Sept. 24, 2019
By Gordon Wittenmeyer – Chicago Sun-Times
Cubs manager Joe Maddon said again recently what he has said for months: He expects to be back managing the team next season.
Granted, this is the same perpetual optimist who kept saying he expected good results this season, even as each wrecking-ball blow by the Cardinals destroyed what was left of the Cubs’ season during a four-game sweep at Wrigley Field.
By Monday, social media, local sports airwaves and national pundits were abuzz with varying degrees of venom and certainty that Maddon will be let go 11 months after team president Theo Epstein lobbed the first shot across his bow by announcing Maddon would enter the final season of his contract without an extension.
But with Epstein’s ‘‘year of reckoning’’ sputtering to an ignominious finish this week, the front office faces a classic be-careful-what-you-wish-for proposition, no matter how it spins a Maddon departure — and no matter whom it hires in his place.
As the Sun-Times said this summer: Whoever fires Joe Maddon as part of the solution for this team needs to look in the mirror and fire that guy, too.
The Cubs’ decline since their 2016 World Series championship has less to do with any change in Maddon’s effectiveness or shortcomings in game management than it does poor free agent spending, worse player-development results and ownership’s questionable “commitment” to setting baseball budgets according to actual revenue.
The fact that the youngest champion in World Series history didn’t come close to living up to all of the ‘‘dynasty’’ talk back then represents a multilayered, organization-wide failure Epstein acknowledges.
But if he fires the most successful manager in franchise history without bigger fish frying, as well, it can’t be reasonably read as anything but finger-pointing, if not scapegoating, by non-sycophants, no matter what kind of spin or celebration of a great run the Cubs apply.
‘‘Reckonings’’ need fall guys when things go wrong. In this case, that might be the manager who finally achieved the right balance and tone to cut through the psychological mystique of an October pressure-cooker a century in the making.
‘‘Joe’s done a great job, as always,’’ Epstein said a few days ago. ‘‘Since he’s been here, he’s been a terrific partner. And he’s had a lot of moving parts thrown at him this year. That’s not the type of thing that usually bothers him. He takes such an even-keeled approach to managing the club.
‘‘He looks for solutions, collaborates. With him, you wouldn’t know if he has a totally healthy roster of if we’re leading the league in injuries. He’s just unflappable that way.’’
In 2008, with the best record in the National League, the Cubs folded under the pressure in a first-round playoff loss to the Dodgers. Manager Lou Piniella exacerbated the problem by getting irked by Mark DeRosa’s suggestion that Game 2 was a ‘‘must-win’’ proposition.
The Cubs’ infield then responded with errors around the horn in a Game 2 loss.
If anything, the laid-back, embrace-the-target, stay-present demeanor that made Maddon the perfect fit for a fledgling core of potential playoff performers can come off as bad optics when things go awry.
‘‘If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have this winning culture, this winning attitude, these expectations of winning here,’’ 2016 NL MVP Kris Bryant said. ‘‘Because when he first got here is when we really started to win, and it’s no coincidence.’’
What else are the players in the clubhouse going to say? Sure. But it’s also hard to make the case that players aren’t responding well enough to Maddon after seeing this flawed roster with a pedestrian bullpen get this far into the season in playoff contention and after watching Anthony Rizzo return four days after what looked like a season-ending ankle injury.
‘‘He’s done a good job of managing the personnel that we’ve had this year,’’ said veteran left-hander Jon Lester, who has been disgruntled at times with Maddon. ‘‘We’ve had a lot of things that have come up and we’ve had to deal with, and he’s done a great job of doing that.’’
Bullpen problems, lack of mix-and-match leadoff options a year after the process worked, breakdowns in an aging rotation and injuries conspired to create a host of challenges in an improved NL. And that doesn’t even include off-field distractions related to Addison Russell’s domestic-violence suspension, Ben Zobrist’s four-month personal leave over marital problems and Maddon’s own lame-duck contract status.
‘‘Obviously, I don’t ever like being taken out of a game, and we talk about it,’’ Lester said. ‘‘We talk about it in the dugout, and then there’s been times he’s pulled me aside and talked to me in the clubhouse about it, and he always has an educated answer.’’
Maybe David Ross — if he even would take the job — can step right in as a first-time manager and be a star. Maybe bench coach Mark Loretta would make a fine manager.
And Maddon is all but assured of managing somewhere next season, whether Philadelphia, San Diego, New York or somewhere else.
But if the Cubs’ plan is to extend their competitive window, is anyone sure those are better answers? And if their plan is about roster turnover that means fresh faces and maybe some younger players to initiate, that has been the strength of Maddon’s style and track record.
‘‘The best thing I like about Joe is that he allows the players to dictate how the clubhouse is, and then I think the genuine personalities of each individual can come out, which I think is important to get the best out of people,’’ newcomer Nick Castellanos said of his seven-week first impression.
For example, Maddon is a manager built for Rizzo, who thrives on the loose clubhouse and pregame schedule but brings as much focus and effort to game time as anyone else.
And Javy Baez, a two-time All-Star and the NL MVP runner-up last season, might not even be in the organization without Maddon. He immediately fell in love with the wild-swinging, undisciplined Baez’s skills at first glance in the winter of 2014-15.
It’s hard to imagine another manager in the game who would have had the patience to allow Javy to be Javy enough to get the payback the Cubs have seen the last four seasons.
‘‘He’s a very good judge of personality,’’ said Castellanos, who has played for four managers. ‘‘I think he knows his players really well, who needs a kick in the ass, who needs a pat on the back.’’
Kick in the ass?
‘‘He had a meeting with us in New York [after getting swept at home by the Nationals],’’ Castellanos said. ‘‘Just a stern meeting about wanting to be cleaned up a little bit more around the strike zone and having better discipline or a better plan.’’
The Cubs went on to beat Marcus Stroman, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom to sweep that series.
As pitcher Kyle Hendricks once said: “Behind the scenes he’s a very intense, competitive dude, trust me.”
Three rival evaluators in the last two weeks offered unsolicited praise for what Maddon has done this season to get the Cubs even this far. One said he didn’t see one area of the game in which the Cubs stood out compared to the rest of the league.
‘‘He’s doing the best with everything he’s been dealt,’’ Bryant said. ‘‘He’s handled the criticism, the questioning, everything great.
‘‘I would love to see him back.’’
