‘We don’t have a lot of margin for error’: Q&A with Cubs president Jed Hoyer

PHOENIX — Every year, I go to Arizona for spring break with my family and follow a similar routine. We stay with my in-laws, eat at familiar places, take the same hikes, and I find joy in the trip. I also do a Q&A session with Cubs president Jed Hoyer pretty much every spring, starting in 2017 when he was the general manager of the defending World Series champions. We sat down this year on the final Sunday of spring training. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

So, how is it coming back from Japan to Arizona? What were you feeling on that plane ride home? And what’s it been like since you got back?

From a team-building standpoint, it was a great trip. From a life-experience standpoint, for all the guys it was a great trip. The Ricketts family did an amazing job with all of it and I think everyone felt a ton of gratitude. Coming back on the plane, I think everyone was disappointed. We just didn’t play well. There’s no other way around it. Obviously, (we were) playing a great team, but we just didn’t play good baseball and I think that was sort of the disappointment. But quickly you get back here, and now they have to get re-acclimated to being back and get your legs back underneath you. I’m glad I don’t have to go hit fastballs today. I think guys are still in the process, but by the time we get to Thursday, we should be OK.

You’ve got nine games on the road before you get back to Wrigley Field. People say it’s just two games here, three games there, but you want to get off to a good start. That’s important.

It’s always the conundrum of every game is important, they all count the same, but it’s a very long season. We have a really challenging April. There’s no way around it with the trip, the competition we’re playing, being on the West Coast twice … it’s a really hard April. I think it’s a good challenge for us early. We have got to meet that challenge.

After two 83-win seasons that were disappointments, do you classify this as a must-win season?

I wouldn’t classify the 2023 season as a disappointment. I don’t think we were expected to win 83 games, so I didn’t look at it like that. I look at the end of the season as a disappointment. We had 95% playoff odds at one point and we obviously collapsed down the stretch. That part was disappointing. I don’t think the overall season was. But last year, the fact that we didn’t show improvement was disappointing. I think we certainly have to show some improvement this season and I think we’re a much better team.

What makes you hopeful that this year is going to be different?

Well, I think that we’re deeper as a team. Last year, I felt like guys like Miguel Amaya and PCA (Pete Crow-Armstrong) in the second half played really well. I think some of our struggles early last year offensively were because of their youth, candidly. If those guys can take a step forward … obviously, we didn’t have a player like Kyle Tucker the last couple of years. We didn’t have anyone like that. And so hopefully he adds an element to our offense we haven’t had. And I think from an overall pitching staff standpoint, we have real depth. And I think that’s probably the area when I look at our team, besides the areas I mentioned, I do think that our overall depth on the 40-man roster, on the 26-man roster, is better than it has been.

What are the concerns then?

I think the concerns are always — how do I say this the right way — the National League is really challenging and when I look at our team, we have to play to our projections or better. … That’s always the concern. We have to stay healthy. We have to have guys outperform expectations. There are only a couple of teams out there that I feel like can sort of potentially be a little bit below projections and still make the playoffs. The Dodgers can have some things go wrong. I feel like for us, we don’t have a lot of margin for error. We need guys to improve, we need to stay healthy, we need to play clean baseball. I think that the way this team is built — we have a really good defensive team, we should run the bases well — we need to do all those things really well. We don’t have the ability to sort of muddle through and just show up and make the postseason. We have to have a really good season to do that.

That’s exactly what you said in this Q&A last year. “We need to perform probably at or a little bit better than our projections in order to have a really successful season,” and it just didn’t happen.

It didn’t. Last year was a strange season. I think you take April and then July, August and September and we played as expected. But there were a couple of months where we just were an awful offense, we played sloppy baseball, our bullpen struggled in May and June, and it dug us a hole we couldn’t get out of. And back to your point of five minutes ago, you look at our season, those games, they all matter. Last year, we put ourselves in a hole that we were not able to get out of despite the fact that we played really good baseball the last three months of the season. So yes, it’s a long season, but those things make a big difference.

I remember thinking last year after I talked to you the one thing I forgot to ask about was the bullpen. And that turned into the biggest differentiator of your season.

Well, we didn’t hit for two months, but yeah, no doubt our bullpen had real instability. We didn’t have enough depth back there and … we coughed up games we should have won.

How do you think you’ve addressed the bullpen so far this year?

I think we have more depth and we’ve tried to make a concerted effort to just keep adding good arms back there. The bullpen is the most volatile area of a team. Guys who had a good year last year will regress; guys who struggled last year will pitch well. And I think you always have to be mindful that there are only so many guys who you know exactly what you’re going to get in the bullpen.

You’ve been doing this for so long. How do you build a perfect bullpen? You want to have a mix of young cost-controlled guys, you want to have veterans, but you don’t want to overpay for players because that often blows up in your face.

It’s such an important part of your team, especially in modern baseball with the way that the way the game is played now. There was a long time when you sort of needed a closer, an eighth-inning guy and a lefty and you felt OK about it. And now teams have a parade of guys coming out throwing 97 miles an hour and starters don’t go as deep. I think the key is just constantly be vigilant trying to find good arms everywhere, whether in the draft and minor-league free agency or on waivers. You’re never pausing to find those guys because you know your bullpen is going to look different at the end of the year than it does at the beginning of the year.

You make that deal, Cam Smith for Kyle Tucker. Getting Tucker is a no-brainer. But it’s only for one year and you’ve lost Cam Smith. Are you reading the Cam Smith stories out of Houston spring training? There is some danger in that kind of trade, obviously. How do you feel now about making that deal?

Our guys did a great job with Cam Smith. Obviously, we liked him in the draft. He played great for us last year. He’s a really good young player. You’re not going to acquire a guy like Tucker — I don’t know where you rank him among hitters in baseball — without giving up real talent. When I look at our team, what we’ve lacked on the field for the last couple of years has been sort of like we’ve been talking about: Where do we find that kind of impact player? And he does everything. He plays defense, runs the bases, great offensive player. So obviously, when you make that kind of move, you’re going to have to give up real talent. And look, we drafted Cam, our guys thought really highly of him. He’s a really good player and we felt like we were in that window to make that kind of deal.

Yeah, but you’re only guaranteed one year. And he’s going to command a pretty big salary in free agency. You must feel like this team has a high ceiling.

Obviously, he makes us much better. And you get a chance to get to know him, to watch him. You made the point, he’s going to command a hefty price. It’s too early and I’m not going to talk about negotiations or talk about where we are, but certainly, he’s a kind of player you’d love to have for a long time as well.

This is the last year of your deal here and I think I understand why some teams, like the White Sox, don’t like to announce front-office contracts, because it looks like, “Well, Jed’s in the last year of his deal, of course he’s going to make a win-now move like this.” What do you say to that kind of thought?

Everything is based on the organization and organizational decisions, and this is my 14th season with the Cubs. I’ve been here for a long time. Nothing’s about me. It’s about the organization. I think that whether it’s a big trade (or) a big contract, these are all organizational decisions. I try over and over to emphasize that because I do think that ultimately we’re employees, we’re stewards of the organization. That’s how you have to think about it. It’s not about me.

Part 2 is coming Thursday.

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