Once the Chicago Cubs officially parted ways with manager Joe Maddon, many fans called for a manager that would whip the team into shape. They needed a disciplinarian to crack the whip. The team did underachieve in 2019, but they had done so in the previous two seasons as well. Sure, 2017 can be given a pass. They made the NLCS in a season which they had the proverbial “World Series Hangover” but it doesn’t excuse the drop off in 2018 and the complete disaster of 2019.
It is hard to call a season in which the team won 95 games and earned a playoff game (albeit, just one, singular game) a drop-off. It did take one of the more impressive runs in recent memory by the Milwaukee Brewers to overtake the Cubs in the standings. But, as Theo Epstein eloquently put it, “our offense broke somewhere along the lines.”
That offseason, during player exit interviews, players wanted more structure. They wanted more mandatory batting practice, and less bad food and alcohol. They called for lineups to be given out in advance. Basically, the inmates wanted control of the asylum.
Something you understand working in a professional setting is, high achievers need structure. While high achievers can produce regardless of who is leading them, the success of the whole is always built from the sum of all parts. I am in sales and if I have a poor manager I can still achieve great things, but if I have a bad manager the team will likely suffer.
Now, I’m not calling Maddon a bad manager, not at all. But, I think he has a specific dynamic that allows him to succeed. He manages a team much like a corporate structure. Maddon was the executive and his bench coach was the director. His positional coaches were managers, and he expected leaders within the roster to be supervisors. He needs all of that to happen for him to be successful, and since David Ross retired, there wasn’t a peer on the roster that was willing to crack the whip.
So, like David Kaplan recently penned, the Cubs got fat and happy, underachieved, and that is why you saw disappointing results from a club that should have excelled.
When you are comfortable, you start to lose that attention to detail. Small things go by the wayside, and you get that “creep.” The creep is when you say, I’ll just do that tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes and you say you’ll put it off another day, then another and another, etc. I think a perfect example of this was Willson Contreras. He admitted that in 2018 he didn’t have a great work ethic and it became apparent in his results. He didn’t weight train, and noticeably his power was down and it became harder for him to catch up to heat. To his credit, he identified this, vowed to change it, and had a resurgent 2019 season.
This is just one example of what one person within the Cubs organization told Kaplan. Speaking in anonymity, one person within the organization said, “on the field we got fat and happy and that cannot be allowed to continue.”
You heard it all throughout the convention, players didn’t exactly throw Joe Maddon under the bus, but they were very excited to discuss how David Ross would hold them accountable. Coincidently, Ross was that guy in 2015 and 16. The guy that demanded more from professionals in the room. While a World Series championship is etched on the mantle of Maddon’s story, Ross played a bigger role in that championship than what a lot of people really understand.
The Cubs players didn’t lift Rossy up because he was a fun-loving guy in the clubhouse. He was. But, they respected him because he built structure and demanded more of the guys around him. Cubs fans were right, this team needed a disciplinarian, but the idea of hiring a guy like Joe Girardi that would just come in and yell at the guys wouldn’t have gone over very well.
Ross talks about accountability all the time, and it is a driving force behind why Theo and Jed Hoyer pegged him as a future manager as early as 2008. But if he was just a red ass to be a red ass, it wouldn’t come off well. But when it genuinely comes from a place of love or respect, it will go a long way.
What we have learned over time is, regardless of how you manage, being a player’s manager or a disciplinarian, they often have a shelf life. Guys like Ross, ones who will demand accountability but also has the ability to relate tend to have longer runs of success. Look at Bruce Bochy as an example. He was a mixture between disciplinarian and players manager. A good balance, much like what Ross is supposed to represent.
Now, fans can question his experience levels and that is fair, but with everything Ross represented throughout his 15 year MLB career, he will be a good MLB manager.
