Chicago Cubs are looking for a new team identity from their next manager

The Chicago Cubs want their next manager to focus on teamwork and creating a new team identity as the franchise turns the page on the Joe Maddon era.

Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon commented that he wished the Cubs would have gone out for beers while out on the road or after their games, instead of sitting on their phones. Maddon was sensing that his unbreakable clan had broken up.

In his recent 80+ minute end-of-season presser, Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein talked about how a new manager is going to have to help the current team foster a new identity. Epstein’s idea of identity is turning the cast of current individual characters into ones that represent teamwork. He is looking for players and coaches to be working as a team and not so much individualized efforts.

“It’s gonna be important for the next manager of this particular group, at this time to find a way to foster a team identity,” Epstein said. “I think that this group, our routines tend to be more individualized, there wasn’t a lot of work as a team,” Epstein continued.

Epstein seems to point to the same notion that Maddon had of his team. A bunch of individuals with their noses in their phones instead of having a beer and getting to know each other, really know each other.

Epstein’s analysis is done and he wants more of a group “buy-in” as the team begins to do more things together.  What’s next for the Chicago Cubs – no phones at practice? Seems that’s the way the Chicago brass is approaching technology for next season in a bigger effort to foster teamwork through the coaching staff.

Chicago Cubs: Epstein fights technology for teamwork

Epstein and business leaders across the nation are all facing the same time-killing, ankle-biting, personnel-sucking, attention-grabbing crisis called the ‘personal cell phone’.  It’s right there on top of most desks during business hours and will get called or messaged during the work day, often several times.

These personal digital interruptions cause regular staff to disappear from the workplace and reappear outside with the office smokers. Imagine if that happened during practice on the field? How do you tell players to stay off their devices during practice but then gripe that they are on them right ‘after’ practice, instead of having a beer?

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It seems Epstein is more a victim of technology than lack of teamwork. When Epstein came to the Cubs from the Boston Red Sox in 2011, technology had not come as far as it has today.

The Red Sox teams during Epstein’s tenure were more “Brady Bunch” teammates. Although a large organization, the Sox did most things together and that sense of teamwork was evident from practices to games to championships.

Today, many teams have learned how to bridge that technology divide and turn their clubs into “teams” with the type of ‘team-focus’ Epstein is calling for. We’ve seen real teamwork this year in the St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Nationals and Milwaukee Brewers.  Let’s not forget our friends in Boston who won the World Series last year; the world already had the iOS 11.1 at that time. If these teams can ‘get over their phones’, why can’t the Cubs?

When Epstein came to Chicago organization it took almost four years to build that type of team spirit or identity before the Cubs were ready for their appearance on the big stage in 2016.  Now Epstein wants the Cubs to ‘come together’ and is expecting the new manager to put an emphasis on it. Will a new manager be able to pull that off in a single season? What type of teamwork is Epstein calling for?