The Chicago Cubs are rumored to be close to hiring Joe Maddon to be the team’s new manager, and on Friday they took a huge step in that direction as the club announced they had fired Rick Renteria after just one year on the job.
Cubs President Theo Epstein issued a lengthy statement on the decision to fire Renteria. Conceding that Renteria, who was brought in to replace Dale Sveum before the 2014 season, “deserved better,” Epstein said in his statement that the decision came down to a simple question: should the team be loyal to their own goals of winning a championship or to the manager that they had given a vote of confidence to before the offseason got underway?
“We saw it as a unique opportunity and faced a clear dilemma: be loyal to Rick or be loyal to the organization," Epstein said of the decision. "In this business of trying to win a world championship for the first time in 107 years, the organization has priority over any one individual. We decided to pursue Joe (Maddon).”
Epstein also said that Renteria has been offered other positions within the organization, but “he is of course free to leave the organization and pursue opportunities elsewhere.”
While the Cubs haven't officially announced that they will be hiring Maddon, several reporters have said the team will make the move official at a Monday press conference:
press conference to announce hiring of joe maddon by cubs is planned for monday — Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) October 31, 2014
Chicago Baseball
The Cubs finished in last place in the NL Central during the 2014 season, but they improved by seven games over their win total from the previous year and had a winning record at Wrigley Field. Improved performances from Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro, whose decline had been a large part of the reason that Sveum was fired after the 2013 campaign, were largely credited to Renteria’s tutelage, and prospects like Javier Baez and Jorge Soler came up to improve the team’s fortunes.
Unfortunately for Renteria, it seems as though he’s a victim of bad timing. The assumption was that he would be another place-holder until the Cubs could land a big-time skipper to lead the team, and even though he had overseen the improvements he’d been hired to generate, Maddon’s sudden availability after opting out of his contract with the Tampa Bay Rays had to intrigue the Cubs, and they moved quickly.
