Tim Sullivan has a great piece in the UT about Jed Hoyer and his move to the Cubs. Hoyer considers the Cubs opportunity a dream job, not just because it gets him back and working with his adopted father, Theo Epstein again, but because it's an opportunity to break a curse with the Cubs after having been in the front office that broke the curse in Boston. Sullivan says that we should give him a break for that.
If Hoyer’s two-year tenure at Petco Park ended with unfinished business, with plans only partially executed and with the Home Team in last place, his abrupt departure is readily understood and easily excused. Instead of competing on a shoestring for an unapproved ownership group in a town largely ambivalent about baseball, Hoyer has latched on to deeper pockets and deeper friendships in pursuit of the cherished Cubs’ first world championship since 1908.
It's a bit of an interesting take considering the fact that lots of people on the internets believe Jed Hoyer was run out of town by Jeff Moorad. If you ask some people, they'd say, "What do you expect Jed Hoyer to do? Jeff Moorad hates everything good about the Padres including Jed Hoyer," which is obviously kind of a crazy take on the situation considering Jeff Moorad hired him only two years prior.
And what's even weirder is how big a crush some people had on Jed Hoyer after just the two years. There was a great year and there was a bad year. The farm system's in great shape and Jed Hoyer deserves a lot of the credit, but two of the top prospects that put our farm system over the top (Yonder Alonso and Yasmani Grandal) were acquired by Josh Byrnes. Verdict is out this season on how Casey Kelly and Reymond Fuentes pay off in the Adrian Gonzalez trade, but Rizzo's MLB test was a fail and if Andrew Cashner somehow works out, then who gets the credit for that? If the Padres farm system is still in the top 5 after this season, credit has to go to Josh Byrnes, right? He'll have hopefully graduated a few guys out of the system into the bigs and used his draft picks to restock well. He'll have proven a pipeline in the short term, as Grady Fuson might say.
Basically, I've always understood why Jed Hoyer wanted to leave and it wasn't because Jeff Moorad was running him out of town. If Jed Hoyer's man-crush on Theo Epstein and/or humongous short guy ego is driving him to be the guy who cured the Red Sox and the Cubs, then fine. Go. I don't know why I should forgive him for that. He doesn't seem real sorry about it.
Given his reasons for leaving, I'll still have trouble understanding why or how that's Jeff Moorad's fault. I guess the hiring of Josh Byrnes makes some people believe that Moorad actually wanted Byrnes in the GM role after all, which might be the case, but I never heard that sort of complaint when Sandy Alderson hired Paul DePodesta while Kevin Towers was still employed. In Sandy's case, it was a "smart" front office move to have a bunch of potential GM types in the front office at the same time. So why was Moorad's move to bring in Byrnes viewed any differently?
Omar Minaya's still employed with the Padres. Are we worried about Byrnes jumping ship in 2013 because Minaya has GM experience?
If Jed Hoyer comes to Jeff Moorad and says, "Mr. Moorad, I need to follow my dream," then it doesn't seem totally unreasonable to me that Moorad would just say, "Sure. If you don't want to be here, then I don't want you here." It's not like Jed went to the big office upstairs and said, "Mr. Moorad, I'm leaving even though I don't have any job offers because you obviously don't want me here." I don't see Jed Hoyer as the type to get that butt-hurt over a new face in the office, but that's the story that goes around.
So I dunno. I guess I'll forgive Jed Hoyer. I could probably forgive Theo Epstein too, while I'm at it, for turning a billion "long suffering fans" into "insufferable pricks". To me, that's what Epstein and Hoyer should be apologizing for. All those douchebags with the letter B on their hats. I also hope that the Cubs explode in their faces, but I probably won't pay attention much until it comes time for them to play the Padres.
Out of curiosity, can Moorad get an excuse too or is this just another part of his diabolical plan to sell the Padres at a 400% profit sometime this summer? Dumb question, I know.