Joe Maddon entered a den full of untested Cubbies. Now, after his first season at the helm, they're all grown up.
No, Chicago didn't bust its legendary World Series drought. But the Cubs engineered a significant turnaround, snapping a string of five consecutive losing seasons with a 97-win campaign and a return to the postseason.
A sizable share of the credit goes to the club's brash, bespectacled skipper, who was rewarded with the National League Manager of the Year award Tuesday. To claim the prize, Maddon bested fellow finalists Mike Matheny of the St. Louis Cardinals and Terry Collins of the New York Mets. (Yes, Collins' Mets swept Maddon's Cubs in the National League Championship Series, but voters had cast their ballots before the playoffs.)
Maddon twice won the honor in the American League while managing the Tampa Bay Rays, meaning this latest bit of hardware vaults him into elite company, as ESPN Stats & Info noted:
More than anything, Maddon was the right fit for this club. Yes, his roster was bursting with ability, headlined by recently minted NL Rookie of the Year Kris Bryant and ace right-hander Jake Arrieta, a finalist for the NL Cy Young Award.
But the Cubs pinned their hopes on a gaggle of rookies, including Bryant, Addison Russell, Jorge Soler and Kyle Schwarber. If they had wobbled in stretches and faded in baseball's toughest division, no one would have been surprised.
Instead, Chicago hung with the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates and finished with the third-best record in baseball. It may have been the second wild-card team, but it would have won any other division.
It's impossible to say whether this group would've gelled so well and so quickly under another skipper. But it's clear Maddon's confident, free-and-easy persona rubbed off on his young charges, as CBS Sports' Matt Snyder highlighted:
This Cubs nucleus hadn't been around the concept of winning, and Maddon brought a complete culture change to the locker room. He found ways to keep them loose throughout the season, such as a magician, a petting zoo on the field at Wrigley and pajama night, which hilariously came the night of Jake Arrieta's no-hitter in Los Angeles.
Intangibles like a loose atmosphere and a winning culture don't show up on a stat sheet, and they can't even be quantified. But they matter, arguably as much as lineup construction or in-game tactical machinations.
Then again, Maddon has a deservedly strong reputation in those areas, as well. He's known for being open to analytics and for mixing and matching as needed.
A less creative manager, for example, might have balked at moving Bryant around the diamond. Maddon, however, sized up his touted rook, determined he could handle multiple defensive assignments and gave him innings at third base, first base and all three outfield positions.
Maddon also wasn't afraid to bench struggling shortstop Starlin Castro in August and replace the three-time All-Star with Russell.
Russell shined with his glove and provided some pop, while Castro returned at second base and picked up his game, as Snyder noted.
The chess analogy is overused when it comes to coaches and managers, but Maddon truly is a master at pushing his pieces and, often, seeing a few moves ahead.
Which brings us back to his confident personality, which can border on cocky.
"For me, I'm going to be talking playoffs next year," Maddon said shortly after his hire, per MLB.com's Carrie Muskat. "I'm going to tell you that right now. Because I can't go to spring training and say any other thing. I'm just incapable of doing that."
He knew he could guide this storied franchise out of the weeds—and he did. It's not cockiness if you can back it up.
Of course, you can't heap praise on Maddon without nodding to Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein, the architect of Chicago's renaissance.
Epstein, who arrived in the Windy City after busting the Curse of the Bambino in Boston, methodically and expertly orchestrated this rebuild, and when the pieces were in place, he went out and snared the manager he wanted.
Tampering accusations surfaced at the time, since Maddon had to opt out of his contract with Tampa Bay to sign with Chicago. The Cubs were cleared of any wrongdoing by MLB, but the takeaway was that Epstein was willing to do what it took to land Maddon, even if it meant skirting the edge of the rules.
He got his man. The Cubs got back on the winning path. And Maddon has another shiny trinket to stash on his mantle.
Now, the expectation level has been set to sky-high. With their nucleus locked in and the Cubs likely to be active on a loaded free-agent market, the next step is as unambiguous as it is monumental: win a title, bury that damn billy goat and let the confetti rain on the North Side at long last.
For the moment, Maddon can bask in the glow of one promise fulfilled. These Cubbies needed to taste success, and he fed it to them.
Now, they're hungry for more.
All statistics current as of Nov. 17 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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