Chicago Cubs: As bullpen collapses, the blame game begins

And with that realization starting to sink in, frustration has started to boil over and fingers are starting to be pointed.

Manager Craig Counsell has taken his fair share of the blame for the bullpen woes, specifically. But at some point one has to consider that he can only do so much with the pitchers he has at his disposal.

So, the largest target for blame above Counsell is the man in charge of acquiring those pitchers—Cubs president of baseball operations, Jed Hoyer.

Mark Powell of Fansided recently took the biggest whack at the Cubs exec:

“When assigning blame for the Cubs bullpen woes, you have to start at the very top, and that is Jed Hoyer. While the Cubs tried to build their bullpen from scratch — and devoted plenty of financial resources to it in the process — Hoyer bet on the wrong horses. Phil Maton, Hunter Harvey, and Hoby Milner, all signed as free agents, haven’t delivered. Palencia has been hurt for significant portions of the season and only just returned. Javier Assad, Aaron Civale and Colin Rea are all former starting pitchers who aren’t used to this role.

This is why the Cubs traded for Ryan Zeferjahn at the deadline, but even he hasn’t been what was promised, as the right-hander has a 6.23 ERA since he was acquired by Hoyer.”

The buck stops at the top?

This won’t be the first time Hoyer catches flak for his inability to acquire quality pitching, especially for a bullpen that pretty much had to be entirely rebuilt during the offseason. And there’s definitely a good argument to make that the buck stops at the very top.

But there’s also a good argument to make for just wild bad luck overtaking the team via injury and the subsequent need for pitchers to assume roles that are just not in their physical or mental makeup.

Whatever the case, though, the focus has to be on stopping the bullpen-related freefall and then crossing finger extra-tight that the relief corps finds its mojo in the playoffs.