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For me, it's not a question of WHETHER Hoyer will be gone if he doesn't assemble a much more competitive roster for 2025.  It's that he SHOULD be gone.

For me, it's not a question of WHETHER Hoyer will be gone if he doesn't assembly a much more competitive roster for 2024.  It's that he SHOULD be gone.

But in practical terms that doesn't really matter, unfortunately.

Heh heh.  While the question of "should" is great, I think the "will he or won't he" question is more pragmatic. 

br and deeg, I respectfully disagree that 83wins-per-year is exactly what Ricketts wants and will keep Hoyer employed for a long time.  Given budget $50 beyond Cardinals and >$100 beyond other division teams, the budget-giver will expect some division championships soon enough. 

Not enough to risk bringing in a PBO who might push back on “organizational positioning”.

But what the Dodgers do isn't rocket science. They just pay what it costs to bring in the best players/future Hall of Famers when they're great fits for their roster. That's the main difference between the way the Dodgers and the Cubs are built.

Hoyer's decision making hasn't been smart enough because he artificially restricts himself from even considering difference-making players. He's just too scared of bad long-term contracts to effectively run a big market, high revenue team.

The Padres definitely didn't seem sad to let Hoyer go when Theo brought him to the Cubs.  They probably thought their organizational positioning would be a lot better without him.

They might be projected to be the favorite, or it might be the Brewers. Either way, it will almost be a coin flip, and they'll both be projected for about 83 wins.

And that's a choice the Cubs are making. They could still easily go into the season projected to be 5-8 wins better than the Brewers. But they're choosing to not even attempt to sign stars, and they're treating the luxury tax like it's a much bigger burden than it really is. So they're making the choice that 2025 will likely be another race to 85 wins.

I don’t think the Cubs are even going to scare the tax line next season. Seems very obvious the priority this offseason is to cut payroll.

Hoyer balances Theo’s aggressive tendencies.  Hoyer doesn’t have anyone that pushes back against his lack of aggression.

I don’t think it is fair to say Tom is happy missing the playoffs.  I’m sure he would much rather be in the playoffs than miss them.  Tom is happy with the way the team is constructed.  No big contracts, no long term deals that are likely going to require him spend more money to correct.

It doesn’t really matter if Hoyer stays or goes, he’s just going to get replaced by another guy that is looking to do the same thing.

I think the Cubs best hope for being good again is the young guys hit their ceilings and Hoyer/Hoyer 2.0 spends so money once the current rosters contracts expire.  If they aren’t going well over the luxury tax the next two years it is going to hard to fix what is wrong with this team.  The Cubs are going to need some serious over performances to beat the Brewers. 

Haven't we said we didn't want to mortgage the future for the present?

Like every issue, there is a spectrum of possibilities in the above question.

I would hate to see us trade away two or three top prospects for one year of Vlad.  But I had no problem with trading two good far-away prospects for one good near-term prospect.

Rosenthal on his Foul Territory podcast put the Cubs in a group that included the White Sox and Marlins that would benefit from new ownership.

He also named the Cubs ownership the John Fisher Dork of The Week for refusing to spend money.