Jed Hoyer is a person of few regrets, so it was no shock the Chicago Cubs president didn’t second-guess his choice to ship Christopher Morel to Triple-A Iowa to begin the season.
Recalled on May 9, Morel has hit .367 with 9 residence runs and 15 RBIs in his first 12 video games after Tuesday’s 7-2 victory within the opener of a three-game collection towards the New York Mets at Wrigley Field.
Morel’s seventh-inning homer prolonged his streak to 5 straight video games with a house run — the primary Cub since Sammy Sosa in 1998 to try this — and he’s the fourth participant in major-league historical past with a minimum of 9 residence runs in his first 12 video games of a season. Only Philadelphia Phillies Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt, who hit 11 in his first 12 video games in 1976, had extra.
That has made many Cubs followers marvel why on this planet Morel didn’t make the opening-day roster within the first place.
It’s a superb query and one which hasn’t been addressed till now.
But Hoyer insisted Tuesday that the plan for Morel labored. Morel wasn’t going to play commonly with the Cubs, Hoyer mentioned, and a .269 on-base proportion and 34% strikeout charge over the second half of his rookie season in 2022 was proof he wanted work.
Morel hit 11 residence runs in 29 video games at Iowa, and with the Cubs in an offensive stoop, Hoyer lastly determined to deliver him up.
“Certainly you can look at it and say, ‘Boy, I wish we had those home runs at Iowa here,’” Hoyer mentioned. “Or you could say the reason he hit those home runs here was because he got on a roll in Iowa, getting comfortable and playing every day.”
That’s the straightforward means to have a look at it and one which is sensible from administration’s perspective.
But you additionally may have a look at it and say, “Do the Cubs really know their talent?”
They did the identical factor with Nico Hoerner in 2021, sending him to Iowa in spring coaching when he clearly confirmed he was able to being the beginning second baseman. Hoerner hit .302 with a .382 OBP after being recalled that 12 months, taking up at shortstop after Javier Báez was dealt to the Mets on the deadline.
Hoerner established himself that season and hasn’t appeared again. Sometimes it takes extra time for sure gamers to develop. Maybe the identical was true of Morel. Not everybody may be Mike Trout.
But whether or not they deserved these temporary demotions to work out their issues is debatable.
The Cubs can argue the brief stint at Iowa was the explanation Hoerner become the participant he’s at the moment. No one may disprove that. But maybe if he had been on the Cubs opening-day roster in 2021 as a substitute of David Bote, they might’ve had a greater likelihood of avoiding the dropping ways in which led to the trade-deadline sell-off.
We’ll by no means know, identical to we don’t know whether or not the Cubs could be 5 video games below .500 had Morel been within the lineup from the beginning of this season.
Morel is in no way a completed product. He nonetheless strikes out an excessive amount of and has no place the place he’s above common. There’s a reputation for guys like that. They name them designated hitters.
And that’s precisely the place Morel was Tuesday and the place he most likely ought to stay when Cody Bellinger returns from the injured checklist. Eric Hosmer and Trey Mancini cut up more often than not at DH till Hosmer was designated for project final week, so there’s no cause to provide it to anybody else.
Obviously the choice to demote Morel in March isn’t the only real cause for the Cubs’ present state. But it calls into query the remainder of their personnel choices, together with the closer-by-committee, the ill-fated Hosmer experiment and the idea they wanted three catchers on the roster with the since-departed Luis Torrens.
Fortunately the Cubs nonetheless have an opportunity to contend in a division nobody is working away with. They path the Milwaukee Brewers by 4½ video games.
“You can take some solace from that, but ultimately it doesn’t make you feel better about our record or where we are,” Hoyer mentioned.
Manager David Ross had a extra colourful means of placing it.
“Thank goodness for the (crappy) play of everybody in the division, I guess, right?” Ross mentioned to some awkward laughter.
Or you could possibly have a look at it and say, “Thank goodness the big-market Cubs play in a crappy division with four small-market teams that don’t have the same financial resources as the Ricketts family.”
Ross a minimum of understands the Cubs deserve skepticism from followers and media after all of the discuss in spring coaching about turning the nook in 2023.
“We’re subject to the criticism and we’ve got to be better, play better,” he mentioned. “But when you’re not playing your best and you still feel like you have a long season ahead of you and you’re still in contention for the division …”
The Cubs might be unintentional contenders the remainder of the summer season and win the division with a couple of proper strikes earlier than the commerce deadline. It’s as much as Hoyer to make things better, and we’ve but to see him in “buy” mode on the deadline since changing Theo Epstein as head honcho.
Trusting the method was simpler below Epstein, maybe as a result of Theo had the gravitas Hoyer lacks and in addition as a result of he performed the media higher. Epstein made his share of unhealthy personnel choices, however the ones that labored stood out extra after the Cubs gained the World Series.
It’s too early to guage Hoyer’s resume. We have an extended method to go.
But as he mentioned Tuesday when discussing the Cubs’ May funk, “It’s not early forever.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com