Jed Hoyer’s Job Just Got a Helluva Lot More Difficult
The Cubs were already facing an uphill climb over the remainder of the season with Cade Horton done for the season, Jameson Taillon out for the rest of the first half, and Justin Steele only now getting back to throwing a baseball. Even with Matthew Boyd coming off the IL for Thursday’s start and Javier Assad pitching well as a fill-in, their bucket brigade is barely doing enough to keep water out of a slowly sinking ship.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries, and we’ve had to have guys step up,” Hoyer told 104.3 The Score’s Mully & Haugh on Tuesday morning. “Yes, external rotation additions are a possibility, not as much now as they are later. But that part of our team struggling, honestly, is kind of logical given what we’re missing.
“There are some guys that have stepped up, but we’re going to need more of that. Even if the offense starts clicking, we’re going to need more consistency out of that group.”
One of those pitchers who needed to provide more consistency was Edward Cabrera, who worked around a fair bit of traffic to limit the Mets to two runs over five innings. Then he busted his butt over to first to record the last out of the 5th, doing the splits and suffering a hamstring strain that led to him being carted off the field. Despite the fact that a significant number of misguided souls believe that wasn’t a big loss, it looms even larger with Wednesday’s news.
Prior to the first game of their split doubleheader with the Mets, the Cubs announced that Ben Brown has been placed on the IL with a neck strain. Whether this is related to the osteoma/stress reaction that shelved him for most of 2024 isn’t yet known, nor is the timeline for his return, but the possible correlation is hard to dismiss. So is the Cubs’ growing desperation
Hoyer had already been devoting much of his time to the search for pitching depth, as evidenced by the carousel of back-end relievers. Internal options have already been depleted by injuries throughout the organization, with Triple-A Iowa’s rotation sailing through even more dire straits than the big club. And contrary to the belief of many non-ball-knowers, there isn’t exactly a treasure trove of viable starters just waiting to be called upon.
“The major moves and significant transactions that people would talk about are much more likely to happen post All-Star Break or even closer to the deadline,” Hoyer explained.
The Cubs are still believed to be in the market for top-end arms, particularly those under control beyond this year, but what had been precious little leverage just 24 hours ago has vanished like a fart in the wind. Jeff Passan listed the Cubs among the best fits for Joe Ryan, Reid Detmers, Jose Siriano, Aroldis Chapman, Sandy Alcantara, Freddy Peralta, Sonny Gray, Casey Mize, Michael Wacha, and Seth Lugo, but he also listed Seiya Suzuki and Matt Shaw among his top trade candidates.
While it’s possible to buy and sell at the same time, doing so isn’t exactly the mark of a contender. At least not this season. That leaves a man whose entire tenure as an executive has been predicated on trying to thread the needle scrambling to find another spool after so many others have fallen over and rolled under the cabinet. This is exactly what Hoyer is being paid handsomely to do, but nearly everything is stacked against him at this point.
The front office’s best bet might just be to stand pat and pray for a reversal of fortune that will see everything break their way from here on out.
