Jed Hoyer Reveals His Biggest Regret That Still Haunts the Cubs
Jed Hoyer sat down with David Kaplan and Gordon Wittenmyer on the Cubs REKAP Podcast this week and among several topics that he touched on he finally admitted what his biggest mistake running the Cubs has been.
For that we have to go back to Hoyer’s first few weeks as the Cubs’ new president of baseball operations. Hoyer replaced Theo Epstein on Nov. 17, 2020, and two weeks later the team decided to non-tender left-handed hitting slugger Kyle Schwarber.
Jed Hoyer regrets non-tendering Kyle Schwarber & says he should be a Cub.
— Cubs Zone (@CubsZone) January 16, 2025
Via the REKAP Podcast with @thekapman & @GDubMLB.
Watch full interview here: https://t.co/QnLbqmEsZr pic.twitter.com/9aNMh6Sagk
Via the Cubs REKAP Podcast.
David Kaplan: If you could go back through your time, let’s call it from 2015 on, “god, I wish I could have a do over on that move,” would it be getting Verlander, what would it be?
Jed Hoyer: The obvious one I look back was non-tendering Schwarber. We felt like when we drafted him he was going to bat third for us for a long time and be our leader and it just never quite clicked. He clicked at times for halves but never for a full season and we just didn’t have any money after COVID. I had to cut money and that was the move we had to make, but I look back on that one and it feels like we were right about the player in the end we were right we just ran out of time and patience and money. I feel like he should be a Cub. That’s how I feel about it. We got the evaluation right, we got the timing wrong.
As a quick reminder, Schwarber was going into his final year of being arbitration eligible and was projected to earn an $8 million salary for the 2021 season. Schwarber was one of four players that were non-tendered following 2020, Albert Almora Jr., Ryan Tepera and Jose Martinez being the others. Tepera eventually re-signed with the Cubs in spring training.
Then, seven months later the Cubs traded Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez.
In the 60-game, 2020 season Schwarber slashed .188/.308/.393, and hit 11 home runs. Sure, he had obviously gone through some rough stretches early in his career, even leading to a demotion to Triple-A during the 2017 season, but it always seemed like a mistake to move on from him when the Cubs did. Schwarber had just posted career highs in home runs (38) and OPS (.871) in 2019, and guess what that shortened 2020 season was the true outlier.
Since leaving the Cubs Schwarber has a 131 wRC+, which ranks 25th among all qualified hitters in the past four years, while his 163 home runs are the third-most from 2021-24, trailing only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani.
The Washington Nationals signed Schwarber to a one-year, $10 million deal in 2021. He was traded to the Boston Red Sox in the summer and after a career-best 145 wRC+ Schwarber signed a four-year, $79 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. He’s hit at least 38 home runs in each of his first three seasons with the Phillies, including 46 and 47 in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
The Cubs have not had a player hit more than 28 home runs in a season since letting go of Schwarber.