Coming off a wildly disappointing 83-79 season without a postseason berth, the pressure is on Jed Hoyer this offseason to get the Chicago Cubs back to playing October baseball.

Hoyer has been more active early on this winter than he was at the beginning of last offseason, but the Cubs have yet to actually acquire much impact talent. The Eli Morgan trade was good, and the Matthew Boyd contract might turn out to be a valuable one, but this Cubs team isn’t much better than it was last season at present.

Cubs fans had hoped that the Winter Meetings would’ve been when Hoyer finally made one big move or even more, but the Cubs did basically nothing in their days in Dallas. Yet, even by doing nothing, Hoyer made mistakes that should make his seat even hotter than it already is.

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This one might not totally be on Hoyer, but when considering how gun-shy he has been, it’s safe to assume that Chicago’s disinterest in adding high-end talent is at least partly on its lead executive.

Hoyer needs the approval from ownership, obviously, but the Cubs play in the third-largest market in the country. They’re consistently one of the largest revenue-generating teams in the sport, yet they ruled themselves out of the race to sign Juan Soto or Corbin Burnes before their sweepstakes even really began.

Should the Cubs have topped the $765 million bid that the New York Mets used to lure Soto to Flushing? Perhaps not. Should the Cubs have bid more than $218 million to sign Max Fried? Again, perhaps not. However, not even considering the thought is a slap in the face to every Cubs fan.

The Cubs have the financial resources at their disposal to be in play for stars. They might be one star away from being a postseason team. Their refusal to consider it on the open market has Hoyer contemplating trading for Kyle Tucker, who, while great, is on an expiring contract. Cubs fans deserve better. It’s that simple.

2) Jed Hoyer refused to take the catcher position seriously

One of the weakest areas of the 2024 Cubs was the catcher position. Cubs catchers ranked 26th in the Majors with a 69 WRC+. They were tied for 28th with -0.1 fWAR. Simply put, they had one of the worst catching situations in all of baseball.

As of now, it looks the same as it did last season. Miguel Amaya is slated to get most of the reps once again. The Cubs did trade for Matt Thaiss, but nothing about his track record suggests he’s more than a backup at best.

There weren’t any high-end options on the open market, but guys like Kyle Higashioka, Travis d’Arnaud and Danny Jansen are serviceable. Jed Hoyer got none of them. There was a report suggesting that the Cubs were close to signing Carson Kelly, but no deal has been finalized as of this writing.

Even if the Cubs do sign Kelly, is that really much of an upgrade? He’s amassed 4.0 bWAR total over parts of nine MLB seasons and was worth 0.5 bWAR last season. He, too, looks like nothing more than a backup at best.

The options weren’t great, but the Cubs had opportunities to do more than they’ve done. The offseason isn’t over, but with Kelly as the best free agent still out there, it’s hard to envision Hoyer doing enough to improve the catcher situation.

Even if the Cubs (for whatever reason) didn’t want to spend money to sign high-end talent, they do have a slew of trade assets at their disposal. Not only do they have one of the best farm systems in the game, but they have expendable players at the MLB level that they could conceivably part with.

One player worth trading a lot for was Garrett Crochet. Yes, the Cubs did add Boyd, but adding Crochet to a rotation that already boasts Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga would’ve made Chicago’s rotation one that no team would want to deal with.

Instead, Crochet wound up getting dealt to the Boston Red Sox, and will lead their rotation for years to come. The Cubs rotation is still solid, but Boyd isn’t much of a needle-mover. Crochet could’ve helped form a three-headed monster at the top of their rotation that few teams could compete with. Instead, while Boyd is decent, the Cubs settled for mediocrity.