Jed man talkin'

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As fans of real teams get ready for the playoffs, Cubs fans are left to lick their wounds, pack away their cup snakes and drool the drool of regret on the pillow of remorse. So over the next couple of weeks, I’ll put the 2023 season into true perspective with a series called simply, The Aftermath.

If you aren’t yet a subscriber you can try to take solace in the Cubs epic three week long wet fart of a season finish with 20% off a new subscription! Hey it’s better than nothing. By like, 80%.

Part Three

Jed man talkin’

On Tuesday, as teams were preparing for the playoffs, Cubs’ President of “Goddamnit, did Crane drink all the Nespresso again?” Jed Hoyer met with the usual gaggle of Cubs beat reporters to discuss the Cubs’ wonderfully successful four games over .500, non-postseason season.

You can watch the whole thing here. Warning. Do not operate heavy machinery while watching or listening to a Cubs press conference.

Better yet, how about you just read a scintillating recap?

Jed’s going casual. No tie. At least he shaved this time. The post-trade deadline press conference he looked like he’d been locked in a bunker under the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne’s compound for a month.

Jed asks himself the first question. Was the season a success?

He says no, because even though externally nobody thought they would be a playoff team (and, Jed, we were right) within the luxurious offices of Gallagher Way, their statistical models showed they would indeed be a playoff team. Real shocker that their numbers were wrong, again.

Jed talks about what a roller coaster the season was. How they were 10 games under .500 at one point and got all the way to 12 over. Hey, neat. How many did you end up over .500? Nine? Eight?

Oh, four. That’s still pretty good though, right? No?

He says that the “painful last two or three weeks” will stick in his mind all offseason, and he knows it will motivate him and the coaches and the players.

I just hope the motivation isn’t, “I don’t want to go through that ever again, so let’s just lose 100 games!”

Jed throws it open to questions and the first person calls him a hump? What?

Oh, no, sorry. The first question was, "What do you need to get over the hump?” That’s far less rude.

By the way, Alec Baldwin told that same story on Letterman once, and Dave enjoyed it, but he really liked the, “Mrs. Baldwin, you hump” part.

Anyway, back to Jed’s Playhouse, where he’s bragging about how the Cubs had a “really good” offense (what they were really good at was not scoring when they really needed to), were a good run prevention team (until they really needed to be) and he said, “the shell of a good team is here.”

I’m not going to argue. This current roster is a shell of what it used to be when they were actually good.