeout rate, despite Hoyer constantly saying they were going to work hard to increase that in the offseason, is 22nd. 

The 2025 trade deadline was a failure. The 2026 trade deadline has to be better.

I am not saying that the Cubs need to go get Tarik Skubal. Even two mid-tier starting pitchers would help this team immensely, because right now, the North Siders probably only have two starters that should even be sniffing a postseason mound. Boyd is a good pitcher, but should probably be starting Game 3 or 4 of a playoff series, not the opener, as he likely would for the Cubs right now. Ditto for Imanaga, who gives up way too many home runs to be trusted in October (as we saw last year).

The options after that get bleak fast. Jameson Taillon has been worth -0.8 fWAR, one of the lowest figures in baseball. Colin Rea should not be on a postseason mound. David Peterson has been good in three of his four starts in a Cubs uniform, but in the other one, he gave up 10 runs. I wouldn’t guarantee that Edward Cabrera or Ben Brown will be making a huge impact here, either. 

What about the bullpen? Some guys have had some flashes, sure, but in July so far they have posted an unsightly 4.69 ERA. Who are we supposed to trust out of that group?

With this cobbled-together pitching staff, the Cubs still have an 87.1 percent chance to make the playoffs, and a 4.2 percent chance of winning the World Series, per FanGraphs’ playoff odds. Just imagine what they could do with a couple of extra competent pitchers on the staff?

Last season, Hoyer failed to go out and get those pitchers. Reportedly, the lockout scared him away, and those fears will be heightened this year. But this team won't go further than they did last year if fear controls the front office's thinking over the next week.

Should the Cubs move on from Jed Hoyer?

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