Jed Hoyer Speaks: The Bregman Pursuit, the Budget Constraints, Moves From Here ...Middle East

Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer met with the media today in the wake of the team missing out on Alex Bregman, who ultimately chose the Boston Red Sox on a deal that’ll pay him $120 million over the next three years, with opt outs after each of the first two years. There are deferrals involved that bring the value down, but it does sound like it was more than the Cubs were offering in any case.

I added Hoyer’s full media availability via a Marquee video, embedded at the bottom of this post. Suffice to say, it’s the most candid – by a wide margin – I’ve ever heard him be about the Cubs’ financial situation and its relationship to a free agency pursuit.

Hoyer said he felt like the Cubs made a strong offer, but that Bregman simply got more from the Red Sox. He is appreciative of Cubs ownership agreeing to stretch the budget to make sure the Cubs could seriously pursue Bregman (and I suppose we can divine from that whatever conclusions we would like about the state of that budget):

Jed Hoyer on Bregman pursuit. pic.twitter.com/egErzRAnOA

“I feel like we made a strong offer but clearly it wasn’t enough.”Jed Hoyer on Alex Bregman. pic.twitter.com/mB63RC3TLL

Jed Hoyer thanked Tom and Laura Ricketts for green lighting him “pushing” the budget in pursuit of Alex Bregman. “Within the structure and our finances, we made the best offer we could make. And I think that ultimately, that's what you have to do in free agency.”

As for what the Cubs might do from here, Hoyer said there could still be moves, but they would be smaller in financial scale:

“My expectation is that the group we have now is really close to what we’re gonna go forward with.”Jed Hoyer on adding more talent at 3B. pic.twitter.com/5VlHvkfDuR

In other words, the Cubs are still flexible enough to add at the margins or in-season, but there are no big dollar moves coming from here.

For a guy who never, ever, ever talks publicly about finances or the budget, Hoyer seemed to do a lot of that today. Clearly there’s some messaging that he and/or ownership wants out there, and I suppose I could think of a few plausible reasons. Maybe the Cubs don’t want agents, other teams, or fans thinking they are under-spending their budget at this point, and Hoyer is helping to ward off a loss of leverage and/or torches and pitchforks. Or maybe Hoyer wouldn’t mind the baseball world knowing that he’s operating this offseason, his last under contract, with his hands tied a bit.

More to today’s point, though, it’s clear that Hoyer wanted to underscore that going seriously after Bregman was about that specific pursuit, and not about the Cubs having loads of money left to spend at this point. If they were having to stretch the budget to try to make this work, then our suspicions about where things stand financially are probably correct – just because the Cubs are “under the luxury tax by $30 million” doesn’t mean the front office has $30 million left to commit. This was a special allocation for the Bregman pursuit, specifically, and that is now over.

… which sucks in principle! But there aren’t a lot of huge financial options left on the market to add anyway, and moreover, the limited budget has been the reality hinted at by so many moves this Cubs offseason, going all the way back to November. I’m just resigned to it at this point, even as I wouldn’t have loved the Bregman deal anyway, and even as I hope the Cubs do at least make another addition or two at the margins.

Here’s Hoyer’s full set of comments:

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