The Los Angeles Dodgers announced a four-year extension for manager Dave Roberts. Roberts, who has managed the Dodgers for three seasons, has led the team to a 287-200 record, led them to the World Series in 2017 and 2018, and won the National League Manager of the Year in 2016.
Joe Maddon, who is entering the last season of his contract, won 387 games, coached the Chicago Cubs to the playoffs for four consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history, added three consecutive NLCS visits, an NL pennant, and a World Series championship.
Due to this, some would believe the team would have already had a contract in place for the most successful manager in team history. But apparently not. This has Joe Maddon’s son pissed.
Here are his original comments:
He did clean them up a little bit…
Wow this guy gets an extension with no WS and yet my dad is soon to be a free agent lol https://t.co/obIwXYTRmC
— Joseph Maddon (@JosephMaddon) December 3, 2018
The younger Joe, Joseph, then went on to have multiple Twitter rebuttals with several people, and you can follow him here. But for my money, the best back and forth is with user @TylerJamesRice.
Well because joe giradi will be taking your dads spot next spring.
— Tyler Rice (@TylerJamesRice_) December 3, 2018
They go back and forth with Tyler being pretty much a dirt bag, proclaiming to the junior Maddon that Joe Girardi will be taking his father’s job. The response… “Enjoy that shitshow.”
Lol enjoy that shit show
— Joseph Maddon (@JosephMaddon) December 3, 2018
Now, Joe’s son, Joseph, is likely out of line or out of place for speaking out on Twitter (ahem, Ozzie Guillen Jr.), but he isn’t really wrong.
Joe should have a new contract, he and the Cubs should have had an extension talked about and worked out months ago. Now, this very well could be the way the Cubs will operate from here on out. Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer (among others) waited until what seemed like the very last minute before they received extensions.
But, this is apples-to-oranges. Theo and Jed built undeniable clout when they won the World Series, Maddon, while being able to build upon his resume, also tarnished it as well. Then having back-to-back seasons that ended in very underwhelming circumstances, the allure that Joe once had seems much less shiny.
We are still talking about a manager who has 1,168-990 lifetime record AND a World Series title as manager and as a coach. This means something, regardless of how the last two seasons have ended.
The 2019 season will be a crucial one for Maddon. Not only is he auditioning for a new contract in Chicago, but he could be doing so for the coaching “free agent” market as well. I personally see him performing, or getting the Cubs to perform well enough for the organization to try to keep him around, but someone, soon, needs to control the optics on this. I wouldn’t put that in the hands of Joe’s son, not at this moment anyway.
