(670 The Score) Reflecting on his Cubs' disappointing finish to a season that once carried so much more promise, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer admitted Tuesday that the campaign shouldn't be considered a success while also expressing optimism for what lies ahead.
The Cubs were in prime position to earn a playoff berth when they sat at 76-64 after a win on Sept. 6, but they faltered by going 6-14 over the next few weeks. At that time in early September, the Cubs' playoff odds hovered around 92% before their dive.
"When I think about our season, I'm really impressed our guys set goals as high as they did," Hoyer said at his season-ending press conference. "Sort of externally, we were not expected to be a playoff team, but the internal expectations were that we were going to make the playoffs. Going back to spring training, that was the clear goal. When we were 10 games under in the middle of June, these guys still believed. It was a pretty amazing thing from my seat to listen to them talk about how good they though the team was when we were 10 games under. In the middle of July, after the All-Star break, we were still seven games under and these guys were begging me not to break the team up and begging me not to make trades, which is really impressive. These guys believed through all that, and they went on a heckuva run. I think we went from 10 under to 12 over over a three-month period. It was fun to watch. We just didn't finish the race. Painfully, we did not finish the race. Certainly, there are positives to take from the season both organizationally and certainly positives to take from the major league team, but right now, we're sort of stuck thinking about what could have been and thinking about the painful last two-and-a-half, three weeks. You can't call something that falls short of your goal a success. Ultimately, we have to live with that. I know it will motivate me all winter. And I know talking to our players and our coaches and front office, I know it's going to motivate them. But you can't define something as a success when you fall short … That's not why we're here."
Despite the sour ending, Hoyer believes the Cubs are well-positioned for the future.
"We're a really strong team in a lot of ways," Hoyer said. "We were an above-average offensive team. Actually, we were a top 20% offensive team this year. We had really good run prevention. The shell of a really good team is there. Obviously, we have to make additions and we have to find ways to improve. But I feel really good given where we were a year ago."
