When Jed Hoyer and the Chicago Cubs finally broke the mold and extended a multi-year, high-dollar offer to free agent left-hander Tanner Scott last winter (only to be spurned), it caught the entire industry off-guard. That's just not how Hoyer has operated since taking over the team's baseball operations in the fall of 2020.
Ultimately, he ran back the familiar playbook that's worked more than it hasn't, assembling a collection of aging veterans and bounceback candidates, hoping the cream would rise to the top by season's end. That's just how it played out, with Brad Keller, Caleb Thielbar and Drew Pomeranz each turning in career years out of the Chicago bullpen.