Hoyer: Cubs need to right ship ahead of deadline
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Jesse Rogers, ESPN Staff Writer
MILWAUKEE — Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said ownership is “clearly frustrated” with the way the team has played this season and if its position in the standings doesn’t improve, he said he’ll have to think about subtracting from the roster instead of adding to it ahead of the July 30 trade deadline.
“It has undoubtedly dragged on far longer than we expected or hoped,” Hoyer said of a two-month slump that has seen the Cubs drop to 38-44 entering Friday. “We need to play a lot better. We dug ourselves a hole, and we have to dig out of that hole.
“It’s important we do that in this next 33 days or whatever we have until the deadline. You have to make hard decisions sometimes.”
The Cubs entered the weekend last in the NL Central, 10.5 games behind the first-place Brewers. They’ve lost seven games to Milwaukee in the standings over the last 31 days.
“I am very surprised,” Hoyer said. “Two weeks turned into four, turned into six, turned into eight … It just hasn’t ended.”
Hoyer pointed to the team’s offensive woes as a catalyst for its plummet, but the bullpen has struggled just as much. Chicago ranks 23rd in bullpen ERA, as it’s struggled to close out games and also has dealt with injuries. The latest to go down was middle-man Keegan Thompson, who was placed on the injured list with a rib fracture Friday. The team also designated newly acquired reliever Vinny Nittoli for assignment.
In the corresponding roster moves, the Cubs selected the contract of former Mets reliever Jorge Lopez and called up righty Ethan Roberts, who hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2022 after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
For Lopez, it’s a second chance. After he was pulled from the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 29, Lopez threw his glove into the stands and then had a misunderstanding with reporters afterward in an attempt to blame himself for some of the team’s issues. The Mets subsequently DFA’d him earlier this month.
“I’m never going to do it again in my life,” Lopez said Friday. “It’s emotions. I’ve been working on my mental health for a long time. That’s my priority to not show that anymore, give the best energy and body language that I can to the game.”
Lopez said he wants to set an example for his 11-year-old son.
“He doesn’t know much about it,” Lopez said. “I have to teach him the things not to do. Need to respect the game. I’m not proud of that (what happened).”
In joining the Cubs, Lopez is reunited with bullpen coach Darren Holmes, who held the same position with the Baltimore Orioles from 2019 to ’23, when Lopez pitched for the team.
Lopez and Roberts could be thrust into major roles as Chicago only has three relievers on its active roster from opening day. That turnover has contributed to its overall woes.
“Most of what we’ve been doing is out of necessity,” Hoyer said. “We keep getting hit there.”
In terms of the Cubs offense, Hoyer admitted he can’t tinker with it much considering his core players are all under longer-term contracts. In other words, the trade deadline won’t fix the team’s run-scoring problems; it will have to come from within.
“There’s not a ton of wiggle room on as far as how we can shake things up and improve things, positionally,” Hoyer said. “When you look at where we’ve performed this year with a team that’s stronger (on paper), it’s lesser. Is that frustrating to me? Absolutely. If it’s frustrating to me, I have to imagine it’s frustrating to the fans.”
But the Cubs also haven’t controlled the controllables.
For example, Chicago leads the league in one-run games and in outs made on the bases, including 15 at home plate. That’s a lot of potential scoring left out on the field, which could have turned losses into wins.
It’s also the third consecutive season the team has led the league in outs made at home plate, calling into question the judgment of third-base coach Willie Harris.
“We’ve done a ton of research,” Hoyer said. “Plays at the plate are really hard. It behooves you to be aggressive in those situations. You can take that a little too far. He is aggressive, and off the scorecard we work off of, he does a good job.”
The Cubs rank second in the league in going from first to third base on a single, so some of that aggressiveness has paid off. Yet overall the team hasn’t played as well as last season, when it won 83 games while just missing out on the postseason.
“Our win-total projections were higher this year than last year,” Hoyer said.
All of it adds up to a critical month for the team even though it doesn’t have a lot of pending free agents. Still, Hoyer will ultimately pivot to trading away players instead of adding if the standings dictate it.
“I don’t think it’s time for that full conversation, but it’s just a reality that we have to play better in July,” he said. “We backed ourselves into a corner.”
LAS VEGAS — Left-handers Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves and Garrett Crochet of the Chicago White Sox won Major League Baseball’s Comeback Player of the Year awards on Thursday.
Cleveland right-hander Emmanuel Clase won his second AL Reliever of the Year award and St. Louis righty Ryan Helsley won the NL honor.
Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani joined David Ortiz as the only players to win four straight Outstanding Designated Hitter awards. Ohtani and the New York Yankees‘ Aaron Judge won Hank Aaron Awards as the outstanding offensive performers in their leagues.
Major League Baseball made the announcements at its All-MLB Awards Show.
Sale, 35, was 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts in 177⅔ innings for the NL’s first pitching triple crown since the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw in 2011. He earned his eighth All-Star selection and first since 2018.
Sale helped Boston to the 2018 World Series title but made just 56 starts from 2020-23, going 17-18 with a 4.86 ERA, 400 strikeouts and 79 walks over 298⅓ innings. He was acquired by Boston from the White Sox in December 2016 and made nine trips to the injured list with the Red Sox, mostly with shoulder and elbow ailments. He had Tommy John surgery on March 30, 2020, and returned to a big league mound on Aug. 14, 2021.
Sale fractured a rib while pitching in batting practice in February 2022 during the management lockout. On July 17, in his second start back, he broke his left pinkie finger when he was hit by a line drive off the bat of the Yankees’ Aaron Hicks. Sale broke his right wrist while riding a bicycle en route to lunch on Aug. 6, ending his season.
Crochet, 25, was 6-12 with a 3.58 ERA over 32 starts for a White Sox team that set a post-1900 record of 121 losses, becoming a first-time All-Star. He struck out 209 and walked 33 in 146 innings.
He had Tommy John surgery on April 5, 2022, and returned to the major leagues on May 18, 2023. Crochet had a 3.55 ERA in 13 relief appearances in 2023, and then joined the rotation this year.
Sale and Crochet were chosen in voting by MLB.com beat writers.
Clase and Helsley were unanimous picks by a panel that included Hall of Famers Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley and Rollie Fingers, along with John Franco and Billy Wagner. The AL award is named after Rivera and the NL honor after Hoffman.
A three-time All-Star, Clase was 4-2 with a 0.61 ERA, 66 strikeouts and 10 walks in 74⅓ innings, holding batters to a .154 average. The 26-year-old converted 47 of 50 save chances, including his last 47.
Voting was based on the regular season. Clase was 0-2 with a 9.00 ERA in the playoffs, allowing three home runs, one more than his regular-season total.
Helsley, a two-time All-Star, was 7-4 with a 2.04 ERA and 49 saves in 53 chances. He struck out 79 and walked 23 in 66⅓ innings.
Ohtani became the first player with 50 or more homers and 50 or more stolen bases in a season. A two-way star limited to hitting following elbow surgery, Ohtani batted .310 and led the NL with 54 homers and 130 RBIs while stealing 59 bases.
Ortiz won the DH award five years in a row from 2003-07.
The DH award, named after Edgar Martinez, is picked in voting by team beat writers, broadcasters and public relations departments. MLB.com writers determined the finalists for the Aaron awards, and a fan vote was combined with picks from a panel of Hall of Famers and former winners to determine the selections.
Judge led the major leagues with 58 homers and 144 RBIs while hitting .322.
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos, who lost his starting job earlier this week, will not be returning to the team, he announced Thursday night.
Castellanos, who started 12 games last season and retained the top job under new coach Bill O’Brien, wrote on X that “unfortunately, all good things come to an end, even though it’s sooner than I would like.” He did not mention the transfer portal in his departing message and has not officially entered it. The junior from Waycross, Georgia, started his career at UCF and appeared in five games in 2022.
O’Brien said Tuesday that Grayson James, who replaced Castellanos in last week’s win against Syracuse, will start Saturday when Boston College visits No. 14 SMU. Castellanos “wasn’t real thrilled” with the decision, O’Brien said, adding that the quarterback decided to step away from the team for several days.
Castellanos had 2,248 passing yards and 1,113 rushing yards last season under coach Jeff Hafley, passing for 15 touchdowns and adding 13 on the ground. He had 18 touchdown passes and only five interceptions this season, but his accuracy dipped in recent weeks, and he completed only 2 of 7 passes against Syracuse before being replaced.
In his statement, Castellanos thanked both coaching staffs he played for at Boston College and wrote that he had “some of the best experiences of my life in the Eagles Nest and I will truly cherish these memories forever.”
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida quarterback DJ Lagway is “ready to play,” coach Billy Napier said Thursday on his weekly radio show.
Napier removed Lagway from the team’s injury report and penciled him in to start against No. 21 LSU in the Swamp on Saturday.
Lagway practiced every day this week while progressing from a strained left hamstring. The highly touted freshman was carted off the field against Georgia on Nov. 2. Tests revealed a “less significant” injury than initially feared, and now he’s back in time to face the Tigers.
The Gators (4-5, 2-4 Southeastern Conference) need him. They have to win two of their final three regular-season games to become bowl eligible.
LSU (6-3, 3-2) has struggled mightily against dual-threat QBs, including Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, who ran for 185 yards and four touchdowns last week.
Lagway returns after walk-on and Yale transfer Aidan Warner started in his place against Texas. Warner threw two interceptions and was 12-of-25 passing for 132 yards in a 49-17 loss.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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