Chicago Cubs: Joe Maddon’s evolution and the championship window

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that the Chicago Cubs brought in Joe Maddon. Magicians, a zoo, dance parties and more were his M.O. But things have changed for a team that should have won more than one World Series by now.

This was the perception of the Chicago Cubs. Every first round pick was a hit. They were all starting to gel at the same time. Joe Maddon was brought in with all his shenanigans and laid-back personality, and winning was expected. And in 2015, it started. The Cubs made the playoffs and beat the St. Louis Cardinals to make it to the NLCS. A very fitting win over a team that had a lock on the Central and had won it that year. Times were changing.

2016 came, and we all know how that went. The Cubs broke a 108-year drought and brought a title to the North Side. This was only the start of what the Cubs were going to do over the coming years. This team was stacked with young talent. Who was going to stop them? They would go on to win back-to-back Central titles. They advanced to the NLCS three years in a row and won it all in 2016. Things were good.

But in just one year, all the ridiculousness you’d see in Mesa during the spring has disappeared. No traveling zoos. No magicians. Tim Buss in a speedo? I’m okay without that one. We’re yet to know if the Cubs will keep doing their themed road trips. Is Maddon afraid this is his final year with the Cubs? That’s impossible to know until he says it, but he is a little more restrained this year.

It was a difficult winter that was full of disappointment. The team didn’t spend much money (mostly upsetting to fans), the Joe Ricketts emails and the Addison Russell situation clouded the offseason. But hope springs eternal, especially in the spring. Optimism reigns and every team expects nothing but the best. But Maddon seems less like the Maddon we’ve come to know. But that might be due to the “mandate” laid down from the front office.

Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer want to see more “day-to-day structure, more hands-on teaching, more time around the players.” That leaves less time for some of those other things. But the results Maddon is getting from the players seem to be positive. In a piece by Patrick Mooney at the Athletic ($), Maddon was excited.

"“I’ve seen the most open group I’ve worked with in a long time. Their listening skills have improved, I think. It’s just the interaction. They’re really hearing everything that we’re saying.”"

After losing in a one-game playoff for the division to the Milwaukee Brewers, and then to the Colorado Rockies in the Wild Card–it was over. The Cubs were done for the year. They hadn’t been done playing baseball this early in several years. What the hell just happened.

The Cubs veteran, Jon Lester, might have said it best. As he told Yahoo’s Jeff Passan after the WC loss, “Sometimes you need to get your d!#& knocked in the dirt to appreciate it. Maybe we needed that.”

For the Cubs Cole Hamels, he had a similar feeling after waiting 11 years since he won his first title. When you’re a young team like they were with the Phillies, and the Cubs now, you don’t realize what you’re accomplishing.

“The craziest part about when you win young is I don’t think you understand what you just accomplished,” Hamels said. “Yeah, it’s all great, and you’ve won ever since you were probably in Little League and high school and college and then you win in the big leagues. It’s just kind of a normal thing.”

Some felt like last season the “window” was closing on the Cubs. First, that’s a quick window. Wouldn’t even call it a window. More like a screen door on a porch that slings itself shut right after you walk through. And that’s not what’s happening.

Mike Tyson had a quote (And I swear I’m not doing a Tyson meme for this), “Everybody has a plan until you get hit in the mouth.” The Cubs? They got hit, twice in two days. After winning a World Series after being down 3-1, it’s hard to see yourself not pulling yourself out of whatever you’re in. But last year, they couldn’t do it. Baseball ended for them, and many fans in the blink of an eye.

This season, the team is motivated. They’re hungry. Maddon has taken on a different way of teaching. Either because he felt it was necessary, or he was forced. But the players seem to be responding to it. And this Cubs team could be an even better version of that 2016 team. Yes, the team that won the World Series. Playing in a better division this year will hold them to the fire, and I think they’ll prevail.