(670 The Score) After a disappointing 84-win season in 2019, the Cubs are set to enter the new regular season with a nearly identical starting lineup and rotation as they had a year ago.
That's because of their ownership-imposed financial limitations as they seek to remain under the $208-million luxury tax threshold and because they didn't find a deal to their liking on the trade market. Now, the Cubs are moving forward while also understanding that the cloud of their post-2021 outlook is hanging over them.
It's after that season that much of their core -- including shortstop Javier Baez, third baseman Kris Bryant and first baseman Anthony Rizzo -- are set to hit the open market, leaving the team in a balancing act between competing at the highest level now and prioritizing their long-term future as they haven't reached long-term contract extensions with core players.
"It's something that is a reality of our day-to-day existence," Hoyer said on the McNeil & Parkins Show on Wednesday afternoon. "To your point, we'd like to keep some of these guys long term. There's no question about that. It doesn't mean we have to sign them all up really early, but it means I'd like to start the 2022 season and have a number of these guys there. Now, all of them are not going to be. That's just the reality, you know, whether it's through trade or whether it's through them walking away and getting more money in free agency. We can't keep every one of this core group of guys. And frankly, from as much of a sentimentality standpoint, maybe there are people that would want to, but we also need to get younger and sort of create another wave of players. So yeah, I think that does hang over things a little bit. In some ways, you know when we started this, we controlled these players for that amount of time. We weren't able to get extensions. Frankly, when I think back on that, there's a lot of factors about why. And one of them is the amount of success we had right away. This isn't a group that kind of came into the big leagues (and struggled). These guys came in with massive fanfare and had success immediately, and I think as a result, that certainly had an impact on our ability to sign a lot of guys.
"The timeline (of winning a championship) from a baseball standpoint was perfect. But that certainly had an impact."
After so much trade speculation over the winter, Hoyer is thankful that the attention has turned to the baseball diamond. It's with their performance there that the Cubs can change their recent storyline of disappointment over the last few year, Hoyer reminded.
"This group of players will always be the guys that won that title, but you don't just push the pause button and stop there," Hoyer said. "That's great. When they come back to (Cubs) Convention in 15 years, it will be an incredible reception. But that's defining that team, not defining this era.
"This era started out with three straight NLCSs and a World Series title and we did win 95 games in '18, but we struggled at the end and got caught. And last year was disappointing, and I think if you look up and it's six years with only one disappointing season, you kind of look back, that's a heckuva run. It's not easy to do that. I think I would say it a little bit differently -- this is our chance to change that trajectory. We started out this run with three straight NLCSs and the last two years, October has been really fast. This is our chance to kind of change that trajectory for this group."
