Hoyer: Wins and waiting led to Cubs ‘not selling’
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Jesse Rogers, ESPN Staff Writer
CHICAGO — It turned on a comeback. Or perhaps a game-saving catch in the ninth inning. Or a 17-run outburst. The Chicago Cubs were ready to subtract from their team this trade deadline, but a sudden win streak changed the trajectory of their season.
“There was a period where it looked like we were going to be sellers,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said Tuesday evening. “We were seven games under .500, playing the Nationals and down 3-0, about to go eight under, and we ended up scoring 17 that night and sort of didn’t look back for a while. That wasn’t very long ago.”
Including that night, the team won 10 of its next 12 games, sending scouts who were watching Cody Bellinger — Hoyer said he was “popular in my early conversations” — back to their teams empty-handed. The Cubs were no longer in the business of trading away veteran assets.
“They (opposing executives) were asking about players we were going to have available,” Hoyer said. “It was interesting, more and more as we got into it deep last week, teams were calling, saying, ‘You’re not selling. You guys are good, you guys are going to buy.’ People stopped taking us seriously as a seller.”
If other teams thought the Cubs should be buyers, team brass figured they were right. Instead of taking calls on Bellinger, they started making them, landing Washington Nationals third baseman Jeimer Candelario on Monday.
“He was the best fit,” Hoyer said. “Candidly, it was a seller’s market. It was not a robust market.”
Chicago’s decision to change directions was also fueled by the National League standings. Though only 53-53, the Cubs entered play Tuesday just five games out of the division lead and 3½ games out of a wild-card spot.
“There’s no question that where our division sits and where the wild card sits this year, that was a big part of it, for sure,” Hoyer said. “We look at our underlying numbers, the team is even better than our record. The fans have really responded to this group.”
For much of the year, the Cubs were the only team in the NL Central with a positive run differential, but their hitting and pitching in high-leverage moments was abysmal. The team figured if those numbers normalized, they would have a chance. Positive regression came at exactly the right time — just days before Tuesday’s trade deadline.
An eight-game win streak, which ended Sunday, sealed the Cubs’ fate. It included a comeback win against the White Sox on Wednesday, two days before another victory fueled by an over-the-wall, game-saving catch by center fielder Mike Tauchman with two outs in the ninth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals.
“The biggest focus we had was waiting and letting it play out,” Hoyer said. “Not shortchanging the process by making a decision too early. We wanted to see how we played throughout the weekend in St. Louis. As we got closer, it became pretty clear what our direction was going to be.”
The team also tried to add bullpen help, but Hoyer indicated the Cubs were never very close to another deal. Either way, it might feel like addition by not subtraction for a team that has it sights set on returning to the postseason for the first time since 2020. Over the course of about 10 days, everything changed for them.
“In a lot of ways, they made it really easy, the way the team played,” Hoyer said.
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Adam Rittenberg
The Nebraska–Tennessee football home-and-home football series scheduled for 2026 and 2027 will not be played after Nebraska opted out of the agreement.
Tennessee athletic director Danny White posted on X that Nebraska called off the series and added that Tennessee is “very disappointed” by the cancellation, especially so close to the initial game in 2026. The teams had been set to play in 2026 at Nebraska and at Tennessee the following year.
In a statement, Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen explained renovations to the team’s stadium, which will temporarily lower seating capacity, ultimately led to the decision.
“We are making plans to embark on major renovations of Memorial Stadium that may impact our seating capacity for the 2027 season,” Dannen said. “The best scenario for us is to have eight home games in 2027 to offset any potential revenue loss from a reduced capacity. The additional home games will also have a tremendous economic benefit on the Lincoln community.”
The Cornhuskers announced they will host Bowling Green in 2026 and Miami (Ohio) in 2027 on the dates when it was originally set to play Tennessee. Nebraska has never faced either school. The team will play eight homes in 2027 for the first time since 2013.
The cancellation ends a nearly two-decade process around a Nebraska-Tennessee series, which was originally agreed upon in 2006 and set for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. In 2013, the two schools agreed to delay the games for a decade. Nebraska will pay $500,000 to get out of the scheduling agreement.
White told Volquest that the “buyout implications need to be much steeper” with an “old contract,” and the cancellation puts Tennessee in a bind. Tennessee, which opens the 2025 season against Syracuse in Atlanta, had its nonleague schedule set through the 2030 season. The school either must find an opponent who can fill the 2026 and 2027 dates for a home-and-home series, or explore neutral-site options.
“You really can’t pull an audible this late in the game,” White told Volquest.
Nebraska’s stadium renovation, the first phase of which had been set to begin after the 2024 season, has been delayed until after the 2025 season, at the earliest.
Tennessee and Nebraska have played only three times before, most recently in the 2016 Music City Bowl, won by the Vols. Nebraska beat Tennessee in the 1998 Orange Bowl to secure a share of the national title that season.
Tennessee has been on the other side of a similar situation. The Vols in 2021 canceled a game against Army for the next season in 2022 and added Akron instead.
Information from ESPN’s Chris Low was used in this report.
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Jorge Castillo
TAMPA, Fla. — The New York Yankees‘ facial hair and grooming policy, an infamous edict in place for nearly 50 years, was formally amended for the first time Friday.
In a statement, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said the organization will allow “well-groomed beards” effective immediately, changing a rule his father, George, established in 1976.
“In recent weeks I have spoken to a large number of former and current Yankees — spanning several eras — to elicit their perspectives on our longstanding facial hair and grooming policy, and I appreciate their earnest and varied feedback,” Hal Steinbrenner said in the statement. “These most recent conversations are an extension of ongoing internal dialogue that dates back several years.
“Ultimately the final decision rests with me, and after great consideration, we will be amending our expectations to allow our players and uniformed personnel to have well-groomed beards moving forward. It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy.”
George Steinbrenner implemented the mandate before the 1976 season, leaving players with a choice of being clean-shaven or wearing a mustache. Hal Steinbrenner kept the policy in place after becoming chairman and controlling owner of the franchise in 2008.
Players overwhelmingly obliged with the order over the next five decades, from spring training through October, often before letting themselves go during the offseason, though a few have pushed the limits.
In the 1990s, for example, star first baseman Don Mattingly was fined and benched by manager Stump Merril for refusing to trim his mullet. Four years later, Mattingly wore a goatee for part of his final season in 1995.
This year, All-Star closer Devin Williams, acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in December, reported for his spring training physical with a beard before shaving it down to a mustache for the team’s first workout the next day. On the other end, former Yankees Gleyber Torres and Clay Holmes reported to camp with their new teams sporting full beards.
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