You know how you felt about this year’s Chicago Cubs.
They had a great offense, tops in many categories in Major League Baseball.
They had a great defense, leading MLB in almost every category
The pitching, yikes, it was pretty bad. I’ll have more to say tomorrow when I post my final 2026 Cubs pitcher grades.
Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer had his season-ending news conference Friday afternoon and basically echoed all those thoughts. The quote in the headline from Hoyer, I think, sums
up what every one of us felt about this year. He added, “Fans deserve playoff games. Fans deserved a long run and we let it slip away.”
Then Hoyer addressed the pitching staff. He noted that some of the issues this year were due to injuries, some to poor performance and some to “poor acquisitions,” which is a heck of a thing for a baseball executive to admit publicly. Props to Hoyer for acknowledging what all of us saw.
He noted that the team ranked 12th in the league in runs allowed, while noting that most of that is due to good defense, and so the quality of pitching has to improve. Hoyer noted what we all know: they’re going to have to look at “swing and miss,” as the team gave up far too many home runs this year. “You can’t catch homers.”, he quipped.
But he followed that by noting that Brewers pitching is “exceptionally good” and “We have to double down on that,” also noting the excellence of the Padres bullpen.
About the Cubs bullpen, Hoyer said: “I did a poor job on the bullpen this year, full stop.”
It was good to hear him say that. That’s a “the buck stops here” statement, no excuses. Now go do better for 2027.
Again, these are things that all of us have noticed all along. It’s a good thing that management understands this and has to take a hard look at what they’ve been doing pitching-wise. No one asked Hoyer about pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and the pitching infrastructure, but clearly that’s something that has to be re-evaluated.
He cited losing Cade Horton, Justin Steele and Ben Brown to injuries as one of the biggest issues of the year and said that the team has to also focus on pitcher health.
Hoyer was asked about Edward Cabrera. His response: “Cabrera is a really good big league pitcher, we have to look at ourselves, what did we not do to get the most out of him. He has talent and really cares.”
That’s all well and good, and yes, Cabrera has had success previously at the big-league level. If he can get back to that… well, that’s the job of the pitching infrastructure.
Regarding Clay Holmes and Kevin Gausman, Hoyer said they were not “optimized” going into the postseason. I suppose that’s why Holmes did not pitch, though Hoyer gave no details. Gausman, as you know, suffered a minor injury to his non-pitching shoulder in his last regular-season start. It’s not clear if that affected him in his Wild Card Series start.
Then the topic of free agency was broached. Here’s what Hoyer said:
“We have a lot of good players who are free agents and we are not going to be able to bring back all of them. We will talk to a lot of them, don’t know where that’s going to go. We will talk to them between now and December 1. But the team will look and feel different next year. If there are contracts that make sense regardless of the structure, we will make those deals regardless.”
That was followed up by a question about Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ and whether that door was closed. Hoyer’s response:
“Is that door closed? No, everything’s on the table. I’ll sit down with Happ in the next couple weeks. Homegrown player who has embraced what it is to be a Cub in a special way. I respect the way he plays baseball, the way he prepares to play. I have nothing but great thoughts about Ian.”
You’ll notice there were no comments made here about Suzuki. I’d really love to see him back. Hopefully the “everything’s on the table” remark applies to him as well.
Hoyer was reminded of the contract signed five years ago with Marcus Stroman and was asked whether something like that might happen this time. He noted that the period before the lockout will be “active,” and said, “If deals make sense they are going to get done. That might be a blueprint for how this goes again.”
About Craig Counsell, Hoyer said, “Craig had a great year, players love playing for him, we are incredibly well prepared. Craig sets a standard for that, handles the bullpen really well.”
I concur with that. Without Counsell’s handling of the bullpen the way he did, the Cubs might have lost several more games and missed the postseason completely.
He praisdAlex Bregman and said Bregman’s season is a “reminder of how long the season is, his eomeback is a testament to how strong a person he is” and added: “We felt his absence the last week. We had home field and gave it up.”
Hoyer’s conclusion, which I am sure you will agree with:
“There were a lot of exceptional things that happened this year, but we had a lot of injuries and a pitching staff that wasn’t as good as the hitting side, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”
It will be a busy offseason for the Cubs President of Baseball Operations, and he might have only two months to complete his task before the likely owners’ lockout hits. As always, we await developments.
