Chicago Cubs: Why isn’t this young core playing to its potential?

If the Chicago Cubs want to avoid blowing future capital needed to shore up the roster long-term, they need to get their current group to regularly perform.

This week, Chicago Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer finally admitted what Chicago Cubs fans have been screaming about for months.  In fact, your favorite Cubbies Crib opinion writer asked in late September, in this very same Cubbies Crib section, the golden question that Hoyer just answered.

Have we seen the Cubs’ maximum effort to-date?

The answer I provided back then was that we had seen shades of greatness during the season, but nothing sustainable or remotely substantial. History now lets us look back at that analysis to see how accurate it really was.

We had not seen the Cubs maximum effort consistently all season.  Somehow that eluded Hoyer in September. Remember the comment as the Cubs season closed? If we only had won one more game during the regular season.

I thought Hoyer finally understood this ‘lack of motivation’ back then, but this week he told Tony Andracki of NBC Sports Chicago Infinity Network they’ve finally figured it out. They’ve got to buckle down and get these players to produce consistently.

"“We do feel like our answers are internal,” Hoyer said. “We need to focus on getting our players to maximize their potential. With that said, I think we’re open to business and listening and that will probably be our focus more than shopping at the top of the market.”"

Well, thank you, Mr. Hoyer. You’ve overpaid the children, spoiled them a bit and, sure, they won the championship but couldn’t defend it because they were hungover. This last season, it sure seemed like they flat-out just didn’t feel like playing to their potential.

Is that about right?