Bleacher Bums Forum

He's only been a dork for a week?  Fooled me.

I would like to suggest a new thread titled something like "FIRE RICKETTS AND/OR HOYER." There are certainly enough posts to warrant a separate thread. A byproduct would be anyone who is interested in anything else related to the Cubs would be able to more easily find items not related to getting rid of Ricketts and/or Hoyer.

Hoyer's farm-based rebuild may be variably vindicated over the upcoming years.  But there are lots of other smart (and smarter) farmers, so approaching harvest time does not necessitate sticking with Hoyer as the man in charge.  Renteria got replaced when they were just about ready.  For the Bulls, Doug Collins got replaced when they were just about ready. 

I’m sorry.  I guess I though a national reporter calling out the Ricketts family nor spending money was actually kinda related to what to expect for the Cubs. 

FYI, my suggestion was not a response to your post, or any other single post.

So Hoyer isn't even going to talk to Juan Soto, but he'll flush $30 million down the toilet on a guy whose biggest workload in the last five years was 78 1/3 IP in 2021.

Maybe it'll work out better than other recent two year deals like those Hoyer gave to Trey Mancini, Tucker Barnhart, and Drew Smyly.

Over his 908-inning big-league career, 168 starts, only 14 relief appearances.  10 relief appearances with Seattle in 2022, a several at start of career, but other than Seattle he's been a starter.  However, hasn't had a lots-of-starts-lots-of-innings season since 2019.  (185 innings, 32 starts). 

Will be interesting to see what Hawkins, Hoyer, Counsell say about projected opportunity.  Planned into rotation?  Or maybe a bit Smyly-like?  Might start, might relieve, we'll see how the competition shakes out and let performance guide the usage?  Has pretty good splits versus lefties, career-wise, so might perhaps end up being a useful bullpen guy?  $14.5/year suggests more than bullpen plan, though. 

Career-wise, 4.85 ERA, not impressive.  Primary vulnerability has been the HR-ball, so seems kinda like the profile that Hoyer gravitates towards, other than Stroman he's usually trended towards strike-throwing gopher guys.  1.6HR/9 over career.  That's with lots of his career innings pitched for Detroit, which is not HR-inflation stadium.  Perhaps a hope is that with Wrigley as a power-suppression park, that HR's won't kill? 

Looking at career profiles, of course, is of mixed value.  With all of the modern pitch optimization, I have no idea what his pitch-mix profile looks like today versus in earlier years. 

Speaks to the pitching market that a 34-year-old pitcher like Boyd with 4.85 career ERA, 1.6HR/9, and no >15 game season in the last 5 years, that he's still getting $29/2. 

Lots of competition for FA pitchers, that's for sure. 

You guys will hate this, but I actually have interest in Jack Flaherty.  And kinda think he's got some of the profile that Hoyer gravitates towards.  He's on the younger end, 29 for a FA isn't bad.  He's >10K/9 career, and K/BB is 3.2, both good profiles.  Career WHIP <1.2.  I think Hoyer has tended to gravitate toward high-HR/low-walk profile with starters, and that's Flaherty.  (1.4HR/9, that's bad.).   But yeah, a strike-throwing guy in his 20's would seem interesting.  I admit part of that view is probably victim-of-former-thought perspective.  Back in 2018-19, I thought he was going to become a big star.  Kinda went down after that. 

He might be a guy who remembers wrigley from contending era, so might perhaps have some good vibes for the Wrigley experience, and what winning in Chicago might feel like? 

Obviously he's not viewed in the same level as Snell/Burnes/Fried.  But probably even Flaherty is too good for Hoyer?  Being 29, and coming off a pretty good season, this is his shot to get a secure long-term contract.  So he's probably in a spot where a 2- or 3-year deal with Hoyer makes no sense.  So, probably outside Hoyer's "intelligent-spending" anti-length model. 

Buehler might be more likely to take the short-term prove-it deal that Hoyer might prefer?