‘They made it really easy’: After playing a waiting game, Jed Hoyer buys in on Chicago Cubs roster after strong stretch leading to trade deadline

Jeimer Candelario, back in the Wrigley Field home dugout for the first time almost exactly six years later, glanced down at his new first baseman’s mitt.

Well, not really new but borrowed, a smiling Candelario noted. Written in script across the light blue glove is Chicago Cubs teammate Miguel Amaya’s name. Acquired Monday by the organization, Candelario started at first base Tuesday night against the Cincinnati Reds.

It’s a position manager David Ross said the 29-year-old switch hitter will play a “significant amount.” Except Candelario, who hasn’t played first base since 2020 in Detroit, no longer owns a first baseman’s mitt. He bought a couple after that season but then didn’t play the position the following year and he gave them away.

So, for now, he is borrowing Amaya’s, but it’s Candelario’s offense and the power he adds to the Cubs that makes his addition especially valuable over the next two months as they try to get back to the postseason.

“For me, it’s just having fun wherever I am,” said Candelario before a four-hit game and a fielding error Tuesday night in the Cubs’ 20-9 win over the Reds. “… When I got the call that I was playing first base, I was a little surprised, but I’m in the position to help the team win. I want to bring energy and bring some positivity, anything I can do to help my team win. That’s what I’m here for.”

President Jed Hoyer had to play both sides of the buyer-seller divide in the two weeks leading up to Tuesday’s trade deadline. The groundwork needed to be laid as the Cubs waited as long as possible to commit to one direction. The Cubs’ comeback Wednesday against the White Sox, erasing a 7-2 deficit, and their victory Friday in St. Louis when Mike Tauchman’s robbery of a would-be walk-off home run to end the game were two moments of an eight-game winning streak that pushed Hoyer to add to the roster.

“More and more as we got deep into last week, other teams were calling, they’re like, ‘You’re not selling,” Hoyer laughed. “So I think people stopped taking us seriously as a seller, like, ‘Come on, you guys are good, you’re going to buy.’”

Hoyer and the front office ultimately shifted fully into buyer mode Sunday night after watching how the team played through their weekend series in St. Louis.

“You realize this group believes in each other and it’s definitely the right thing to do to keep them together and let them play the last two months,” Hoyer said. “In a lot of ways, they made it really easy the way the team played. When you look at where we are in the season, it’s been an odd path for sure, but if you look at the way we’ve played since really early June, we’ve played great baseball. It’s a cohesive group. We look at the underlying numbers, the team is even better than the record and fans are really responding to this group.

“The biggest focus we had was waiting and letting it play out and not shortchanging the process by making a decision too early.”

The team continued to play well Tuesday, putting up 20 runs on the first-place Reds. Their seven home runs tied a franchise record for most in a game since 1901.

The Cubs didn’t have much wiggle room under the competitive balance tax (CBT), approximately $4.9 million before getting Candelario. The Cubs will only pay Candelario the prorated veteran league minimum salary of the roughly $1.9 million he’s owed the final two months while the Nationals are taking on the rest of the balance, according to the Washington Post.

Hoyer called the CBT a “real factor” from a baseball standpoint in that their willingness to go over the threshold now and in the future was tied to the caliber of player they’d be acquiring.

“We can go over the tax and it’s not a cost issue,” Hoyer said. “It’s really the number of baseball things that impacts now and going forward. It didn’t feel like that decision was there so it had an impact, but it wasn’t financial, it was more strategic.”

A division up for grabs and a largely weak second tier in the National League leaves the playoff race wide open. Hoyer acknowledged that too played a big part in their decision to not move players in what became a seller’s market. A few weeks ago, though, that’s the path the Cubs thought they would be taking.

“This is where you want to be,” Hoyer said. “When we talked in spring training, the goal was, can this group be competitive? And I think they’re competitive for sure. … This team has a chance to come together and really win and that’s the goal when you leave spring training so sitting here after selling is never the goal. Now certainly, that said, it’s often the right strategy when you’re sitting in the situation where you’re not going to compete for the playoffs and you have players that can really impact the future, it’s the right thing to do.

“It’s a much better feeling to be sitting here now having added and having been able to show that belief that we have in this group.”

To open a roster spot for Candelario, Trey Mancini was designated for assignment before Tuesday’s game. Mancini was in the first season of a two-year, $14 million contract, leaving the Cubs on the hook for $7 million in 2024 if he goes unclaimed on waivers as expected. Mancini, 31, hit .234 and had a .299 on-base percentage and 72 OPS+ in 79 games. With Candelario slated to get a lot of playing time at first base and Patrick Wisdom expected to get starts at first against left-handers, Hoyer cited the lack of playing time available for Mancini going forward.

“It felt like the right time,” Hoyer said. “He struggled with us. … He’s a great teammate and worked really hard and sometimes guys come in and play above expectations and in this case, that didn’t happen.”

After the trade for Candelario, their most glaring flaw — the bullpen — was not sufficiently addressed. The Cubs could have used a veteran arm or two to support a back end of the ’pen that features untested playoff pitchers, however, they couldn’t get something done. It’s a risk that the trio of Julian Merryweather, Mark Leiter Jr. and Adbert Alzolay will hold up over eight more weeks in the regular season when adding on to workloads that are nearing or have already surpassed single-season career highs in innings and appearances.

“The hope is that we can certainly continue to bring some arms through the minors that we’ve developed that can add and I hope not only now but going forward that’s the case where you want to be less reliant on outside stuff,” Hoyer said. “The price to go get a rental reliever or even a controllable reliever this time of year is often cost prohibitive. And so, to me, it just underscores the value of developing those guys yourself.”

There was a lot of banter on deals but nothing close to being completed Tuesday, Hoyer said, adding that Candelario was a priority acquisition and who they went after the most aggressively.

“We tried pretty hard and we were definitely in on a lot of different guys,” Hoyer said.

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