Cubs’ Coffin Probably Covered This Year After Jed Hoyer Dug Shallow Grave

For quite some time now, the Cubs have operated with a strategy of trying to thread the needle via intelligent spending. Those are tropes Jed Hoyer has rolled out time and time again as the front office engages in half measures meant to insulate against both budget overages and a lack of competitiveness. But that guarantees nothing from a competitive standpoint, a fact we’re seeing proven out in a painfully obvious manner this season.

By losing two of three for the second time in two series out of the break, the Cubs have all but assured they’re done competing this season. As if the losses themselves weren’t bad enough, the offense has been shut out twice and totaled just nine runs in six games. It’s nothing short of pathetic.

Craig Counsell was lured to Chicago by the largest contract ever given to an MLB manager and the hope was that he’d bring his Rumpelstiltskin act with him. The only problem is that his spinning wheel apparently stayed in Milwaukee, allowing Pat Murphy to produce gold from straw. The Brewers not only lost their manager, they traded away their ace and lost their No. 2 starter to shoulder surgery prior to the start of the season. Despite that, they’re winning at a .578 clip that would see them finish ahead of last year’s 92-70 record.

The Cubs, meanwhile, are 11 games out of the division lead with a .471 winning percentage that extrapolates to just 76 wins. Not exactly in the best position to be buyers. And they’re doing it with a luxury tax payroll somewhere in the $235 million range, putting them in MLB’s top 10. It’s bad enough that 22 teams have a better record, but it’s even worse when you consider that the Cubs’ $506 million revenue from last year ranked third in MLB.

how much money each MLB team made last year, and how much of that is going towards their payroll this year pic.twitter.com/yCeoc2fGP5

— BrooksGate (@Brooks_Gate) July 16, 2024

While it’s not as binary a relationship as many would like to make it, I think we can all agree that the Cubs should be higher than 17th when it comes to the percentage of revenue being spent on payroll. To that end, we should note that the figures being used above are somewhat erroneous because they don’t reflect actual cash being spent on player salaries. If they were, the Cubs’ $223 million outlay would represent an even smaller percentage of reported revenues.

Speaking of which, we don’t really know what the organization’s books look like because it’s a private company that holds various business interests in addition to its crown jewel of a baseball team. If only the baseball operations folks could yield the same kind of financial wizardry being produced by the accountants who can make billionaires’ windfalls look like biblical losses.

Instead, Jed Hoyer is the guy who sees a nice car commercial and, upon realizing the model in the ad is very pricey due to all manner of accouterments, opts for the base model with crank windows and cloth interior. Everything is fine when the weather is perfect and traffic is light, but you’re damned once you go up against nicer cars in less-than-ideal conditions.

The Cubs have spent money, about that there can be no argument. It’s just that Hoyer has tried so hard not to be profligate with the resources he’s been tasked to steward that he’s failed to produce the right results. Well, at least as far as fans are concerned. He’s like the servant in the Parable of the Talents who chose to bury his investment in the ground, only he may end up being rewarded rather than punished in this situation.

Here we are again with half measures, the latest iteration of which has seen the Cubs build a lauded farm system that isn’t quite ready to produce. But is that because those individual prospects aren’t prepared to succeed at the highest level or because the front office prefers to handle them with kid gloves? It’s hard to shake the sense that Hoyer is like a helicopter parent who isn’t ready to let his kids go out into the world on their own, hence the parade of veterans whose stake in the future is nominal at best.

Between the fear of calling guys up too early and an oft-stated aversion to long-term contracts — more on that in a bit — the Cubs have put themselves in an unenviable position with the roster.

“It’s a weird utilization of talent – unless the kids aren’t ready, which it seems like they’re not,” Matt Spiegel said Wednesday on his eponymous 670 The Score show with Danny Parkins. “And you built a bad team, Jed.”

Not only do the Cubs lack the talent to win right now, but they lack the kind of movable assets in Chicago that could net them impact players in return. Even if Jameson Taillon fetches a decent haul from a contender looking to fill out the rotation, it’s unlikely we’re talking about an immediate fixture in the lineup. And while Justin Steele‘s name keeps coming up, I can’t think of a stupider move for Hoyer to make than trading away a controllable ace when their competitive window is about to open.

I mean, it was supposed to have been open by now and really never should have closed in the first place. Now that they appear to be pretty firmly out of the race this season, Hoyer will have to do what he’s done best in Chicago and kick the can down the road.

“We probably won’t do a lot of moves that only help us for this year,” Hoyer told reporters earlier in the week. “If moves help us in ‘25 and beyond — I think we’re still exceptionally well-positioned — I think that’s where our focus will be. But just helping in ‘24, I think that probably won’t be our focus unless things change dramatically.”

The one thing I’ll offer in Hoyer’s favor here is that he is leaving the door open to buying at the trade deadline, as evidenced by the nod that they’re not focused on only helping this year. That means they could consider moving some of those vaunted prospects for controllable players who would be on the big league roster for at least two more years. Makes sense when you look at the players populating the top of the Cubs’ prospect rankings and start doing the math on where they’re going to play.

But when you get right down to it, the simple fact of the matter is that the Cubs need superstars. Whether it’s from the farm system or through free agency, and history has repeatedly shown us it’ll have to be the former, they need the kind of players who can serve as faces of the franchise. Dansby Swanson is being paid like a star, but his last year of production has shown him to be anything but.

Since the start of the second half of last year, the shortstop is slashing .220/.296/.379 with an 88 wRC+ over 632 plate appearances. That’s 12% worse than the average MLB hitter over a full season’s worth of production. And though he does have 21 homers in that stretch, his .159 ISO — a measure of raw power — is a tick below league average in that same span. Barring a turnaround over the remainder of this campaign and the next five to follow, the diminution of his output is making a value-based signing look quite costly.

This particular horse has long since been distributed to elementary schools in squeeze bottles of Elmer’s glue, but there’s a dude in Philly making just a skosh more than Swason annually and putting up monster numbers. He’s also one of the most recognizable faces in the game and is the kind of player who will draw others into his orbit. For what it’s worth, and this is something many have noted in the past, the Cubs will pay Swanson around $3 million more over the next five years than the Phillies will pay their anonymous star.

The thing about having superstars isn’t just that they put up big numbers, it’s that they serve as a buffer for those young guys coming up through the system. Think of them like shade trees that block the sun and heat from prospects who might not be fully equipped to handle them. So rather than meticulously waiting until you’re sure they’re ready, by which point you may have actually stunted their growth, you can call them up and be secure in the knowledge that they’ll be supported.

There’s also the matter of not having to rely on multiple prospects to reach their respective ceilings immediately and in succession. That happened in 2016 and the Cubs have been chasing the dragon ever since to no avail. Unless there’s a change in philosophy, whether it’s an internal shift or a more drastic adjustment to front office personnel. While I believe the latter is warranted at this point, I have to question whether the continued revenue boom will keep ownership from going in a new direction.

We may not find out about that until October, but the upcoming deadline will provide some sense of the team’s near-term plans.