Column: Jed Hoyer did things his way — and now the Chicago Cubs president awaits the results

MESA, Ariz. — It took a while for Chicago Cubs President Jed Hoyer to escape the long shadow of Theo Epstein.

Hoyer rejoined his Boston Red Sox old mentor in Chicago in 2011, leaving his general manager position with the San Diego Padres to play second fiddle to Epstein during the Cubs rebuild.

“There are some places in baseball where if you can help make it happen, the sense of accomplishment is going to be shared across a wide spectrum,” Hoyer told the San Diego Union-Tribune upon taking the job. “Boston is one of those places. The Chicago Cubs is one of those places. The Cubs are well-positioned to have a run of success.”

That “run of success” began in 2015 and peaked with the 2016 World Series. But the blueprint for sustained success hit a wall, and after the Cubs’ third straight season without a postseason win, Epstein departed in 2020 and left Hoyer as the heir apparent.

Hoyer was forced to do the dirty work, making decisions he knew would be unpopular, like non-tendering Kyle Schwarber, trading stars Yu Darvish, Javier Báez, Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant in an unprecedented sell-off in 2021, then letting Willson Contreras leave as a free agent after the 2022 season.

Whether Epstein would’ve made the same decisions we’ll never know. But if he did, we know he wouldn’t have been second-guessed as much as Hoyer has been the last two years.

But now it’s Hoyer’s time. He enters his third season as Cubs president with a revamped team — and bigger expectations.

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If the Cubs succeed in 2023 and make the postseason, it should provide Hoyer with sweet vindication. If they have another sub-.500 season, it should lead to widespread criticism.

“It does feel different, the third year in this role,” he said Monday. “The first year obviously (we were) coming off of (the COVID-19 pandemic) and that whole group of players that were pending free agents, I think that was certainly the hungover spring.

“And last year we hoped to be competitive and realized it was kind of a puncher’s chance-type deal. It’s a lot more fun. I love the makeup of this group. From a personality and teammate standpoint, I think it’s awesome.

“We have to play clean baseball. I think our defense will be really good, our pitching depth is there. We can grind out at-bats. There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic. Now we have to go out and perform, and ultimately that’s the bottom line.

“You can have that optimism and you have that hope, but you have to be able to do it. I do like this group. There’s been a great vibe in camp.”

Most experts have projected the Cubs as a third-place team in the NL Central, so a .500 finish wouldn’t be a shock. Several of Hoyer’s acquisitions were available because their last clubs decided they were better off without them, including veterans Cody Bellinger, Eric Hosmer and Trey Mancini. Hoyer’s most important free-agent signing — $177 million shortstop Dansby Swanson — only became a free agent because the Atlanta Braves didn’t try to re-sign him.

Even the Cubs’ best returning hitter, Ian Happ, seems prepared to test free agency come November, unless Hoyer signs him to an extension in the next few days — which appears unlikely. Hoyer declined to comment Monday on Happ’s status.

Either way, it’s a team full of players with something to prove, led by a manager in David Ross who should be judged much differently than he was the past two seasons.

Starter Jameson Taillon, who threw five shutout innings Monday in a 6-6 tie with the White Sox, said afterward there were some similarities to his former team, the New York Yankees.

“We’re going to play a different brand of baseball than the Yankees,” Taillon said. “With the Yankees, we sometimes played a little bit of that bully ball, just homers and walks and three true outcome-type of baseball. Here today, you saw some action on the bases, some sac flies, you saw Dansby with a homer, so I feel like we’re going to do a lot of different things well.

“You have guys here who expect to win, which is nice. That’s something in New York that I really appreciated. It’s ‘How can we win a baseball game today?’ I think a lot of the veteran guys we brought in share that mindset.”

Sacrifices had to be made. Instead of giving Christopher Morel a chance to build on his rookie season, the Cubs optioned him to Triple-A Iowa. Nico Hoerner, a quality, young shortstop, was moved to second base to make way for Swanson.

Hoyer’s rebuild that couldn’t be called a rebuild officially is over.

It’s win-or-bust time again.

Kyle Hendricks, the last remaining Cubs player from the original rebuild, believes the game plan will start paying dividends.

“Everything goes in cycles,” Hendricks said. “I’m so excited to be in this phase we’re in right now. You can see with everybody we brought in, but it really started with the young talent and them proving themselves and creating those opportunities and taking advantage of them.

“That set us up to go out and get these guys and supplement the team. And now, as you’ve heard from ‘Rossy,’ it’s expected winning.

“That’s it. ‘Just win.’ That’s the mode you want to be in. That’s the kind of team you want to be on.”

Whatever happens, Hoyer will get all the credit or all the blame.

The shadow that can’t be called a shadow is gone.