Jed Hoyer Feeling ‘Level of Anxiety’ Heading into Final Year of Contract
There’s not much more frightening than the unknown, and that’s exactly what Jed Hoyer is heading into as the fifth and final year of his contract to run baseball operations for the Cubs begins. Theo Epstein’s former understudy has held the reins for four years now, during which the Cubs have managed to lead a relatively weak division for all of 36 days. During that same time, a Pirates team that hasn’t signed a free agent to a multiyear deal since 2016 — Ivan Nova — has held a division lead for 46 days
Jed’s league.
While I don’t necessarily think the Cubs have to win 90+ games and make a postseason run for Hoyer to secure a new contract, they can’t just dog-paddle their way to another disappointing result. My big fear is that his operational pendulum will end up swinging from too conservative to damn-the-torpedoes as he looks to get splashy for a big year. As noted in an earlier piece, a play for Alex Bregman could see the Cubs paying a very hefty long-term price just to secure another rental.
At the same time, Hoyer should still have money left in the budget to add players whose cost-benefit balance is a little more in line with his past maneuvering. Or maybe he can’t do that, either because the savings from Cody Bellinger were never meant to be reallocated or because waiting this long means there are too few impact free agents remaining.
Regardless of how you slice it, you can imagine why the executive might be feeling a little antsy in the pantsies right about now.
“Does it feel different than it has in the past? A little bit,” Hoyer admitted during his media availability on Sunday. “I’ve been here for 14 years and sort of generally in my career, I haven’t had much uncertainty. And so I think with uncertainty does come a level of anxiety. I think that would be a lie to say that it doesn’t.”
Part of that feeling surely comes from knowing the Cubs are much better on paper than they have been in previous seasons of Hoyer’s tenure. There’s no reason to be fearful when you don’t plan on being very good, it’s when you’re picked to win the division after a pair of 83-win campaigns that things get tough. Add in the stress of having accidentally bumped into the luxury tax penalty and possibly having your hand slapped as a result, and even otherwise firm footing feels a little shaky.
“Has it caused some sort of like some introspection along the way?” Hoyer said of his nebulous future. “I think that’s fair to say, but when I look at it, we have a great front office, we have an incredible manager and a great coaching staff. I think we put together a really good team, we still have a really good farm system. I think every arrow is sort of pointing up in this organization right now.”
I agree that the arrows are pointing up, provided things go according to the projections the Cubs will still need to out-perform. But as Lance Brozdowski pointed out on Marquee recently, even a perfect run-differential prediction carries a six-game margin of error. That means a 90-win projection could swing anywhere from 84 to 96 depending on anything from injuries to weather to plain old bad luck.
If you perfectly predict run differential for a team in a season, there’s still error of ~6 wins. Credit: @brendan_cubs
Talked about it today on @WatchMarquee. A 90-win projection means you might land on 84 or 96.
Bregman, Cease, etc buffer against that error rate. Wheels up.… pic.twitter.com/V6r4OTriIt
— Lance Brozdowski (@LanceBroz) February 9, 2025
Adding better players makes you better able to survive the little hiccups that lead to swinging in the wrong direction, so now it’s a matter of finding out whether Hoyer has done enough to exceed expectations.
