Chicago Cubs: Jed Hoyer says team is “past the point” of mass extensions

In a radio interview on Friday, Chicago Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer spoke about the team moving forward. Some of his words have concerned fans.

The days leading up the Chicago Cubs holding their annual fan convention have been filled with people expressing their frustration on their slow offseason and reactions to the sign-stealing scandal. There is no question this year’s Cubs Convention is already different than those in recent years. For the first time since probably 2014, fans are filing into the event not feeling overly confident about contending for a World Series.

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One thing that has kept some fans hopeful is the possibility of seeing the team extend some of their key core players including: Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras and/or Kris Bryant. They each have a few seasons left of control and for the time being are set to be together the next two seasons. A team cannot have a contending window without a core in place.

Then Cubs GM Jed Hoyer spoke Friday morning on 670 the Score about the likelihood of keeping the team’s core intact long-term.

"“But I think in all honesty, we passed the point of being able to extend all those players.”"

This is something people certainly do not want to hear and breaking down the context is important to understanding his words here.

Breaking down Hoyer’s interview on player extensions.

One could wonder seeing that short sentence if he means past the point this offseason for extensions to core guys, or if it means past the point period. The probability of them being able to re-sign all the core guys was low to begin with, it just gets a bit more concerning when you hear what Hoyer said about the situation. Here is more from his interview:

"“We had this young group that came through the farm system, that came up at the same time. We offered all those guys extensions. We tried hard to really keep this group together for as long as we can. I think there are certain realities where we are not going to be able to keep this group together forever – We hope to continue to be able to keep it together, but when you look at it, a lot of these guys hit free agency after 2021.”"

I think it is fair to say based on Hoyer’s words that this core will almost certainly not be all together after 2021. He mentioned in the interview that there was a time he felt that keeping this core together could have been done, but then added the quote about them being past that point. That is really the most important part of the interview to note of because he is comparing extending the entire core vs. the possibility of extending some. As he said, “all those players.”

He used a lot of, “Well we would like, but the reality is…” kind of talk in this interview. In the end he being brutally honest about the situation. He did not leave out the possibility of any extensions, which is important to keep in mind that he is not saying none of the core guys will be extended, so we could still see a Rizzo or Javy extension at some point. Overall just do not expect all of them.

Right now I would not expect any extensions to happen any time soon. They have not gotten any traction with a Rizzo deal despite him really wanting him or with Baez. Certainly the Bryant trade rumors will head up again after Josh Donaldson signed with the Twins and the market for third baseman has changed because of that. Buckle up Cubs fans, this offeason is not over yet.