The Joe Maddon era is over. He was the most successful modern Cub manager during a five year tenure. But his message failed to get another championship.
There have been references to championship fatigue, "Winner's Traps," etc. After 2016, the Cubs team has been in a slow decline. Expectations were high; player performance was sliding down. Theo Epstein railed against "potential" and "performance" during spring training. He claimed everyday was a playoff game. The Cubs then stumbled out the gate. The Cubs never had a long winning streak to cause separation in the NL Central. All phases of the team faltered down the stretch.
The Cubs have a major decision to make: who will manage the rest of the Cub championship window. The Cubs have two years left before Kris Bryant becomes a free agent. That is the window to win. But the Cubs ownership has tapped out on money as the front office has exceeded the luxury tax threshold (again). For the past two years, Theo's moves have been costly mistakes. What manager wants to come to a team that is financially hand-cuffed and on the decline?
As it was noted by Joe Girardi many times, there are only 30 such jobs available. It is a unique club. You take the opportunity if you can get it. Girardi really wants to manage the Cubs. He was on his own personal, local publicity tour. He has the experience, winning attitude and character to lead a team. He did so in the sports world's toughest market, New York. But he is viewed as an expensive, old school manager.
The trend is to hire an inexperienced former player or executive that the front office can control like a puppet. Teams have invested so much in advanced stats that they are forgetting baseball fundamentals for spreadsheet data.
One has to remember that all of Maddon's coaches were not his hires. The three hitting and pitching coaches the last three seasons have all been management decisions. Theo and Jed Hoyer wanted to impose their philosophies on the team. Clearly, it did not work out well.
Part of the problem has to be that when a young team wins early, they get cocky and complacent. They do not think they have to work hard in order to win. They think they are as good as their championship ring says they are. They think they can just turn it on at any time and win again. But it does not happen. They press and then they fail under the pressure because they did not put in the hard work to repeat.
The Michael Jordan Bulls championship runs were fueled by Jordan's own personal drive to excel at the highest level and to win multiple championships. The 2016 Cubs did not have that drive. They sat on their laurels. Maddon did not make the players accountable for their underperformance.
But part of the blame lies with the front office which provided Maddon with a bad roster. The rotation was no longer a strength as the older pitchers began to break down. The bullpen has always been a mess. When you spend money on closers who cannot throw or who cannot pitch, that is a problem. The team overvalued its core players to the point of having no competitive depth. And the scouting and development departments horribly failed to draft any reliable talent to help the major league club.
A Cub managerial candidate has to consider the health of the team he is expected to lead to victory. There will be other major vacancies this off season (Mets, Angels, Padres, Pirates).
It is expected that the Cubs will hire a first time manager, The reasons are simple: cheaper and controllable. The Cubs are not going to spend $5 million on a proven, veteran manager. The going rate for a first time, no-experience candidate is less than $1 million.
There is an old saying "you get what you pay for." Some out of the blue selections have won (Hinch, Cora). But the new Cubs skipper comes into a clubhouse that has a lot of baggage. The players have not faced the consequences of their performance flaws. There is no one in the minors pushing to take their jobs.
David Ross is expected to be given an offer. Ross was a vocal clubhouse leader. It is one thing to be a player or teammate but it is another to be the boss. It will be difficult to turn his friendships into employer-employee relationships.
If Ross is not the hire, then the Cubs most likely will tap one of their internal executives or advanced scouts to run the team to make an analytical impact on the strategy of the season. Many players have quietly said that they are being overloaded with information before and during games. By having a new skipper being an evangelical leader of the stat age may be a bigger turnoff than Maddon.
