Postseason play began Tuesday for the Major League Baseball teams playing into October. But only a couple of hours before the first game of the wild card round began, Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer was sitting down in the Wrigley Field interview room, discussing and assessing a disappointing 2024 season on the North Side.
The Cubs finished the year with an 83-79 record. That was good enough to leave them six games out of a National League wild card spot — and heck, six games back of the last team out — plus 10 games back of the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central.
As it stands, the Cubs have not made the postseason since 2020, and they haven’t won a playoff game since 2017. Hoyer will talk about the health of the organization and the confidence he has in the position the team is in for the future, and he’s not wrong in that.
But ultimately, this is a game that requires winning. They didn’t do enough of it in 2024. So now, while other teams are starting their postseasons and trying to live out their World Series dreams, the Cubs are instead headed home.
“The general sense of the organization is, I think everyone’s optimistic about our future,” Hoyer said. “I think we’ve put ourselves in terrific position, but I think everyone’s disappointed in the way the season played out. We showed at times — for long stretches — that we’re a really good team, but ultimately, it’s pretty binary.
“We’re not playing today. We’re having a press conference today, and I think that from [Cubs chairman] Tom [Ricketts] on down, there’s a level of disappointment in that. Of course, there’s frustration. I think there should be frustration when you fall short of a goal that you set a year ago.”
When asked if he could point to what went wrong for the Cubs this season, Hoyer brought up the two-month slide the team experienced between May and June. Across that time, the Cubs went 21-34, making up the majority of a slump that saw them fall from 17-9 on April 26 to 39-48 on July 3.
It was similar to when the Cubs fell to 10 games under .500 in early June 2023. Though they managed to work their way out of it and held a wild card spot in early September that year, they ran out of gas and missed the playoffs by a game.
This year, though they posted the NL’s fifth-best winning percentage from July 4 on (.587), the Cubs were never quite able to get their way back into playoff position. The teams ahead of them didn’t let them make up much ground, and they were eliminated from postseason contention with a week’s worth of games left to play.
“I think in baseball, you’re going to have ups and downs as part of the game, but that went on way too long, and we just dug ourselves a hole that was much too big,” Hoyer said. “And we did it collectively. Our offense wasn’t scoring. Our bullpen was struggling. It wasn’t just one factor. I think it was kind of multi-factor at that point.
“One of the hard things was I think we played really well in the second half, but the teams that we were chasing played a little better. We didn’t make up ground on the Mets. We didn’t make up ground on the Padres or Diamondbacks during that period. They played a little bit better. … Unfortunately, the teams that we were chasing didn’t falter. Credit to them. That’s why they’re playing today.”
As Hoyer said, it wasn’t just one area of the team that caused the Cubs to slump throughout May and June.
One big reason was the offense, which for weeks hit like one of bottom lineups in baseball (especially with runners in scoring position). Part of it, as Hoyer pointed out during his presser, was the weather at Wrigley Field. It felt like the wind blew in more often than normal, creating a rough environment for hitters.
That’s a valid point. According to Statcast’s ballpark factor, Wrigley was the second-toughest ballpark on offenses this season. The Cubs as a team recorded the fifth-fewest runs (319) and the seventh-lowest wRC+ (94) among MLB teams at home, but on the road, they scored the fourth-most runs (417) and the sixth-highest wRC+ (108).
That led to some home struggles, for sure, but considering the Cubs’ pitching staff posted the second-lowest ERA at home (3.08) and the eight-highest on the road (4.53), combined with the team’s 44-37 home record, it’s tough to determine how much it all truly impacted the team.
So, the focus has to be on building up the lineup as a hole, regardless of what the weather throws at them.
“We don’t know what the weather is going to do year to year,” Hoyer said. “We know that has a massive impact, but I just think building good teams, good solid teams that are well-rounded, is the best bet, because our ballpark is unique in the sense that there’s no one way it’s going to play year to year, or even day to day.”
There’s also the bullpen issues that contributed to the slump.
Early in the season, injuries and/or underperformance for expected contributors like Adbert Alzolay, Julian Merryweather, Yency Almonte and Héctor Neris led to the bullpen posting a a 4.32 ERA through the first three months of the season (10th-highest in baseball). Though the likes of rookie Porter Hodge, mid-season pickups Tyson Miller and Jorge López and deadline addition Nate Pearson helped right the ship and post a 3.24 over the final three months (sixth-lowest), the damage seemed to be done earlier in the year.
“Being self-critical, I feel like that’s something that I didn’t do a good job of last offseason,” Hoyer said. “When I look at our bullpen, I’m really proud of the work our whole staff did during the season. … But when Adbert struggled early, when Neris struggled early, when Julian got hurt, we didn’t have the depth at that point that we needed, and that’s something that I think we’ll certainly look to improve going forward, because I feel like that hurt us early.”
With their season now over, Hoyer and the rest of the front office will look for solutions to those problems. They’ll have to determine why things went so poorly for so long and how to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Of course, there are other parts of the organization to monitor. Hoyer noted changes to the coaching staff — including first-base coach Mike Napoli — and have parted ways with two major league strength and conditioning coaches (Keegan Knoll and Ryan Clausen). There’s also the question of whether or not Cody Bellinger opts of out his contract, thus offering the Cubs some payroll and roster flexibility.
There’s also the fact that Hoyer is entering the last year of his own contract.
The Cubs haven’t made the playoffs since he took over after 2020. That’s an obvious blemish on his resume. Though he said he doesn’t feel any added pressure and looks at 2025 “as an opportunity,” there does seem to be some sense of urgency to get this team back into the postseason.
But at this point, words are just words. Hoyer has to show he can make the right moves, take the right actions and put the right pieces in place to make sure he’s not sitting down for another press conference at this time a year from now.
“When I think about our season and where we are, I’m disappointed but optimistic,” Hoyer said. “I think anytime you set a goal for yourself and you fall short of that goal, there’s disappointment. I think from the top down this year, the expectation was to play in the playoffs, and we didn’t get there. And we have to be better to move beyond 83-79 two consecutive years. We need to be better to get beyond that.
“But I’m really excited about next year. I think we’re building from a really great foundation going forward, and we need to get back to the postseason for these fans. I think that’s what the fans deserve, and we’ll get there.”
