Are the Cubs Finished Making Moves? The Front Office Speaks ...Middle East

Good luck getting Cubs President Jed Hoyer or Cubs GM Carter Hawkins to firmly commit to anything about the roster at a press conference. But I understand that the questions have to be asked, and the information in response, however thin, has to be shared.

Having watched the full spring kick-off press conference with Hoyer and Hawkins (embedded below), here are the quick notes on anything transaction related:

The Cubs are always looking for additional opportunities to improve, but given the date and that camp has started, they are mostly focused on the group they have. Hoyer declined to get into anything budget-related, including whether there are additional financial resources available to add from here (though I’ll note that the Cubs are still around $30 million below the first tier of the luxury tax, and Tom Ricketts has said he anticipates the spending this year could be somewhere near the luxury tax). Hoyer said the Cubs were focused this offseason on optimizing the team within their budget. It was not specific and probably registered to me as more ominous than intended, but it was a reminder that the front office does not have unlimited funds AND has a budget line drawn somewhere that we don’t know exactly. I haven’t been particularly subtle about my tea-leaf-reading that this year’s budget is probably a good bit lower than last year’s, for whatever reason, but that’s only been my speculation based on what I’ve seen the Cubs do. Statements about “optimizing within the budget,” though, don’t exactly disabuse me of my concerns. As far as the biggest rumors go, it sounds like Hoyer and Hawkins don’t mind it insofar as this is an entertainment business and they appreciate how interested people are in the Cubs (and the fans just want to see the team get better). But it remains the case that sometimes rumors and reporting are so far removed from the actual reality behind the scenes, and the front office just has to focus on what is actually in front of them. Relatedly, Hoyer was pressed on Alex Bregman, specifically, and it was just a flat-out “not gonna talk about it.” Period. End of story. Stop asking. The goal every year is maximize every player performance, which, in turn, means you’ll outperform your team projections. (I note that here because it’s a philosophical thing for this front office: adding wins isn’t only about making external additions to the roster, it’s also about teasing out some extra performance internally. They really believe in that – and historically, that’s not wrong – and it probably impacts how aggressive they are, or are not, in a moment like this.) The Cubs will continue to make marginal transactions in the bullpen from here and throughout the year, to the extent they can do so in a way that improves the team. Did a whole lot of that last year, and it did show success in the second half. Speaking on pitchers and having enough to get through the season, Hoyer said there are probably guys who aren’t even in camp yet who’ll have a significant impact on the season. That’s less a specific statement about the Cubs still having targets out there and more just a reminder that it’s how it works every single year. Moves are continuous. Hoyer says the front office has autonomy on free agent deals, but when you’re talking about longer-term deals that go beyond the length of their tenure under contract, the conversations “don’t happen in a vacuum.” I take that to mean, duh, ownership is going to be involved at some level if you’re talking about significant long-term deals that might outlive the front office. On the whole, my gut-level takeaway is that, while I won’t expect any huge moves from here – I wasn’t anyway – I did not get the sense that these guys are definitely done. That is to say, I took it as genuine that they might still be looking for opportunities at the margins, at least, to get a late deal on another arm or on a bench guy. That type of thing, which we’ve seen them do in years past. The full intro press conference from the front office, if you missed it:

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Are the Cubs Finished Making Moves? The Front Office Speaks ...Middle East

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