When even Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, a veteran of exit interviews, says it was “remarkable” how many players mentioned the closeness of the 2025 team in their end-of-season meetings, that’s something to note.
After the team’s playoff exit in the National League Division Series, however, it may have no bearing on the road ahead.
“If we brought back the exact same group of players next year, it wouldn’t be the same,” Hoyer said in his year’s end news conference Wednesday. “It can’t be the same. I think that’s one of the things that the players were talking about in sadness when it ended on Saturday, is you don’t want it to end because you know that this feeling is going to be gone.
“And now, starting whenever we get to spring training, it’s about building that up again. That’s just something I’ve learned in my career over and over. I’m really glad that this year was a special chemistry, but you can’t bottle that up and bring it into next year. ”
The Cubs won’t be bringing back the same group of players, either.
The offseason will be their chance to transform a postseason story of a narrow miss after a run of resilience, into a stepping stone. But there’s a substantial checklist to get there:
- Fill any potential coaching vacancies
- Replenish the pitching staff
- Replace Kyle Tucker’s offensive production
- Advance extension talks
The Cubs are inviting back manager Craig Counsell’s entire coaching staff, Hoyer said Wednesday. But that doesn’t ensure there won’t be changes.
“Our hope is that we retain our coaching staff,” Hoyer said. “ I thought they were terrific. … Every day knowing that they’re trying to find the little edges that may win a game, whether that’s a base running thing, whether that’s a tip on a pitcher – any of those things that you’re looking for, the whole year, they never slowed down in doing that.”
Every year, however, other teams ask permission to interview coaches for vacancies, which opens up the possibility of a coach leaving for an elevated position.
With Padres manager Mike Shildt retiring, for example, the Padres are again on the hunt for a replacement. Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty was a finalist in the Padres’ last manager search, two years ago, before they hired Shildt and Flaherty joined Counsell’s staff.
As the Cubs flesh out their player acquisition plan for the offseason, a bullpen full of veterans on short-term deals will call for plenty of replacements. But this transaction window could also be time to reinforce the rotation.
Hoyer said he hasn’t looked back at the trade deadline with any regrets over mostly standing pat on starting pitching.
“I know to acquire players I thought could impact a pennant race, it would have cost us players that impacted our second half in a big way on the team,” he said.
The exorbitant cost of starting pitching at the deadline, however, underlined the importance of pursuing those types of impact players in the offseason — and, Hoyer added, the draft.
“As we think about what’s changed in the game, I do think that that’s become more difficult [at the deadline],” Hoyer said. “And I do think it puts more emphasis on all other areas of the cycle, and how do we continue to add depth and add arms? And I don’t think that’s unique to the Cubs.”
The Cubs also have to decide whether to exercise the option to extend left-hander Shota Imanaga’s four-year, $53 million deal to a total of five years and $80 million. If they don’t, they risk him opting out and rendering their starting-pitching need more dire.
On the position-player side, Tucker’s free agency raises questions about how they’ll replace his production. His tale of two halves still amounted to a 4.5-WAR season, according to FanGraphs.
Hoyer didn’t rule out a reunion with Tucker, saying the team would be talking to his agent. And he declined to specify whether the Cubs would “replace those wins” with internal development and young talent, or by acquiring a more established hitter.
The Cubs, however, generally prefer to avoid super-long deals. And they’ve lined up many of their larger contracts to expire at the end of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Left fielder Ian Happ, right fielder Seiya Suzuki, second baseman Nico Hoerner and starting pitcher Jameson Taillon are all set to become free agents after the 2026 season.
While that gives the Cubs flexibility amid the uncertainty of a new CBA, they’ll still have to field a team after any potential work stoppage. Hoyer said he expects to have extension talks with “a number” of players this offseason.
Each of those check-list items are in service of delivering on a promise of “sustained success.” From 2024 to 2025, the Cubs went from falling well short of the playoffs with a 83-79 record, to winning a wild-card berth with a 92-70 record and advancing to the NLDS. But that can’t be it.
“Hopefully we can continue to move this press conference back a little bit every year,” Hoyer said. “That would be the goal.”