The Cubs have agreed to a multi-year contract extension with president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, as first reported by Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic. Hoyer’s previous contract, which he signed when he took over from Theo Epstein as Chicago’s chief baseball decision maker after the 2020 season, would have expired at the end of the 2025 campaign.
The club underperformed in each of Hoyer’s first four seasons at the helm, failing to make the playoffs from 2021-24. Another disappointing season this year and he very well could have been out of a job. Yet, many of his offseason moves have worked wonders, with additions such as Kyle Tucker, Matthew Boyd, Carson Kelly, Caleb Thielbar, and Ryan Pressly complementing a strong core that Hoyer put together over the past few years. The Cubs enter play on Monday tied with the Brewers for the best record in the National League. Their +116 run differential is the best in baseball, and FanGraphs puts their odds of making the playoffs at 96.6%. It’s not hard to understand why the Cubs waited to extend Hoyer until it was clear he had built a strong contender, nor is it hard to understand why they didn’t want to wait any longer than to get a deal done. This team is primed to be a major buyer this week, and evidently, they didn’t want to go into such a pivotal trade deadline season with a lame duck executive in the driver’s seat.
More to come…
