CINCINNATI -- It is the underlying storyline that has been thread all over this season for the Cubs. Manager Joe Maddon does no longer absorb a contract beyond this year, and there remains no certain sense of where the entrance position of job stands on the dedication to lift him support.
Sitting within the
CINCINNATI -- It is the underlying storyline that has been thread all over this season for the Cubs. Manager Joe Maddon does no longer absorb a contract beyond this year, and there remains no certain sense of where the entrance position of job stands on the dedication to lift him support.
Sitting within the guests' dugout at Expansive American Ball Park on Sunday morning, Maddon took on the latest wave of questions about his unsure future with a smile. And the performed supervisor expressed that his optimism remains high that the Cubs will re-signal him when the time comes to form that call.
"It is totally high, yeah," Maddon said. "Very high. Very, very high. I'm working in that I specialise in we are going to be together for a couple extra years on the very least."
Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein made it known in all places in the GM Meetings in November that extension talks with Maddon were going to be tabled until later this year. That came after Chicago's offense went darkish over the last two months of 2018, ensuing in a division misplaced in Game 163 to the Brewers and a one-and-performed National League Wild Card Game defeat to the Rockies.
Mute, the Cubs piled up 95 victories and reached the playoffs for a fourth consecutive season. Maddon turned the first supervisor in franchise history to diagram that obtain of dash. Maddon's 387 wins across the 2015-18 campaigns marked a membership fable for a supervisor's first four seasons. Entering Sunday, handiest the Dodgers (457) had extra wins than the Cubs (450) all over Maddon's tenure.
These notes are worth declaring, as a end result of Maddon does no longer specialise within the dedication on his future in Chicago will come down to wins and losses.
"I specialise in it has nothing to diagram with wins and losses," Maddon said. "If that is the case, I'd've signed the contract on the end of last season, if it came down to wins and losses handiest. Our success even to this point on the present time -- August no topic it is -- or no longer it has been barely appropriate. ... To steady lower it to wins and losses, that makes no sense in any appreciate."
Maddon used to be reminded about the truth that he referred to himself as a "free agent" when his lack of contract used to be brought up in all places in the Cool weather Meetings in December. In theory, which map the supervisor might presumably opt to study open waters, despite the incontrovertible truth that the Cubs come calling with an extension offer.
That might presumably simply be appropriate, but Maddon said he desires to follow the Cubs.
"I'm no longer going to take a seat right here and proclaim that I'm taking a look to head in utterly different places. That is never any longer appropriate," Maddon said. "It is about where every aspect desire every diversified, in actuality. It is a wedding, in a sense, that the community would desire me to be right here and I might presumably wish to be right here also in return. And that will presumably be the cause why you are going to forestall. It has to be mutual."
And, in Maddon's idea, the dedication will come down to interplay and dialog.
"It is about the capacity to work together," Maddon said. "For me, too. Sign [that] I wish to be somewhere where I wish to work, too, and that I trip the commerce, which I diagram. Every thing about what we diagram on the Cubs and where we diagram it at is -- you are going to't beat it. It is inconceivable to beat it on every level. So that is the allure for me."
Heading into Sunday, the Cubs were in first position within the National League Central with a 1 1/2-sport lead over the second-position Brewers. The Cardinals and Reds were no longer some distance within the support of, but Chicago is in space to be triumphant within the October stage for a fifth consecutive year beneath Maddon's seek.
There had been accidents and inconsistencies all season, on the different hand, plus a puzzling avenue fable (22-35 entering Sunday) that threaten to withhold the Cubs support down the stretch. Maddon said he does no longer specialise in his gamers are no longer piling any additional stress on themselves given the supervisor's unclear space after this season.
"I hope they never diagram. I don't necessarily obtain that from them," Maddon said. "Now we absorb lots of appreciate flowing support and forth. My interplay with the community this year -- or no longer it is continuously appropriate -- but this year I've taken it to a particular level regarding the methods, the dialog, how continuously we keep up a correspondence and the instructing element of or no longer it has been larger than, deliberately.
"So I'd never desire gamers to even specialise in that for a second. I don't specialise in they diagram. At the end of the day, I don't specialise in a player does. He desires to manage with himself and methods to be phase of the team and play to device end, no longer play to device end for the supervisor."
Jordan Bastian covers the Cubs for MLB.com. He beforehand lined the Indians from 2011-18 and the Blue Jays from 2006-10. Read his blog, Important League Bastian and apply him on Twitter @MLBastian.
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