Right managers, right time?
For Renteria, Ross, goals are the same, but expectations are quite different
chance to put another banner up there in 2020.”
If you can get past the fixed smiles on the faces of Ross and Renteria, you may notice each has a basketball-sized chip on his shoulder.
As much as Sox honchos have insisted Renteria is the right man for the rebuild, he never has been given a team this talented, so it’s impossible to know exactly how good a manager he is. Renteria’s strength has been building relationships with his players, who swear by him and insist he won’t change, even if the pressure to win has been turned up a notch or 10.
“He’ll be the same,” left fielder Eloy Jimenez said. “He was always pushing us to get a spot in the playoffs. Last year he pushed us, but at the end we struggled a little bit. This year we’ll be better with a better lineup and more starting pitching.”
The additions of free agents Yasmani Grandal and Dallas Keuchel have Sox fans thinking big for the first time in years. And the players are talking big as well.
“The door is wide open for us,” shortstop Tim Anderson said. “All we’ve got to do is show up and go out and take it. We have the right guys to do it and the right guy in charge to lead us.”
That guy is Renteria, who said he’s “not afraid of talking about high expectations and winning,” though he won’t go overboard and make any predictions or guarantees.
“I know most people, they don’t talk about it because you think you’re putting your own head in a noose,” he said.
Renteria’s head won’t be in a noose if the Sox don’t make the playoffs in 2020. General manager Rick Hahn is unlikely to pull the plug, barring another season of 90-plus losses. But Renteria’s moves will be more scrutinized, particularly with the bullpen, if the Sox are in contention.
“It’ll be up to everybody to decide whether we did the job we were supposed to do as coaches and managers,” he said. “I can’t worry about that. Never have, never will.”
Ross, meanwhile, should receive a honeymoon with Cubs fans in his first year running the dugout. He was the odds-on favorite to replace Maddon because of his close relationship with Cubs President Theo Epstein, so it was no surprise he got the job over the more experienced Joe Girardi, who wound up with the Phillies.
But replacing the popular Maddon won’t be easy, especially if the Cubs get off to a poor start. Honeymoons don’t tend to last long in Chicago.
Either way, Epstein believed the time was right for a change.
“If it wasn’t right now, I think it’d be in a couple years no matter what,” first baseman Anthony Rizzo said of the Cubs hiring Ross. “His knowledge of the game, his leadership skill set, the way he can talk to guys and communicate as a player … even when he (stopped) playing, I’d talk to him every couple weeks just to run stuff through him. He’s been managing games a long time being a backup catcher.”
It may feel a bit strange at first to have an old buddy become your boss. But left fielder Kyle Schwarber said the players won’t treat Ross any differently and don’t expect him to go easy on them.
“I don’t think it’s going to be weird because there’s a level of respect that he was given in that clubhouse when he was here,” Schwarber said. “Obviously he’s going to be our boss and he’s going to be making the decisions. We’re going to back him. He’s going to back us. He’s going to get the ultimate level of respect.”
Ross already is dealing with the awkwardness head on, letting Rizzo know at a recent dinner who the boss is.
“I asked him a lot of fun questions,” Ross said. “It’s nice to hold it over his head that I’m dictating his work and what he has to do. I still like to have fun with them. I think I’ll walk that line really well between being their friend and being their boss.”
The time for talking isn’t over. We’ll have six more weeks of rosy outlooks from the two managers before the Sox and Cubs begin their seasons March 26. Then it gets real.
And that’s when Renteria and Ross will have to prove to fans they were the right guys at the right time.