Roster construction setting up for a scary-looking Cubs team |
The Cubs President of Baseball operation Jed Hoyer was in the broadcast booth a while back when the Cubs stormed back from down 7-0 and took a 9-7 lead in the third inning of a 14-9 win over the Seattle Mariners. When Hoyer first entered the booth, the Cubs were down 7-1 — staring down the tube of a letdown after an emotional walk-off win the evening before.
Hoyer constructed this roster to be very different from the rosters of 2018-2021 that disappointingly never won a playoff game — a roster that was supposed to turn the 2016 World Series Champs into a dynasty, not a flash-in-the-pan story of what could have been. What are the issues with those Cubs teams? A reliance on power, a lack of contact, poor defense, a high strikeout rate, and an absence of homegrown pitching. When Jed Hoyer took the realms from Theo Epstein in 2021, his goal seemed apparent to reverse those stigmas. Hoyer has made that a point in his roster moves. For starters, on the Cubs' active roster, they have five homegrown pitchers — far more than they ever boasted during their pro championship window. Plus, Hoyer has made it a priority to acquire prospects and develop pitching. In their system, almost half of their top 30 prospects are pitchers — which bodes well to sustain success in the homegrown pitching department. The staff is bottom-5 in the MLB in the early going-in runs allowed. On the offensive side, Hoyer made tough decisions to part with Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and Javier Baez, among others — and instead acquire contact-oriented players who do not strike out often. The result? In the early going, the Cubs are top-5 in the MLB in batting average and bottom-5 in the MLB in the number of strikeouts. The philosophy is to prevent runs with good pitching and defense and create runs without needed homers. The results have led the Cubs to a place in the early going where they have won three consecutive series and currently hold a playoff position if the season ends today, which is a great start. Flashback to the game against Seattle with Jed in the booth. He told the guys in the booth that we built this team to prevent runs, and he said, "We don't have the slug to come back into games and dig ourselves out of holes this deep." But while he was in the booth, the newly acquired Dansby Swanson led off the inning with a single. Two batters later, Trey Mancini launched his first home run as a Cub to cut the deficit to 7-3.
Then new Cub Cody Bellinger lined a base hit, Patrick Wisdom walked, and Eric Hosmer hit a single to drive in a run and make it a 7-4 game. Yan Gomes was the new batter, who beat out an infield single to load the bases.
Then came the memorable moment: Nelson Velazquez launched a grand slam to give the Cubs the lead, and the Wrigley Field crowd went while. The next batter was Nico Hoerner, who was hit by a pitch — he then stole second base and scored on another Swanson single to make it 9-7. The Cubs added two more in the fifth and three more in the sixth to win 14-9.
It was a powerful game for the mentality of this group. They know they're built to create runs without the long ball and prevent runs — heck, the team has seven Gold Glove award winners on the roster. But at the end of the day, that furious comeback illustrated to the Cubs that they are never out of a game — a dangerous mindset that brings back the comeback kids of 2016.
While run prevention is still the goal and has proven to be effective in the early going, Jed Hoyer still constructed this roster in a way that can pour on runs in a hurry. The Cubs have scored eight or more runs in a game four times in the first 14 games of the season — a feat they only accumulated 15 times in 162 games in 2022.
A team that can stop you from scoring and filling up the box score? That's a scary-looking team that Jed Hoyer has built.
