Lame duck soup
Entering the final year of a five-year deal without a contract extension, Joe Maddon might find his seat a bit toasty if the Cubs get off to a poor start.
No one would’ve imagined he still would be without a deal in 2019 after winning the 2016 World Series to end the Cubs’ epic drought, but these are strange times in Wrigleyville, where participation trophies no longer are in vogue.
Maddon has an impressive .541 winning percentage in his 15 years in the majors. If you take away his first two seasons with the Rays in 2006 and ’07, when they lost 101 and 96 games, that percentage shoots up to .568 — an average of 92 wins a year.
Maddon’s winning percentage ranks 49th all time according to baseball-reference.com, just ahead of Hall of Famers Joe Cronin (.540) and Leo Durocher (.540), who until Maddon was considered the best Cubs manager of the last 70 years.
But Durocher never won anything in Chicago, and his legacy remains the ’69 Cubs team that collapsed in September and became beloved for “almost” winning.
Part of Durocher’s appeal was his outsized personality, which often grated on Cubs players. Maddon has a ring and those four postseason appearances in his four years on the North Side, but apparently that’s not enough for management to make a judgment.
Though he may be a lame-duck manager, Maddon doesn’t seem particularly worried.
“We’re all lame-duck, aren’t we?” Maddon said during his trip to Chicago for the Cubs Convention. “I’ve been on one-year contracts for many years, but actually I’m on the last year of a five-year contract, so I’m pretty fortunate. I don’t worry about it. I don’t even think about it unless you ask me about it.
“As you know, I’m pretty self-confident, and I feel good about what we’ve done and where we’re going in the future.”
The contract becoming a distraction is a possibility, and unless the Cubs get off to a hot start, it will be mentioned a time or two no matter how much Maddon or Theo Epstein tries to downplay it. The players know the deal. “I don’t pay any attention to that stuff,” reliever Pedro Strop said. “But Joe is one of the best managers in the league, so I’m pretty sure he’s going to have a job. If not with us, it’ll be with somebody, so there’s nothing to be worried about.”
Strop was involved in one of Maddon’s most controversial decisions last year. After taking over as closer for the injured Brandon Morrow, Strop was allowed to bat after the Cubs took a one-run lead in the 10th inning of a Sept. 13 game against the Nationals.
Strop hit a rocket toward third but pulled a hamstring while trying to beat out a double play, sidelining him for the rest of the stretch run.
Maddon was eviscerated on Twitter and talk radio for letting Strop hit for himself. He had to explain his rationale again last month during a question-andanswer session with fans at the Cubs Convention.
“Had he been thrown out at first base and not pulled a hamstring, nobody would be asking these questions,” Maddon said. “It’s just one of those things that happens. Injuries occur. I learned from Marcel Lachemann many years ago, and I totally believe this: You don’t treat them like China dolls. They’re well-trained athletes. It’s one of those situations that happens. I really do believe it was the right thing to do in that moment. … And retrospectively, it had no impact on the race whatsoever.
“Our bullpen, the guys we picked up, did really well. When things occur in a game, you only have that one shot in that moment to make that decision, and a lot of times when it doesn’t work out, people don’t like that. And that’s an outcome-bias situation.”
Maddon might be the best manager we’ve ever seen in Chicago. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from Twitter, it’s that no manager is smarter than the fan watching from his couch.