National Post (National Edition)
Cubs core hopes to maximize time together
CAN THOSE WHO ORCHESTRATED 2016 WORLD SERIES GO ON ANOTHER TITLE RUN?
The core of a championship team only changes in one direction: It gets smaller over time, as economic attrition and Father Time turn teammates into ex-teammates, pulling everyone closer to the day when they’re shuffling onto the field on balky knees and in tight-fitting jerseys to wave to the crowd and throw out a ceremonial first pitch on reunion day.
Just last month, the Chicago Cubs said farewell to lefty Mike Montgomery, who had been on the mound for the franchise’s greatest moment in more than a century — the final out of Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. Montgomery’s trade to Kansas City was merely the latest reminder that the ranks of the 2016 core is slowly dwindling, and will only get smaller.
“Mike threw the last pitch of the World Series,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said Tuesday, before a game at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, in the August heat of another playoff race. “That’s always going to be embedded in my mind. I’ll always be indebted to him.”
But the Cubs, due largely to their financial advantages and the sheer youth of that championship team, have it better than most — if you disagree, just ask the 2015 Kansas City Royals, if you can find any of them — with a dozen members of Chicago’s core still plying their trade at Wrigley Field and helping compile a 6455 record this season, which gave the Cubs a one-game lead over St. Louis in the National League Central entering Wednesday.
“We don’t take it for granted,”
said veteran outfielder Jason Heyward, who is having a resurgent season at age 30. “We talk about it, and we make the most of it, and we feed off it. It doesn’t last forever, and I understand that. That’s why it’s imperative to take each season on its own, and never take one for granted.”
Later this summer, the remaining core of the 2016 championship team will grow by one member, with the expected return of Ben Zobrist, the super-utility man and clubhouse sage who was the MVP of the 2016 World Series. Zobrist has been gone since early May while dealing with a personal situation away from the field, but is getting back to game speed with Class AAA Iowa and is expected to rejoin the Cubs around the end of the month.
“It’s going to be nice to have him back,” third baseman Kris Bryant said last week. “I look at his locker every day ... We’ve missed him, not just what he does on the field, but what he does in (the clubhouse).”
The Cubs are in the rare position of knowing they will have a large chunk of their 2016 core back in 2020 as well, as Zobrist and reliever Pedro Strop are the only remaining holdovers who will hit free agency at the end of this season. (First baseman Anthony Rizzo could also become a free agent in the unlikely event the team declines a $16.5 million option for 2020.)
But increasingly, the question facing the Cubs is whether Maddon — their most successful manager since Frank Chance led the 1906-08 squads to three straight NL pennants and backto-back World Series titles — will be back in 2020. Despite having averaged nearly 97 wins per season while leading the team to four consecutive playoff appearances — including, of course, the 2016 championship — Maddon is in the final year of a five-year contract, with no active negotiations for 2020.
Following the disappointing end to 2018, when the Cubs blew a five-game lead in the Central in September, lost a divisional tiebreaker to Milwaukee, then lost the wild card game to Colorado, the Cubs’ management announced in November it was tabling discussions with Maddon over an extension until this off-season.
But that created the perception Maddon was managing for his job in 2019, and his lame-duck status has hovered over the team all season. Over the weekend, it came to the surface again when Maddon, 65, proclaimed his confidence level for returning in 2020 was “very high” and said he hoped to manage until he’s 70.
“I’m operating like we’ll be together for a couple more years, at least,” he told reporters Sunday. “I’m not going to sit and proclaim I’m looking to go elsewhere. That’s not true.”
He also said he doesn’t believe his status for 2020 and beyond will come down to wins and losses.
“If that’s the case,” he said, “I would have signed a contract at the end of last season. Our success is pretty good ... If it was about wins and losses, this would be a moot point.”
If Maddon’s future is indeed tied to the Cubs’ performance in 2019, it’s impossible to say at this point whether that is a promising proposition for him, or an anchor that will drag him down with the ship. Like a half-dozen or more NL counterparts, the Cubs — despite their talent and a payroll that ranks second in the majors — appear to be just another formidable but flawed team trailing well behind the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers in the league’s power rankings.
Despite some aggressive moves by the front office — the Cubs acquired closer Craig Kimbrel, outfielder Nicholas Castellanos, outfielder Tony Kemp and catcher Jonathan Lucroy in the past two months — the Cubs have been unable to separate themselves in a three-way race with the Cardinals and Brewers in the Central. Chief among their problems is an inability to win away from Wrigley Field: they fell to 23-36 on the road this season following Tuesday night’s 4-2 loss to the Phillies in Philadelphia.
Maybe what the Cubs need is a fresh dose of 2016 karma, and maybe Zobrist — despite his age (38), declining production (.241/.343/.253 slash line in 26 games this year) and uncertainty over his fitness after such a long layoff — is just the person to supply it.
“Hey, he can be as good once as he ever was,” Maddon said. “He’s been off almost the entire year. He won’t be fatigued.”
But the only certainty in this game is that Father Time remains undefeated, even against something as huge and powerful as the 2016 World Series-champion Chicago Cubs. Whether that means Strop and Zobrist ride off into free agency this winter, and whether Maddon joins them, 2016 will keep slipping further into the distance.
The Washington Post