Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer met with the media to discuss the state of his club as the season enters its final month. I’ve embedded the full media hit via Marquee at the bottom of this post. Among the things that stood out to me …
“When the ball’s in play, we have the best chance of any team to catch it. We can’t do much if their balls are going in the seats.” That about sums up the home run issues for the Cubs’ pitching staff, which stings all the more because of how good the defense is. For most clubs, a home run is a home run and it stings every team equally, more or less. But with these Cubs, the ball in play that DOESN’T become a home run is incrementally less likely to hurt the Cubs than an average defensive team. So, then, the homers do – indirectly – hurt the Cubs more than other teams. The time of year is a factor when we’re talking about how to evaluate starting pitchers. For example, if Shota Imanaga was having this same stretch in May, Hoyer said, we might be more inclined to overlook things. But right now, this time of year, you’re paying more attention and you have to hope things get back on track quickly. Hoyer didn’t really say too much on Edward Cabrera other than hoping that he’s got the stuff for relief right now, and that the blister issues don’t come up. There was no hard commitment to him coming up to impact the big league team or anything like that. Cabrera had his first rehab outing last night. Similarly, Hoyer punted on Ben Brown’s situation, saying that they are still waiting to hear more about the neck setback. “He had a potential chance to really help us here down the stretch in various roles. So hopefully we get good news, but we also want to think about his career long-term, and hopefully he can get through this neck issue and get to a point where he can be a more durable pitcher, because I think we know the stuff and the talent are there.” Sure seems like that’s going to be that on Brown for this season, and all we’re waiting for is the final confirmation that he’s been shut down. As for Justin Steele, who is expected to pitch for Iowa tonight, Hoyer talked about the excitement in seeing him get back into competitive games for the first time since April of last year. But as it relates to the big league team, I took from his comments that they can’t be doing anything developmental or rehab-like or whatever. If Steele is in a place where he can come up and help the big league team, he will. If not, then it’s just going to be about him getting to a good place before the offseason. How it actually plays out, Hoyer said he’s open-minded. Hoyer framed the bullpen concerns as being relatively transient, which I suppose is not entirely unfair. Things might’ve looked different in our minds just a week ago (or at least so says Hoyer). The guys in the group need to “step up and perform the way they did the rest of the year.” True, I suppose, but Daniel Palencia hasn’t actually really performed well much of this year yet. And Ryan Zeferjahn had a month and a half of dominance and otherwise has been meh. And Caleb Thielbar has been plagued by homer problems all season long. Trent Thornton was getting results, but the peripherals were pretty scary for a long time. Ryan Rolison has been used heavily and has actually been kinda bad for two months now. If you’re viewing this through the lens of what it looks like in a short postseason series, I’m not so sure it’s fair to say you just want the bullpen to be like it’s been most of the year. The guys on whom the Cubs really need to rely have largely NOT been what the Cubs need them to be in October.Much more from Hoyer in the full hit:
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