Chicago Cubs: Jed Hoyer is to blame for this mess, per MLB insider

The Chicago Cubs have all but tanked this season. And while it’s still too early to definitively say that, with still over three-and-a-half months left of baseball to play, things are looking bleaker and bleaker by the day.

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Last night in Colorado against the Rockies, the Cubs were manhandled by the worst team in baseball in a 7-3 beating at Coors Field. The loss gives them a 7-21 record in their last 28 games and puts their record at just one game over .500—after being 15 games over that mark just about a month ago.

They’ve also fallen to fourth place in the NL Central Division.

This is most definitely not the team most had envisioned at the start of spring training, when expectations were boldly high and even some World Series chatter began to swirl.

Everybody following the team knows why the Cubs have fallen—lackluster and wildly inconsistent hitting and the physical collapse, en masse, of the starting pitching. The question, though, is who’s to blame for this ugly turn of events.

Blame Jed Hoyer

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MLB insider Jesse Rogers, in an appearance on ESPN Chicago, points the finger squarely at Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer.

“For once, I think we can all kind of agree…this isn’t on ownership,” Rogers asserted. “Tom Ricketts approved enough payroll this year to win in the NL Central…There’s enough blame to go around…But if you are really forcing me to choose…Jed chose Alex Bregman…with a Gold Glove candidate at third base, who was one of their better hitters in the second half. He chose to spend the money on Alex Bregman. Now, the Bregman story is not written yet, but you can’t take back the first two months and, in his words, how much he’s contributed to their struggles…

He chose Alex Bregman. He sat Matt Shaw. He chose the pitchers in the draft who have gotten hurt again in Cade Horton and Justin Steele, both of whom had injuries before they came to the Cubs. He chose a more undersized team. The decisions Jed Hoyer made, to me, have led them to this point more than anything else.”

Rogers’ assertions are all true, as is his statement that there’s enough blame to go around.

Ultimately, players have to execute and coaches have to lead. But at the root of it all, only so much can be done with the team placed on the field. And, obviously, this particular Cubs team has shown enough cracks and misfires to indicate that they weren’t destined for great things.

What if?

There are a lot of “what ifs” now as this team freefalls. What if Hoyer had spent the Bregman money on an ace-level starting pitcher? What if he had not offered Shota Imanaga a $22 million qualifying offer? What if the Bregman and Imanaga money had been, instead, allocated for use on Dylan Cease and Nick Martinez, for example, who have been ace-level workhorses for their respective teams, with sub-3.00 ERAs?

The Cubs would’ve still lost Cade Horton to injury and would still be waiting on a Justin Steele recovery, but their rotation core would be healthy and sturdy not frail and failing.

And, really, it’s pretty likely at this point that the Cubs would’ve been just fine without Bregman and would be getting the same, or better, offensive and defensive production from Shaw at third.

Hoyer has been criticized before for an unwillingness to spend on premium pitching, but this year’s collapse shines a bright spotlight on that apparent fatal flaw.

At this point, though, all the Cubs can do is hope for a mass team turnaround and that a lot of the roster holes begin to fill themselves, while falling back on the Cubs perpetual mantra of “Wait ‘til next year.”

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Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-jed-hoyer-blame-2026-mess/