It was hard to remove David Ross, yet Craig Counsell did the right thing.

It was hard to remove David Ross, yet Craig Counsell did the right thing.

Chief baseball operations officer for the Chicago Cubs, Jed Hoyer, said firing David Ross was “very hard,” but adding Craig Counsell was “the best thing over the fan base.”

Hoyer talked about the idea at the GM meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Tuesday. He said it started to grow on him last month, when Counsell was considering offers from other teams, such as coming back to the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Cubs quickly signed him when his contract with the Brewers expired on October 31. Sources tell ESPN’s Jeff Passan that the deal is worth $40 million over five years.

“It just felt such as an exceptionally difficult decision, but one which I felt like I had to make if the chance was there,” said Hoyer.

“My job is to figure out how to win as many matches as we can in both the immediate future and the long term, and there had been nothing about this move that I felt like didn’t satisfy that criteria.”

Hoyer said the circle felt extremely small as the team thought about the idea of swapping Ross with Counsell. Some people in the group, like owner Tom Ricketts, didn’t even know it was an option.

Ten years ago, the Cubs did the same thing when they chose Joe Maddon to succeed Rick Renteria. However, Ross was an even bigger part of the team than Renteria ever was.

He played for the team and helped them win the World Series in 2016. Then, in 2019, he was chosen to replace Maddon.

Jed Hoyer, president for baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs, said that firing manager David Ross was “extraordinarily hard.” He also said that hiring Craig Counsell is “the best thing over the fan base.”

A five-year, $40 million deal was signed by Counsell, according to Hoyer. He is “at the very top of the game” and has regularly done better than expected as manager for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Hoyer also said that Counsell is good at making the most of his team’s strengths and that the Cubs think it’s less likely that Counsell will let wins slip away with him in charge.

Tuesday in Arizona, Chicago Cubs President for Baseball Ops Jed Hoyer met with the reporters and told them for the first time what he thought about this week’s changes to the management team.

Hoyer fired David Ross in Monday and then hired Craig Counsell, the former manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, and gave him a record-breaking deal.

Hoyer told reporters during the GM Meetings that he was on the fence about getting rid of his manager, but that he thought it was the best choice for the Cubs in the short and long run.

“It just felt like an incredibly hard choice, but one I knew I had to make if the chance came up,” he told reporters, such as Maddie Lee for the Chicago Sun-Times.

“From my point of view, it’s my job to figure out how to prevail in as many games as possible, both now and in the future.” There wasn’t nothing about the decision that didn’t make me think it met those standards.

He also said that Counsell is “at the top of the game” as a boss and that he is the best person to leave the company for the future.

The 2023 season saw the Cubs finish with an 83–79 record, but they missed the playoffs for the third straight year.