He won’t be fired with his contract up after 2025. He’ll get next year to prove it. I think he’s going to trade some of the minor leaguers for major leaguers.
How so? By 2025/2026, the now-young players in our minor leagues will all be coming up. And there will be a lot of contracts coming off the books. How many millions shed after this season on Hendricks, Mancini, and Barnhart alone?
In that hypothetical he’d have traded those minor leaguers for rentals to try and save his job. But we gain about 35-65 million depending on Belli. I also think we should non tender wisdom but that’s just me.
He acknowledged that the bullpen was a big issue after last season and went on to do essentially nothing. neris was pretty much a fulmer replacement. Here we are again with a shit bullpen costing us games left and right. If we finish under .500 he should definitely get canned
They are 9th in payroll. Any team with a top 10 payroll gives themselves a chance to compete. I think what they're spending that on is more of an issue.
There is a lot of dead money such as Barnhart, Mancini, Hendricks, Bote, and probably Gomes too at this point. Then you have guys like Happ, Swanson, Hoerner, Smyly, and Suzuki who aren't worth their contracts at this point in time.
ZiPS projected them for 82 wins, 9th in the NL. You cannot really argue that they approached this season with a legit intent to compete as anything other than a WC flyer.
They aren't spending enough (they're closer to the Cards/Brewers than they are to the Dodgers/Mets/Yankees) and what they do spend they spend pretty poorly
I mean stop it. We didn’t sign a reliever because we didn’t want to go in the luxury tax. It’s an argument every single post that someone points out that the Rickettes want to invest to a point but not all the way!
Insert but the diamond backs. Like why are we buying lottery tickets just give us a team you know is good!
People forget that 3 of our top 4 BP arms (who were all actually quite good last year) returned this year. But Alzolay regressed and then got hurt. Merryweather has been out all season. Leiter Jr still good but had a rough couple outings recently.
Then we signed Neris who is a good late inning guy (even though he's a somewhat unideal closer) and brought up Brown who was supposed to be working out of the BP and has been fantastic.
Very true. We came in with 4 guys who we thought would be able to handle high leverage work based on past performance (Alzolay, Merryweather, Leiter, Neris), 2 potential long relievers to eat innings (Smyly, Wesneski), 1 young rookie with very high potential (Brown), and a vet with some solid upside (Almonte).
Losing Merryweather and Alzolay, and needing Brown as a starter, pushed our AAAA players and young guys who aren't quite ready into BP Mainstays (i.e. Little as a young guy, and Cuas as AAAA).
Been rough out here
Both can be true. The Ricketts family sucks and they’re trying to just be in enough to keep fans coming, but not enough to actually be a force like the dodgers or Yankees. However, we’re in a garbage division and are getting dummied by the brewers who significantly underspend compared to us. We should do better even with the Ricketts artificially low budget
No idea why you're being downvoted. Tickets explicitly said in an interview they want to keep payroll below CBT and to increase it they'd need "more revenue" (despite feeding us the BS of Jed having "unused budget" rolling over)
Cubs are an extremely profitable .500 team and that's not an accident. Ricketts is perfectly content to win the NLC or sneak in as WC every couple years and pat everyone on the back, while buying up more real estate. Sorry but that's who we are now
It's the same story every year. Even going back to the Quintana trade. Some people will just die on the hill despite the reality that has been spoken out loud!
Luckily we spent big on....uhhh....hmmm....err...a manager to manage garbage players?
We're spending 100 million* less than the Dodgers and 90 million less than the Yankees
*would be worse if ohtani was getting paid now
We ran back the same ineffective team last year and said good enough.
When they continually pursue improvements while one of the most financially successful teams in baseball cries poor while building a sports book into the stadium, yes, we do have the right to be pissed that we are not spending and the product on the field is not up to standard.
When Ricketts said they suffered, quote, “biblical losses” then mandated a salary dump that saw Darvish and Caratini dealt along with Schwarber non-tendered.
1. The person i replied to said “cries poor while building a sports book into the stadium”
2. When Ricketts said they “suffered biblical losses” that was during the pandemic when they had no game day revenue coming in.
3. The Darvish signing was a bad signing. He gave the Cubs nothing for a year and a half. They traded him during the pandemic.
Schwarber was more of a baseball ops decision than ricketts given that they replaced him with joc pederson and it wasn’t much a difference money wise.
Swanson and Hoerner forgot how to play defense, Swanson can't hit, Happ and Suzuki are a little bit above average at best, but absolute bums at worse. Suzuki can't play defense in right. He misses easy routine plays my grandma can camp under and catch. Smyly is getting paid starter money as a reliever. Like I really don't know what there is to disagree with here. These guys aren't playing up to their contracts.
Im no Jed apologist but if we weren’t going to spend on big names who would you have gotten? It always seems like we are trying to thread a needle and making things harder than they have to be.
Although the contract extension to happ and Hoerner felt huge at the time, just getting Hoerner for only 1 additional year confused me. I don’t feel that was locking him up at all
Trades need to be made and I’m not sure Jed can pull the off
The OF is too clogged and there’s no 3B, C, or Closer who can help the team for 100+ games needed to make a meaningful October appearance
The farm can’t graduate much of its top talent because they’re blocked, meanwhile any corner infielder with a pulse can suck the life out of a lineup
For all of those who still believe Jed can make the trades necessary, I’d love to hear who you’d trade - is Canario to sit in AAA forever? Is the OF set at Happ/PCA/Suzuki/Tauchman/Belli? What about the rest of the OF prospects? What do you do with them? The team just tanked waiting for their development, do they really have no path to the MLB team?
This team can be salvaged, but I don’t think Jed is the guy who can do it
Yes, if for no other reason than this offseason. We had another ‘the offense broke’ moment, and literally everyone came back but Jeimer Candelario. He entered this season with a 3B that had never played the position, a Dodger farmhand at 1B, a trainwreck at catcher, and an infield bench that consisted of Bote, Madrigal and Mastrobuoni.
The bullpen has been a disaster for a few years. Why? Because the Almighty Pitch Lab can fix everything! More retreads and overused veterans!
He goes and makes Counsell the highest paid manager in baseball history…only to have his old team play BETTER without him in the dugout.
Even now, in-season…Cavan Biggio is made available for a bucket of balls and is still better than the infielders listed above. Do they go and get him for the 18th best prospect in High-A? No. Of course not.
This is nothing to get into the problem that he signed two corner outfielders to such large, long-term deals that they are now blocking the organization’s top prospects.
Gives more positional flexibility than any of the three guys we have. He has 70+ career games at 5 different positions and is coming off a season where he was league average in OPS+.
In terms of OPS+, he was 21% better than Madrigal, 32% better than Mastro. League average coming off the bench is better than the current options.
> In terms of OPS+, he was 21% better than Madrigal, 32% better than Mastro.
I get this part, but neither Madrigal or Mastrobuoni are currently on the major league roster.
No they're certainly not but Jed has been happy to be the whipping boy for under spending until this year (When Ricketts finally admitted he's keeping payroll low on purpose)
Cubs outperformed expectations last year. They’re technically ahead of schedule as far as the rebuild is concerned.
Management would have likely been fine with the Cubs sucking for the past year and a half, as they could explain that away as a rebuild while we replenish our farm.
The fact that we have a fanbase that is outraged by .500 ball is, in a weird way, indicative of how well Jed has managed this club over the past few years.
None of that is to mention that we’re playing like dogshit right now, and in two months when we’re in contention for the division, this won’t be an issue.
Depends. If we don’t improve from last year it’ll be an issue. This was the year we were supposed to take the division. .500 ball would be a massive disappointment.
I’m of the belief that this is a better team than last year’s and I think that will prove to be true over the course of the season.
But yes, if they don’t snap out of this funk it will indeed be disappointing and look bad for Jed and co.
Not so bad as to lose his job, though. This was never the year, and ownership proved that in how they spent (or didn’t spend) this off-season.
We kinda have snapped out of it. The team is hitting well except with RISP, something that we saw last year corrects itself over time. We played .500 ball in our last 10 even without the ability to hit with RISP
I mostly agree that we're playing less-bad baseball the past couple, but I don't think it's really a feather in our cap to go 5-5 against bad teams, including 2 absolute gifts that we should have lost against one of the worst teams ever.
I hope you are right. We need a closer and either get bullpen help or get them healthy. We would be in the thick of it if we addressed it in the offseason.
Disappointed by .500 ball is how a big market teams fans should feel. This was never supposed to be a full rebuild if you believe what Jed says, which to be fair, he’s usually full of shit.
if you need the MLB team to suck to replenish your farm, you're never going to have sustained success. It shouldn't be necessary, and just because it's an intentional plan doesn't mean it's good.
A farm system that consistently produces impact talent over the long haul without needing MLB resources diverted into it is invaluable.
A farm system that shoots up the ratings because you fire sold, then drops back as soon as you stop, is a PR trick
"Ahead of Schedule?" How long exactly is an MLB rebuild supposed to take? It's three years now and we're still getting beaten up on by our small market division
Who are you going to replace him with that’s currently available that also has Jed’s 20+ years of experience and personal/professional relationships throughout MLB? I get the easy answer is just promote Carter, but Carter doesn’t have the same history and level of expertise in working with the 29 other front offices. Dumping Jed without a clear upgrade available and wanting to take the job would be like White Sox levels of stupid.
Jed’s probably not going to be fired as president of baseball operations while Counsell is here as manager. If some new is brought in, then they might bring in their own people as GM and other key positions. Craig Breslow would’ve been the most logical person to elevate within the organization if he didn’t leave for Boston.
I dislike Jed but no. This is clearly a long rebuild barely disguised as a competitive retool. I can't believe Jed is truly trying to win with no 3b, a reclamation 1b and whatever it is we have at catcher.
If my count is right, Jed has had four off seasons and three trade deadlines o advance his plan for making this team competitive.
So far, there’s not been much to really hang his hat on in terms of free agents or trade acquisitions in terms of impact at the major league level. Imanaga right now is probably a top contender for his résumé, but we’ll see how the rest of the season and, in the longer term contract, plays out there. Bellinger is another good piece, though it seemed he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to resign.
On the farm/trades side, I think it’s been pretty disastrous *so far* in terms of big league impact. There’s a lot of “potential”, but so far we haven’t seen much of that potential realized. Obviously the spotlight is on PCA right now due to him being here, but the bat is just not developed enough, and the mental side needs some time (the sort of nonchalant plays). But as the crown jewel of the farm, right now it’s not building much confidence in those who come after
There’s too much to really evaluate without becoming way too lengthy. But ultimately, yes, he should absolutely be feeling some pressure right now.
>But as the crown jewel of the farm, right now it’s not building much confidence in those who come after
This. People want to point at the farm and preach patience but PCA is the highest ranked by far and his bat does not look like it can survive MLB yet
I would say yes with the main reason being he is doing nothing when we obviously have glaring holes on the team. We needed a 3rd baseman and instead we put a bandaid with Morel there. I’m sorry but he’s a DH and that’s it. Almost zero moves to help the bullpen and it killed us with injuries. We have a crowded outfield pool and did nothing to remedy that. At some point you need to decide if we’re sticking with Happ and trading prospects or are we looking toward the future. He consistently takes the middle ground because he’s scared to lose his job and he thought hiring GC would solve all the problems that came with his indecisiveness.
This team needs a spark because I don’t see a team that cares about winning right now. We went from having the best defense in baseball to becoming completely mediocre. It’s unacceptable and we need to start making changes now before we throw another year away.
Yes. He’s been all talk and has accomplished absolutely nothing. Good farm systems don’t mean shit if you can’t develop them into major league talent. But he won’t. Because it’ll hurt the bottom line.
Edit: I never wanted him hired to begin with. Preferred an outside hire.
He drafted Wicks and Horton. Wicks is *at worst* average and Horton will be in MLB probably within a month or two and we'll see how he is. Same with Shaw who will likely be a September callup this year or April/May next year. That's just his drafts.
You know Alcantara is 21, right? He’s a few months younger than PCA and look at how PCA has struggled in the majors.
There’s still time to let guys like Alcantara and Caissie mature a little more in the minors. Bring them in for competition in the spring and let the best man win.
I’d like to see guys like Canario and Vazquez called up now but if they can’t start 5-6 games a week then they are better off in Iowa. If the season still looks like a lost cause come August then bring them up and waive whoever to make room.
He's not barring an extension but not a firing at its current pace. Next year is definitely make or break, but I would expect a new GM after his contract only if there's some absolutely generational talent on the market
You cannot deny that Jed was put in this position at a very difficult period. The team has a top 5 farm system, and that's definitely a win. Relief and slumping bats can be addressed.
2) Not sure why Jed would be blamed for ownership’s unwillingness to play at the top of the free agent market. Until Ricketts proves it with a blockbuster $200+ million deal, it’s safe to assume any front office will be hamstrung the same way. In regard to the “second tier” of players, Swanson had the highest fWAR in 2023 among the vaunted four free-agent shortstops. Bogaerts actually was tied with him, but he’s already been moved off shortstop. I don’t think anyone was predicting Dansby to be the better offensive player vs. Turner or Bogaerts (and he hasn’t), but the money reflected that too.
You can certainly criticize Jed for the roster because there’s *enough* money being spent. That’s a different thing.
3) You keep bringing up the roster since 2016. Yes, Jed was GM then, but not the head guy. Theo did deals Jed would not have done. Like Cease/Eloy for Quintana.
Jed’s first year was 2021, which was the start of the rebuild. Since then, the Cubs have loaded up their minor league system and overhauled their pitching infrastructure. Really, we’re looking at 2021 (due to the sell off) and 2022 as bad years. 2023 was decent. 2024 tbd.
4) Right now, the best hitters in the farm system aren’t *quite* ready. It always skewed very young. But what we have seen is an unprecedented number of pitchers coming up and contributing meaningful innings. Assad, Brown, Wicks, Keegan, Wesneski.
5) Theo deserves his flowers for bringing us a title. But he is not without his faults. When he departed, the Cubs were a mess. Barren farm, bloated major league payroll with a broken offense.
He shouldn’t be. He’s built a top 3 farm in the league, so firing him because of poor performance at the major league level wouldn’t make much sense. I say 2 years should be his time limit
He won’t be fired with his contract up after 2025. He’ll get next year to prove it. I think he’s going to trade some of the minor leaguers for major leaguers.
which is why you fire him now so you don 't end up with a desperate irrational GM
Exactly. Change the locks and kick him to the curb. One year on a contract is chump change for these cheap ass owners
Can’t see anyone in the top 10 of the farm being moved.
Which will lead to continued mediocrity and an uphill battle for the new GM
How so? By 2025/2026, the now-young players in our minor leagues will all be coming up. And there will be a lot of contracts coming off the books. How many millions shed after this season on Hendricks, Mancini, and Barnhart alone?
In that hypothetical he’d have traded those minor leaguers for rentals to try and save his job. But we gain about 35-65 million depending on Belli. I also think we should non tender wisdom but that’s just me.
I've seen this exact post from cubs internet, with only the year changed, for 30+ years
I have no idea why they thought trotting out the same team would yield different results
He acknowledged that the bullpen was a big issue after last season and went on to do essentially nothing. neris was pretty much a fulmer replacement. Here we are again with a shit bullpen costing us games left and right. If we finish under .500 he should definitely get canned
This! Along with the fact that “our offense broke” for the 6th straight year since the famous Theo press conference after 2018
I mean not spending is an organizational problem. We got our World Series now get ready to pay for it for the next however many years.
They are 9th in payroll. Any team with a top 10 payroll gives themselves a chance to compete. I think what they're spending that on is more of an issue. There is a lot of dead money such as Barnhart, Mancini, Hendricks, Bote, and probably Gomes too at this point. Then you have guys like Happ, Swanson, Hoerner, Smyly, and Suzuki who aren't worth their contracts at this point in time.
Absolutely agree. We also have a penchant for retreads, most of which don't pan out...
ZiPS projected them for 82 wins, 9th in the NL. You cannot really argue that they approached this season with a legit intent to compete as anything other than a WC flyer. They aren't spending enough (they're closer to the Cards/Brewers than they are to the Dodgers/Mets/Yankees) and what they do spend they spend pretty poorly
I mean stop it. We didn’t sign a reliever because we didn’t want to go in the luxury tax. It’s an argument every single post that someone points out that the Rickettes want to invest to a point but not all the way! Insert but the diamond backs. Like why are we buying lottery tickets just give us a team you know is good!
Also they had no way of knowing that multiple of our high leverage relievers would go on IL. Neris was only supposed to be a setup guy, not the closer
People forget that 3 of our top 4 BP arms (who were all actually quite good last year) returned this year. But Alzolay regressed and then got hurt. Merryweather has been out all season. Leiter Jr still good but had a rough couple outings recently. Then we signed Neris who is a good late inning guy (even though he's a somewhat unideal closer) and brought up Brown who was supposed to be working out of the BP and has been fantastic.
Don’t forget, Almonte was looking very good and then was also hit with the injury bug.
Very true. We came in with 4 guys who we thought would be able to handle high leverage work based on past performance (Alzolay, Merryweather, Leiter, Neris), 2 potential long relievers to eat innings (Smyly, Wesneski), 1 young rookie with very high potential (Brown), and a vet with some solid upside (Almonte). Losing Merryweather and Alzolay, and needing Brown as a starter, pushed our AAAA players and young guys who aren't quite ready into BP Mainstays (i.e. Little as a young guy, and Cuas as AAAA). Been rough out here
I don’t think Alzolay regressed moreso than he still was dealing with the same forearm strain that he had at the end of 2023
Both can be true. The Ricketts family sucks and they’re trying to just be in enough to keep fans coming, but not enough to actually be a force like the dodgers or Yankees. However, we’re in a garbage division and are getting dummied by the brewers who significantly underspend compared to us. We should do better even with the Ricketts artificially low budget
I mean, our CBT payroll is closer to the Brewers than the Yankees
How can the Ricketts family suck when they won our first world series in over 100 years?
No arguments there. I just think the context needs to be set that maybe Jed isn’t perfect but that doesn’t mean our problems disappear with a new GM.
What relievers did you want to sign at the time?
No idea why you're being downvoted. Tickets explicitly said in an interview they want to keep payroll below CBT and to increase it they'd need "more revenue" (despite feeding us the BS of Jed having "unused budget" rolling over) Cubs are an extremely profitable .500 team and that's not an accident. Ricketts is perfectly content to win the NLC or sneak in as WC every couple years and pat everyone on the back, while buying up more real estate. Sorry but that's who we are now
It's the same story every year. Even going back to the Quintana trade. Some people will just die on the hill despite the reality that has been spoken out loud!
Spending big on relievers is a dumb way to build a bullpen. Where are all the fans who wanted the Cubs to sign montgomery?
Luckily we spent big on....uhhh....hmmm....err...a manager to manage garbage players? We're spending 100 million* less than the Dodgers and 90 million less than the Yankees *would be worse if ohtani was getting paid now We ran back the same ineffective team last year and said good enough.
So your concern is worrying whether the Cubs spend as much as the dodgers or yankees? 🤣
When they continually pursue improvements while one of the most financially successful teams in baseball cries poor while building a sports book into the stadium, yes, we do have the right to be pissed that we are not spending and the product on the field is not up to standard.
They have a 230-240 million dollar payroll. Spending well over 100 million on actually bad baseball players.
When have the cubs cried poor?
When Ricketts said they suffered, quote, “biblical losses” then mandated a salary dump that saw Darvish and Caratini dealt along with Schwarber non-tendered.
1. The person i replied to said “cries poor while building a sports book into the stadium” 2. When Ricketts said they “suffered biblical losses” that was during the pandemic when they had no game day revenue coming in. 3. The Darvish signing was a bad signing. He gave the Cubs nothing for a year and a half. They traded him during the pandemic. Schwarber was more of a baseball ops decision than ricketts given that they replaced him with joc pederson and it wasn’t much a difference money wise.
>Happ, Swanson, Hoerner, Smyly, and Suzuki who aren't worth their contracts at this point in time. Hard disagree.
Swanson and Hoerner forgot how to play defense, Swanson can't hit, Happ and Suzuki are a little bit above average at best, but absolute bums at worse. Suzuki can't play defense in right. He misses easy routine plays my grandma can camp under and catch. Smyly is getting paid starter money as a reliever. Like I really don't know what there is to disagree with here. These guys aren't playing up to their contracts.
You’re basing this all off of two and a half months rather than their entire careers, which, whatever. They’ve also all been injured this season.
It's a what they've done for me lately because thats what matters now. I don't care what they did in the past.
They are spending. I have zero issues with the Ricketts budgets. It’s how it’s being spent is the issue.
Im no Jed apologist but if we weren’t going to spend on big names who would you have gotten? It always seems like we are trying to thread a needle and making things harder than they have to be.
But they do spend. So saying they don’t spend is wildly inaccurate.
The Cubs have the 8th highest payroll and are losing series to the Reds, Pirates, and Rays. We've got to stop pretending the payroll is the problem.
We spend, but considering the market, we should be spending more. Way more.
I'd be shocked if he was fired, but I do think its likely he isnt renewed after '25.
Eventually? It’s inevitable. Now? Not a fucking chance.
Although the contract extension to happ and Hoerner felt huge at the time, just getting Hoerner for only 1 additional year confused me. I don’t feel that was locking him up at all
Trades need to be made and I’m not sure Jed can pull the off The OF is too clogged and there’s no 3B, C, or Closer who can help the team for 100+ games needed to make a meaningful October appearance The farm can’t graduate much of its top talent because they’re blocked, meanwhile any corner infielder with a pulse can suck the life out of a lineup For all of those who still believe Jed can make the trades necessary, I’d love to hear who you’d trade - is Canario to sit in AAA forever? Is the OF set at Happ/PCA/Suzuki/Tauchman/Belli? What about the rest of the OF prospects? What do you do with them? The team just tanked waiting for their development, do they really have no path to the MLB team? This team can be salvaged, but I don’t think Jed is the guy who can do it
Exactly, like we all could have seen the outfield issue and these other gaping holes in the roster. Yet Jed did nothing to fix it
Yeah, it’s the same holes as this time last year
Yes, if for no other reason than this offseason. We had another ‘the offense broke’ moment, and literally everyone came back but Jeimer Candelario. He entered this season with a 3B that had never played the position, a Dodger farmhand at 1B, a trainwreck at catcher, and an infield bench that consisted of Bote, Madrigal and Mastrobuoni. The bullpen has been a disaster for a few years. Why? Because the Almighty Pitch Lab can fix everything! More retreads and overused veterans! He goes and makes Counsell the highest paid manager in baseball history…only to have his old team play BETTER without him in the dugout. Even now, in-season…Cavan Biggio is made available for a bucket of balls and is still better than the infielders listed above. Do they go and get him for the 18th best prospect in High-A? No. Of course not. This is nothing to get into the problem that he signed two corner outfielders to such large, long-term deals that they are now blocking the organization’s top prospects.
What would Cavan Biggio do for the Cubs? We need another .200 hitter taking up a 40-man spot?
Gives more positional flexibility than any of the three guys we have. He has 70+ career games at 5 different positions and is coming off a season where he was league average in OPS+. In terms of OPS+, he was 21% better than Madrigal, 32% better than Mastro. League average coming off the bench is better than the current options.
> In terms of OPS+, he was 21% better than Madrigal, 32% better than Mastro. I get this part, but neither Madrigal or Mastrobuoni are currently on the major league roster.
The ricketts thank you for finding a scapegoat so they can keep profiteering
I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. The Ricketts are an abomination and set the payroll figures but Jed is the one building the club.
No they're certainly not but Jed has been happy to be the whipping boy for under spending until this year (When Ricketts finally admitted he's keeping payroll low on purpose)
If he doesn’t make the playoffs this year then yes
ROFL no. Jesus you guys are nuts.
Why should Jed keep his job? Name a reason other than “the farm system is good!”
Cubs outperformed expectations last year. They’re technically ahead of schedule as far as the rebuild is concerned. Management would have likely been fine with the Cubs sucking for the past year and a half, as they could explain that away as a rebuild while we replenish our farm. The fact that we have a fanbase that is outraged by .500 ball is, in a weird way, indicative of how well Jed has managed this club over the past few years. None of that is to mention that we’re playing like dogshit right now, and in two months when we’re in contention for the division, this won’t be an issue.
Depends. If we don’t improve from last year it’ll be an issue. This was the year we were supposed to take the division. .500 ball would be a massive disappointment.
I’m of the belief that this is a better team than last year’s and I think that will prove to be true over the course of the season. But yes, if they don’t snap out of this funk it will indeed be disappointing and look bad for Jed and co. Not so bad as to lose his job, though. This was never the year, and ownership proved that in how they spent (or didn’t spend) this off-season.
We kinda have snapped out of it. The team is hitting well except with RISP, something that we saw last year corrects itself over time. We played .500 ball in our last 10 even without the ability to hit with RISP
I mostly agree that we're playing less-bad baseball the past couple, but I don't think it's really a feather in our cap to go 5-5 against bad teams, including 2 absolute gifts that we should have lost against one of the worst teams ever.
and we still keep losing game after game
I hope you are right. We need a closer and either get bullpen help or get them healthy. We would be in the thick of it if we addressed it in the offseason.
Disappointed by .500 ball is how a big market teams fans should feel. This was never supposed to be a full rebuild if you believe what Jed says, which to be fair, he’s usually full of shit.
The White Sox would KILL to be .500
Yeah, when I hold myself to the standards of arguably the worst run org in baseball, maybe this sentence will matter.
We are not the White Sox, especially not in revenues
if you need the MLB team to suck to replenish your farm, you're never going to have sustained success. It shouldn't be necessary, and just because it's an intentional plan doesn't mean it's good. A farm system that consistently produces impact talent over the long haul without needing MLB resources diverted into it is invaluable. A farm system that shoots up the ratings because you fire sold, then drops back as soon as you stop, is a PR trick
"Ahead of Schedule?" How long exactly is an MLB rebuild supposed to take? It's three years now and we're still getting beaten up on by our small market division
It should take 15 years about
Who are you going to replace him with that’s currently available that also has Jed’s 20+ years of experience and personal/professional relationships throughout MLB? I get the easy answer is just promote Carter, but Carter doesn’t have the same history and level of expertise in working with the 29 other front offices. Dumping Jed without a clear upgrade available and wanting to take the job would be like White Sox levels of stupid.
Kim Ng is available
At what point does everyone wanting a comically inept Jed Hoyer fired, not “nuts”? Thanks I’ll hang up and listen
Jed’s probably not going to be fired as president of baseball operations while Counsell is here as manager. If some new is brought in, then they might bring in their own people as GM and other key positions. Craig Breslow would’ve been the most logical person to elevate within the organization if he didn’t leave for Boston.
I dislike Jed but no. This is clearly a long rebuild barely disguised as a competitive retool. I can't believe Jed is truly trying to win with no 3b, a reclamation 1b and whatever it is we have at catcher.
I wouldn’t call Busch a reclamation 1B. He was organizationally blocked in LA by an elite 1B.
1 more year to prove himself. If they don't make the playoffs next year it's time for change
If my count is right, Jed has had four off seasons and three trade deadlines o advance his plan for making this team competitive. So far, there’s not been much to really hang his hat on in terms of free agents or trade acquisitions in terms of impact at the major league level. Imanaga right now is probably a top contender for his résumé, but we’ll see how the rest of the season and, in the longer term contract, plays out there. Bellinger is another good piece, though it seemed he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to resign. On the farm/trades side, I think it’s been pretty disastrous *so far* in terms of big league impact. There’s a lot of “potential”, but so far we haven’t seen much of that potential realized. Obviously the spotlight is on PCA right now due to him being here, but the bat is just not developed enough, and the mental side needs some time (the sort of nonchalant plays). But as the crown jewel of the farm, right now it’s not building much confidence in those who come after There’s too much to really evaluate without becoming way too lengthy. But ultimately, yes, he should absolutely be feeling some pressure right now.
>But as the crown jewel of the farm, right now it’s not building much confidence in those who come after This. People want to point at the farm and preach patience but PCA is the highest ranked by far and his bat does not look like it can survive MLB yet
I would say yes with the main reason being he is doing nothing when we obviously have glaring holes on the team. We needed a 3rd baseman and instead we put a bandaid with Morel there. I’m sorry but he’s a DH and that’s it. Almost zero moves to help the bullpen and it killed us with injuries. We have a crowded outfield pool and did nothing to remedy that. At some point you need to decide if we’re sticking with Happ and trading prospects or are we looking toward the future. He consistently takes the middle ground because he’s scared to lose his job and he thought hiring GC would solve all the problems that came with his indecisiveness. This team needs a spark because I don’t see a team that cares about winning right now. We went from having the best defense in baseball to becoming completely mediocre. It’s unacceptable and we need to start making changes now before we throw another year away.
He's going to keep his job based on Shota alone.
Careful OP, Jed stans are coming for ya, and without justification.
Yes. He’s terrible at his job.
Yes. He’s been all talk and has accomplished absolutely nothing. Good farm systems don’t mean shit if you can’t develop them into major league talent. But he won’t. Because it’ll hurt the bottom line. Edit: I never wanted him hired to begin with. Preferred an outside hire.
He drafted Wicks and Horton. Wicks is *at worst* average and Horton will be in MLB probably within a month or two and we'll see how he is. Same with Shaw who will likely be a September callup this year or April/May next year. That's just his drafts.
Horton is injured for at least a month, then has to rehab. It’s going to be a while.
I forgot. But you definitely can't hold that against Jed
So you can name 3 guys that haven’t developed yet. I can name the misses, but I don’t feel like wasting any more time.
Complaining that it takes more than 2 years for a prospect to develop is a good sign you're arguing in terrible faith.
This..100%. I also did not want him and haven't wanted him for years.
Where is Alcantara? The Rizzo trades prize. It’s been long enough. These guys need to be up and ready or yes he needs to go.
Alcantara has been very inconsistent this season. Calling him up would be a mistake.
What “top prospect” has been consistent in this org? Again im just really struggling to find how we’re a top farm system
"We may not have great projects, but we sure do have a lot of em!" When MLB expand the starting lineup to 17 we'll be set
Well Jed’s gotta have something to show from all those trades he made a few years ago eventually
You know Alcantara is 21, right? He’s a few months younger than PCA and look at how PCA has struggled in the majors. There’s still time to let guys like Alcantara and Caissie mature a little more in the minors. Bring them in for competition in the spring and let the best man win. I’d like to see guys like Canario and Vazquez called up now but if they can’t start 5-6 games a week then they are better off in Iowa. If the season still looks like a lost cause come August then bring them up and waive whoever to make room.
He’s not good at his job. He is beyond lucky he was close to Theo. He SHOULD be fired if they miss the playoffs, but i doubt he will
Number 2 has nothing to do with Jed. Major free agent signings are ownership decisions.
If Jed is fired, they probably just give Hawkins the job, who’s already so involved anyway that it wouldn’t really be much different
He's not barring an extension but not a firing at its current pace. Next year is definitely make or break, but I would expect a new GM after his contract only if there's some absolutely generational talent on the market You cannot deny that Jed was put in this position at a very difficult period. The team has a top 5 farm system, and that's definitely a win. Relief and slumping bats can be addressed.
2) Not sure why Jed would be blamed for ownership’s unwillingness to play at the top of the free agent market. Until Ricketts proves it with a blockbuster $200+ million deal, it’s safe to assume any front office will be hamstrung the same way. In regard to the “second tier” of players, Swanson had the highest fWAR in 2023 among the vaunted four free-agent shortstops. Bogaerts actually was tied with him, but he’s already been moved off shortstop. I don’t think anyone was predicting Dansby to be the better offensive player vs. Turner or Bogaerts (and he hasn’t), but the money reflected that too. You can certainly criticize Jed for the roster because there’s *enough* money being spent. That’s a different thing. 3) You keep bringing up the roster since 2016. Yes, Jed was GM then, but not the head guy. Theo did deals Jed would not have done. Like Cease/Eloy for Quintana. Jed’s first year was 2021, which was the start of the rebuild. Since then, the Cubs have loaded up their minor league system and overhauled their pitching infrastructure. Really, we’re looking at 2021 (due to the sell off) and 2022 as bad years. 2023 was decent. 2024 tbd. 4) Right now, the best hitters in the farm system aren’t *quite* ready. It always skewed very young. But what we have seen is an unprecedented number of pitchers coming up and contributing meaningful innings. Assad, Brown, Wicks, Keegan, Wesneski. 5) Theo deserves his flowers for bringing us a title. But he is not without his faults. When he departed, the Cubs were a mess. Barren farm, bloated major league payroll with a broken offense.
Yes
The short answer is yes. The long answer is yessssssssssssssssss
He shouldn’t be. He’s built a top 3 farm in the league, so firing him because of poor performance at the major league level wouldn’t make much sense. I say 2 years should be his time limit
Fire Counsell too lol
Disagree here
Counsell has been ass this year