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

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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.

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Chicago Cubs: Girardi is not the answer here

Girardi was a fan favorite as a Cub, turned in a successful stint as the Yankees’ manager and had been tied to the Cubs as a possible managerial candidate on several occasions before Maddon assumed that role before the 2015 season.

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However, in New York, Girardi was supposedly let go because of a failure to communicate effectively with younger players, despite zero losing seasons, five 90-win seasons and a 103-win season that resulted in a World Series in 2009. With the Marlins, despite winning National League Manager of the Year in 2006, he was fired after the season due to friction with Jeffrey Loria over heckling umpires.

Girardi, to put it plainly, is old school. A lot of people like that. A lot of fans like that. Owners and general managers across baseball seem to not like that. In fact, the trend of late has been to hire guys with little managerial experience who can function efficiently and effectively within the modern clubhouse.

This means lots of analytics, dealing with the “geeks” as Maddon would say, and connecting with young players who have become more and more prevalent in the modern game. Two of the most recent noteworthy and successful hires, Aaron Boone (Girardi’s successor with the Yankees) and Alex Cora, had very little coaching/managerial experience, but are considered excellent communicators. In other words, they’re a bit more “new-school” in their approach and ability to foster a rapport with a young clubhouse.

Chicago Cubs: Don’t change for the sake of change

It seems to me that the Chicago Cubs’ issue the past two seasons has not been in the clubhouse or with chemistry. In fact, many have opined that Maddon’s finest managerial job came in this past season, as he guided a team riddled with injuries and free agent failures (signed by the same guy who doesn’t want to give Maddon an extension, Theo Epstein).

Maddon, if anything, was one of the bright spots this past season, guiding a sometimes rudderless ship to a 95-win season and an unprecedented fourth consecutive postseason appearance.

The fun-loving Cubs skipper is about as “new-school” as they come in terms of clubhouse relations, with only one actual baseball rule (which is about as old school as they come, I suppose): Respect 90. He organizes petting zoos on the field, special dress-up road trips and deflects almost all pressure off his beloved players.

In many respects, Maddon is the prototype for “new-school” managers; he just happens to be a bit older (and a bit more idiosyncratic) than most of the new guys taking over as skippers for other ballclubs. With all of the focus in the past couple seasons on rapport and communication with players, why would the Cubs look anywhere else for a manager when they have the best sitting in their dugout.

Why wouldn’t Theo Epstein give Maddon, the most successful Cubs’ manager in modern times, an extension? Love him or hate him, his teams have been extremely successful and his Cubs’ tenure has been one of the best in the history of the franchise.

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To paraphrase and steal his own lines, Maddon will have to trust the process and not let the pressure exceed the pleasure in 2019, managing on the last year of his contract.

While I have no doubt that this guy is exactly the kind of manager who won’t care about that kind of thing, why not pay him his money and keep him in Chicago for the rest of this competitive window with the young core? No one else is going to do it any better.

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