Managerial Decision Coming Soon

While the Chicago Cubs mull over who should be their next manager, they already lost one of their final candidates. As Eric Wedge, who interviewed twice with General Manager Jim Hendry and once with Chairmam Tom Ricketts, became the new Seattle Mariners manager.This essentially brings the Cubs list down to two with Mike Quade being the apparent favorite, and Ryne Sandberg being a close second. Sources told ESPN Chicago that the Chicago Cubs are “close” to naming their new manager. Going as far as to say there could be an announcement this week on who the new manager will be.

There was a lot of chaos that resulted earlier this week do a twitter post by Will Carroll, formerly of Baseball Prospectus, tweeting that Mike Quade will be named the manager next week, and Ryne Sandberg would be named Quade’s bench coach. However, as I originally thought, Ryne Sandberg under no circumstances is going to be a bench coach for the Chicago Cubs next year.

The wild card in the whole picture remains to be New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi. There have been conflicting reports over the last few days over whether or not the Chicago Cubs are waiting to have a shot with Girardi, once the Yankees are done with the their postseason run. In the ESPN Chicago story sources insist that the Cubs are not waiting for Girardi, and that there have been no back channel discussions between the two parties. In fact, they report that the Yankees are prepared to make Girardi a three year offer once the postseason concludes.

Major League Baseball prohibits teams from making major announcements during the World Series, which is scheduled to start on October 28th. Meaning the Chicago Cubs have over a week and a half to name their next manager, or be forced to wait till after the World Series is over with to announce their new manager.