Juan Soto sweepstakes expose Jed Hoyer's foolish approach with Cubs' front office

Before we discuss the Chicago Cubs and their refusal to join the sweepstakes for Juan Soto this offseason, we must rewind the tape to last offseason when Shohei Ohtani was a free agent.

A soundbite that got mocked across all of Chicago was Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf laughing off the idea that the White Sox would be involved in the sweepstakes for Ohtani.

Reinsdorf used that line as if he was opening for a comedy set at The Laugh Factory. While Reinsdorf was laughing with his media cronies when he made that line, he was mocked for the way in which he immediately ruled out the White Sox, being in the third-largest market in Major League Baseball, as being a suitor for Ohtani.

Fast forward to this offseason and Jed Hoyer's has a similarly comedic approach to the Cubs' stance with Juan Soto. Since the end of the offseason, it has been made clear that the Cubs aren't going to be involved in the sweepstakes for Soto. The second that the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in the World Series, the Cubs were immediately ruled out of the sweepstakes for Soto.

Hoyer is lucky to have been the underling to Theo Epstein when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016. The Cubs winning the World Series in 2016 has allowed for Hoyer to operate in a world where the media gives him the benefit of the doubt. Strip the World Series' season from Hoyer's tenure with the Cubs and there is very little that validates he knows what he is doing as the leader of a baseball operation.

In a world where even the Tampa Bay Rays have expressed interest in Soto, it's a negligent offense for the Cubs to not, at the very least, check the box of making a call to Scott Boras about what it would take to land the superstar outfielder in Chicago.