PHILADELPHIA — The manager has said it, the players have echoed his thoughts and now the team president has agreed: The Chicago Cubs aren’t where they need to be.
Last week Craig Counsell made pointed remarks about the big gap between the Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers — just look at the standings — and suggested the goal needs to be building a 90-win team. Some felt the comments put Jed Hoyer on notice. In reality, they were just a recognition of the truth.
“When I saw his comments, listen, the standings don’t lie,” Hoyer told a small group of Chicago media members in the visitors dugout before the Cubs’ 6-2 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. “You are what you are. There’s a big gap in the standings.”
The Cubs entered Monday nine games back in their division behind Counsell’s old team. They’re seven games back of a wild-card spot. Their playoff hopes were extinguished Saturday with a full week of games to go. They’re chasing a group of teams that will likely finish the season with 90 or more wins.
“All of us, from me on down, we have to look at what we need to do this offseason, and going forward, to get to that place consistently,” Hoyer said. “It’s not about doing it once; it’s about getting to a place where we feel like we can do it consistently.”
Fans should like hearing that. But they should also pay attention to what Hoyer says. He’s not suddenly changing his tune. His goal has always been to have a team that wins 90-plus games. But he’s not interested in doing it for just one season or a quick burst of a few seasons. There is no quick fix. Not for what Hoyer and company want to do.
Expecting them to act like the Phillies team that defeated them Monday would be folly. That isn’t how Hoyer has behaved, and it isn’t how ownership wants him to behave. The Phillies have a luxury tax payroll nearly $30 million above the Cubs’.
But it’s less so the money for 2024 and more so the fact they have numerous players on big deals locked in for years — nearly $125 million is committed to four players in 2027. That would be the type of inefficient behavior teams like the Cubs cringe at. It has also led their fans to enjoy what will now be a third straight appearance in the playoffs.
It’s possible to do both — spend big and build a consistent winner — of course. The Los Angeles Dodgers do it. So do the New York Yankees. The New York Mets are trying to enter that echelon as well. But the spending debate is one ownership will have to answer to. Hoyer is doing what he can with what he’s given. Whether he’s allocating his resources properly is all that matters.
“When we talk about the gap, we’ve come a long way, and I feel really good about the position we’re in,” Hoyer said. “But there’s still a gap. That last stretch, that’s what we have to make up. I feel like we’ve come a long way, but we have a lot of room to get to those 90-win teams that we need to have. Last year, the wild card was fairly low. This year it looks like it’s going to be in the 90s. The goal has to be: How do we get in that range?”
Some might bristle at the idea that the Cubs have come a long way. But consider that this team was working from a major talent deficit after trading away the core in the summer of 2021. That type of shedding of quality production can’t easily be recouped. The Cubs had only a three-win jump from 2021 to 2022, but nine more wins to 83 in 2023 felt like progress.
This is why likely ending up in the same range this season feels so disappointing to many. The Cubs might have projected a similar win-loss record to where they’ll end up, but that’s the problem. Fans expect more. Apparently, so does everyone involved with the Cubs. So now their job is to get it done and deliver.
Hoyer has spent much of his time as president of baseball operations reshaping the front office. Many of his top lieutenants come from organizations that many around the league would love to emulate. General manager Carter Hawkins came from a wildly successful player development group in Cleveland. Assistant GM Ehsan Bokhari has a history with the Dodgers and Houston Astros, and new head of player development Jason Kanzler understands how the Astros built their behemoth.
It’s clear that Counsell, with a long background with the well-run Brewers, will be a big part of that process.
“He’s an incredible baseball mind,” Hoyer said. “He’s obviously seen an excellent organization up close and seen the things we can do. Part of bringing in a different perspective, a person from another organization, are those things. We’ve changed so much in the last three, four years in terms of how we run different departments, how we are doing things differently. But obviously there’s room to grow. We’d be crazy not to listen to things he says, wants and believes. You want every single good idea and every single angle. He can provide that.”
(Top photo of Jed Hoyer, right, with Craig Counsell: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
