Chicago Cubs: Could 2019 be Joe Maddon’s last season with the Cubs?

The Chicago Cubs will not talk shop with Joe Maddon this offseason, further stoking speculation the team will look to Joe Girardi as soon as 2020.

In ‘A Tale of Two Joes’, incumbent Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon is decidedly superior to former Cubs player and Yankee skipper, Joe Girardi. I say this both in terms of his rapport with current players as well as the ability to foster clubhouse chemistry.

In light of the fact that chemistry and clubhouse “tightness” has been a huge part of the Cubs winning 400 games over the past four years, there is no way the team can make a change from Maddon to Girardi (or anyone else, for that matter) and expect the same success they’ve enjoyed of late. 

As “industry speculation” (whatever that means, Jon Heyman) has indicated, Joe Girardi may have pulled himself out of the running for jobs with the Rangers and Reds this offseason because he might be holding out for a potential vacancy in the dugout at Wrigley Field in 2020.

The bigger question isn’t if that’s truly the case; it is why, as Cubs fans, should we even care?  In fact, the better question for Theo Epstein isn’t who will be the manager in 2020 so much as why Joe Maddon hasn’t been (and apparently won’t be) given an extension prior to later next year.