(670 The Score) Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer on Tuesday praised manager David Ross for his leadership and work in the club’s just-completed 83-79 campaign, which ended in disappointment as the team faltered in the final weeks of the season to squander a playoff berth.
“I was very pleased with Rossy this year,” Hoyer said at his season-ending press conference. “The things I mentioned before, coming from being 10 (games) under and sort of maintaining not only the competitiveness but also never having the team focus on individual stuff. It was always about the team. We never lost that. Creating that type of culture is incredibly difficult, and he does a fantastic job of that.”
Ross is 262-284 (.480) in leading the Cubs across the past four seasons. Externally, Ross was often criticized for his in-game decisions. And while Hoyer just last week expressed his disdain for Ross’ reliance on bunting, he thought Ross did a good job with his in-game decisions on the whole.
“I know the manager in a big market is always going to get criticism,” Hoyer said. “That’s part of the job. Terry Francona just retired and he’s going straight to the Hall of Fame. I was with him in Boston for a long time, and there were always questions about what he was doing. And he’s going to be in Cooperstown. That’s the nature of it. Do we have disagreements and do we have heated conversations? Of course we do. But you will with any manager. They have to make so many different decisions. They have so many things to weigh. Obviously, we work hard all the time to give him the right information. And if there are things that we disagree with or things we can do better, he’s very open-minded to that. He’s constantly trying to improve. But ultimately, we’re very pleased with the job he did this year. And I think he should be proud of the fact that that group kept fighting for him.”