Hoyer skips slogans, builds roster for ‘urgency' in 2021

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MESA, Ariz. — Two seasons after the Cubs’ brass tried to manufacture urgency with talk of “reckonings” and slogans such as “October starts in March,” the 2021 team is fast approaching a season with urgency built into nearly every fiber of its roster.

No slogans required.

At least 15 — and as many as 18 — members of the Cubs’ projected 26-man Opening Day roster are players expected to be in walk years (either free agents at the end of the year or facing club-option decisions for 2022).

And with just two weeks left until the opener, three of them — Anthony Rizzo, Javy Báez and Kris Bryant — are All-Star, World Series core players with varying degrees of club appeal for getting an extension done on a fast-ticking timeline.

Talk about urgency.

“When you talk about urgency of this team, and it’s been stated,” team president Jed Hoyer said, referencing all the one-year players. “We need to play well out of the gate. That doesn’t mean we have to play well the first two weeks. But when you think about the first half of the season, we need to put ourselves in position to be a buyer, to be a team that’s competing.”

Hoyer spoke during a lengthy conversation with NBC Sport Chicago on a wide range of subjects, including the two sides of the walk-year coin — the urgency among players, on the one side, that can spur strong performances and a big season for the team, and the urgency that can be created at the trade deadline for the front office if that doesn’t play out.

(For the full conversation listen to Wednesday's Cubs Talk Podcast.)

“That’s probably a slightly different feeling than you might have had two or three years ago when all these guys are [are much further from free agency],” said Hoyer, who’s optimistic he’ll have a lot of payroll flexibility in July, depending on attendance allowances as COVID-19 restrictions presumably are lifted gradually into the summer.

“But with where we are with some of these guys [with short-term contract status], I think that’s just reality,” he added. “People have talked about it, that the nature of a team that’s constructed like this, that the first three months or so of the season are really important.”

Halfway through March, Hoyer also is having extension conversations with Rizzo, who wants any deal done by the opener, and Baez, who is open to continuing talks into the season.

He has just three players under contract for 2022 at a total of $38.5 million, which at least suggests flexibility and room to add a couple sizable extensions. Which one(s) he gets done and for how many years also figures to become at least a major tone-setter for building that next championship core he has talked about.

Talk about pressure.

Well maybe not quite pressure.

“There’s an added sense or urgency. I think that’s fair,” Hoyer said.

There’s that word again.

The last time Hoyer had a roster with so many short-time contracts, he was the assistant to Theo Epstein in Boston in 2004, when key players such as Pedro Martinez, Jason Varitek, David Ortiz and Derek Lowe all were pending free agents — just ahead of their curse-breaking championship that season.

Nobody expects that from the Cubs this year. In fact, nobody seems to expect much of anything.

But don’t sleep on the walk-year effect, Hoyer said. That’s something he has mentioned since November, even before adding a handful of one-year contracts to the mix late in the offseason.

“I’ve talked about that a bunch, and I think sometimes people take it the wrong way,” Hoyer said, “that you’re inferring that they were not motivated before and now they’re more motivated. I don’t believe that at all.

“When guys are in their walk year I do think that there’s such a level of focus, a level of importance that every little thing is done well,” he added. “Even nutrition or sleep or your workouts —whatever it might be. …I just think that guys have a level of focus in their walk year that is hard to replicate.

“That’s always been my personal view of my idea of a walk-year bounce. It’s not that a player goes from amotivated to motivated. I think these guys are motivated; they’re the best players in the world. But I think that hyper focus and attention to detail is what can maybe make a little bit of difference.

“If you have a lot of guys doing that, hopefully it can really help us.”

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