Latest Chicago Cubs rumor confirms the front office has learned nothing from failures

Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer seemed to raise eyebrows last when he revealed that the Cubs, internally, are expecting to go over the luxury tax this season.

It was a concerning confession for Hoyer to make considering many external projections still had the Cubs under the luxury tax, which, falls in line with the idea that team was hoping everything would go right this season in order to contend. Now, entering the luxury tax is not something that should generate fear but it does question the incentive behind the moves that the Cubs made last offseason.

If the Cubs knew last offseason that they were going to be in the luxury tax this year, conventional thinking is they would have done more to the roster before reaching the second level with added tax penalties.

Even if one wanted to look past the potential accounting error, the idea that Hoyer offered up this news could be spun in a way that suggests the team may be more aggressive this offseason. That does not appear to be the case. In his latest for The Athletic (Subscription Required), Sahadev Sharma confirms that the Cubs are not planning to pivot from the spending strategies they had in recent offseasons.

The Cubs concerning spending strategy is here to stay.

It seems that as long as Hoyer is in place along with Carter Hawkins as the Cubs' general manager, the Cubs will not be swimming in the deep waters of free agency. Which means that the idea of Corbin Burnes is more August fodder instead of reality in the offseason. It also means that when faces of the game such as Juan Soto become available, the Cubs will not be involved in those discussions.

There are teams that are financially forced to operate with the strategy that the Cubs have and they find success with it--the Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays, and Arizona Diamondbacks. Those are three teams that the Cubs' current front office wants to emulate but given their financial position, they shouldn't. The Cubs have the financial means to spend over their deficits but they willingly choose not to. As long as that is the case, the Cubs' inability to get the little things right will continue to be the reason why Hoyer's tenure is viewed as a failure.