Kuzul

Having a great manager doesn’t guarantee postseason success.

Games are still won on the field, but managers are tasked with putting players in the best position to succeed.

Bruce Bochy didn’t have a ton of success before joining the San Francisco Giants in 2007. Before arriving in San Francisco, Bochy managed the San Diego Padres for 12 seasons. 

His regular-season record was below .500, and he couldn’t guide the Padres past the National League Division Series. In four postseason appearances, Bochy’s club was 8-16, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

The Giants didn’t make the playoffs in the first three seasons under Bochy but qualified in 2010 and turned into a dynasty. The team won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

Bochy’s decision to pull Tim Hudson in the fifth inning of Game 7 and bring in Madison Bumgarner is the perfect example of a manager pulling the right strings and putting his club in the best position to win a championship.

Here are five managers who will feel pressure to step up as a tactician and help guide his team to a World Series championship.

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Just think of the possibilities.

This is the foundation books are written on. It is what makes one city hate another regardless of how closely its citizens follow sports. This is how the ideas are born for great 30 for 30s, ESPN’s acclaimed sports documentary series that has already featured the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry and the Chicago Cubs’ losing history.

But the Cubs are not losers at present day. They are aimed dead straight toward the postseason, and for the first time since Steve Bartman sat along the left field foul line, they are legitimate threats to take the National League pennant.

That does not sit well with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cubs’ chief rival. For the past 15 years, the Cardinals have been godlike in the National League Central, having won the division eight times and expected to win a ninth within days. The Cardinals have a way, and it has taken them to the postseason a dozen times in the past 16 seasons, including this one, where they have made four World Series and won two.

So on a mid-September afternoon, a baseball game was played between these teams inside confines that are supposed to be friendly. Things turned hostile, though. The contenders took exception to pitches hitting their teammates, and Joe Maddon, in his first year writing out lineups for the Cubs, took exception to the “Cardinal Way,” which has several tunnels to explore through the power of search engines—everything from winning to luck to computer hacking shows up on the first page of Google’s results.

“We don’t start stuff, but we finish stuff.” Watch @CubsJoeMadd’s postgame presser: http://t.co/YzbwAfOmxc pic.twitter.com/rb3mbCofFm

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) September 19, 2015

And just like that, this rivalry has hit a new level. The teams are good. They will be so for years to come, we think. There is animosity, which makes it more intriguing. There was a comparison to the mob and a sweet, old-timey “Who died and made you God?” kind of burn.

The salvo has been unleashed.

Joe Maddon goes off on Cards for throwing at Rizzo. It’s on.

— Paul Sullivan (@PWSullivan) September 18, 2015

Here is a quick refresher of the talking points:

• Cubs pitcher Dan Haren, whose average fastball is 86.1 MPH and slow enough for third-lowest in the majors among starting pitchers, hit Cardinals slugging star Matt Holliday in the helmet in the fifth inning. Watch the video, check the situation and you can clearly see it was unintentional.
• In the seventh inning, Cardinals reliever Matt Belisle intentionally threw at Cubs star Anthony Rizzo. Watch the video and there is little doubt it was purposeful, despite Belisle’s poor attempt to mask the intent. He was ejected, and so was St. Louis manager Mike Matheny.
• After the game, Maddon went off.

“Right now, that really showed me a lot today in a negative way,” Maddon said in his postgame press conference. “I don’t know who put out the hit. I don’t know if Tony Soprano was in the dugout, but I didn’t see him in there. But we’re not going to put up with that. I’m going to say that. From them or anybody else.”

Maddon also said:

That is ridiculous. I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want to hear about [Belisle] pitching inside. I don’t want to hear any of that crap. The pitch that Danny hit their guy with, absolutely a mistake. And Danny…it was just a mistake. It just happened. It was awful. We hated it. We all hated it in the dugout. I’m happy that he’s fine, absolutely. … We don’t start stuff, but we will finish stuff.

Part of what has become known as the Cardinal way over the past decade is that the team polices the game and opposing players as if it wears a badge, though that reputation was born and bred mostly under former manager Tony La Russa. Other players do not approve, obviously, and St. Louis’ former players, like Haren, understand this is how the club goes about its business.

Both teams have plenty on the line this season. The Cardinals are trying to hold on to the division, and the Cubs are trying to overtake the Pittsburgh Pirates for the first wild-card spot. So this thing might be over for this season, or it might not be. We’ll see over the weekend.

What we do know now is this will make for a heated future between these teams. The Cardinals cannot like the idea of being threatened by a young, talented team that should only get better and has the money to fill whatever holes might be uncovered. And the Cubs surely don’t like being talked down to in the form of fastballs intentionally thrown at them.

The windows to win for both franchises are wide open, meaning this rivalry has staying power. And it appeals on a national level, not quite as much as Yankees-Red Sox, but probably more so than Dodgers–Giants.

This is not over—the trash talk, the despising and, unfortunately, the hitters being thrown at. And if you’re a fan of baseball, lock into this thing for the next several years, because this was just Chapter 1.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Things are getting heated in the National League Central, and it’s not just in the standings, either. 

Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon went off on the St. Louis Cardinals, comparing their actions to those of fictional mobster Tony Soprano.

Maddon’s tirade was sparked by Cardinals reliever Matt Belisle hitting Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo during Chicago’s 8-3 victory Friday. Chicago believes Belisle did so intentionally as a response to Dan Haren hitting St. Louis slugger Matt Holliday in the head during the fifth inning. 

Jesse Rogers of ESPNChicago.com was there for Maddon’s lecture after the game.

“I don’t know who put out the hit,” Maddon said. “I don’t know if Tony Soprano is in the dugout. I didn’t see him in there. We’re not going to put up with that from them or anyone else.”

Haren, who pitched for the Cardinals from 2003 to 2004, is familiar with the way the team reacts to these kinds of situations, as he told Rogers.

“They’ve been known for policing it that way,” Haren said. “Sometimes it goes to a little bit of an extreme. Coming up with the Cardinals, that was just part of it: protecting the big guys.”

Maddon, who grew up a Cardinals fan, according to Rogers, continued to take jabs at his former favorite team:

I’m really disappointed in what the Cardinals did right there. We did not hit their guy on purpose. That was an absolute mistake. 

To become this vigilante group that wants to get their own pound of flesh, that’s absolutely insane, ridiculous and wrong. We don’t start stuff, but we will stop stuff.

This adds more fuel to the fire in the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry. With two more games remaining in their series, the Cubs are within six games of the Cardinals, with the Pittsburgh Pirates in between them. With all three teams contesting for the division title and the two wild-card positions, expect the emotions and ill will to continue rising.

Stats courtesy of ESPN.com.

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1. A Manager Is Just Another Chew Toy for Pit Bull Loria

Everyone knows managers are hired to be fired. But in Miami, they’re not just fired; they’re sliced, diced, pureed, pulsed, chopped, whipped, crushed, frappe’d and blended too.

So here comes new Marlins manager Dan Jennings, one of the game’s most respected talent evaluators, in Miami’s craziest move yet.

This actually is a demotion for Jennings, who comes downstairs from the executive office, where he was vice president and general manager. Not since Jack McKeon—sound familiar, Marlins fans?—with the San Diego Padres from 1988 to 1990 has someone served as both manager and general manager in the majors. (Yes, that is a bit of sarcasm. Demotion, yes, but Jennings will retain his VP title, and the Marlins say he will have the same input in the construction of the team.)

Jennings is a lifetime talent evaluator who is credited with signing and developing, among others, Josh Hamilton, James Shields, Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli during his seven-plus seasons as Tampa Bay’s director of scouting before leaving for the Marlins.

And as he himself said during Monday morning’s press conference, “It is out of the box. I will not deny that.”

You think?   

Here is just one of the 3,000 reasons this organization is laughable and you can’t believe anything it says: Club president David Samson and president of baseball operations Michael Hill spoke at length Monday about how the Marlins needed “a new voice.”

So the “new voice” is a guy from the front office who has had a hand in building/maintaining this team all along?

This is not a new voice.

This is an old tale.

Owner Jeffrey Loria is George Steinbrenner on training wheels, blowing through managers like Kleenex.

Since 2010, the Marlins have employed seven: Fredi Gonzalez, Edwin Rodriguez, Brandon Hyde (0-1 as interim in 2011), Jack McKeon, Ozzie Guillen, Mike Redmond and now Jennings.

Loria is paying three managers this summer alone: Guillen, who is in the final year of the four-year, $10 million deal he signed to manage the Marlins before the 2012 season, Redmond and Jennings.

Try as he might with moon shot after moon shot, slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who hit a ball completely out of Dodger Stadium and pounded the three longest homers in the majors last week, cannot outdistance this circus. Since this managerial Wheel of Misfortune started in earnest in 2010, Stanton has played for an average of 1.17 managers per season.

Jennings is immensely popular throughout the industry, an old-time baseball man, a good guy, good sense of humor, beloved by many.

But you already know how this story is going to end: with stains on Jennings and, if he’s not careful, knives from Loria and Samson in his back. And the fact that nobody from the Marlins even bothered to thank Redmond at Monday’s press conference for his effort and for some of the good things he’s done…it’s just reprehensible.

“I will tell you even my mom, whom I love, asked me, ‘Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?'” Jennings joked.

Sadly, Ma Jennings, maybe you don’t want to know the answer.

2. All-Underachieving Team

It’s mid-May. These guys have to turn it around soon…don’t they?

First base: Albert Pujols, Angels. Not only does he have a relatively pedestrian six homers and 14 RBIs, but he also entered the week hitting .231 with a .283 on-base percentage and a .403 slugging percentage, which ranked 20th among qualifying MLB first basemen. For the bargain price of $24 million this year.

Second base: Chase Utley, Phillies. Though Philadelphia is starting to play a little better, Utley is slogging along at .138/.214/.241. Glory days—they’ll pass you by in the wink of a young girl’s eye.

Shortstop: Jimmy Rollins, Dodgers. Utley’s former double-play partner did go 4-for-5 against the Rockies on Friday and by this week had boosted his slash line all the way up to .196/.277/.348. Though the Dodgers own the second-best record in the National League, fans nevertheless are beginning to wonder when phenom Corey Seager, 21, will be ready (he’s hitting .281/.324/.344 at Triple-A Oklahoma City). Oh, and one other thing about Rollins: “It’s mesmerizing how many plays he takes off at shortstop,” one scout says.

Third base: Josh Harrison, Pirates. Harrison was an All-Star last summer who finished ninth in NL MVP voting. He was awarded with a four-year, $27.3 million deal last month that could be worth $50 million if all of the options are exercised. The emergence of Harrison caused the Pirates to bump Pedro Alvarez over to first base, but Harrison’s encore so far is not helping raise too many Jolly Rogers.

Catcher: Chris Iannetta, Angels. One of the majors’ finest offenses from a year ago is a late starter this summer. Iannetta is hitting .123/.217/.137.

Left field: Melky Cabrera, White Sox. The Sox had a very good week and look like they are making their move. It will become much easier for them once Cabrera, slugging a career-worst .296, heats up.

Center field: Andrew McCutchen, Pirates. How rough has it been for Cutch? Not that his painfully slow offensive start is driving him batty, but he’s admitted to talking to his bat while trying to get going. Easiest prediction of the year: When the season’s over, Cutch will be hitting far above his current .233/.331/.383.

Right field: Carlos Beltran, Yankees. It’s clear the Yankees signed him a year too late, but that .271 on-base percentage really stands out. Beltran’s career OBP: .355.

Designated hitter: Victor Martinez, Tigers. I’m grading on a curve here, as Martinez missed most of spring training following knee surgery. So he started behind, and he’s going to catch up. But through his first 33 games, one homer and .224/.317/.280 is a rough start.

Starting Pitcher: Taijuan Walker, Mariners. So many people were on Seattle’s bandwagon this spring (yes, my hand is raised as well), and part of that is because the pitching was in place behind King Felix Hernandez. But Walker (1-4, 7.22 ERA) has been a colossal dud so far. “I saw him this spring and thought he would win the Cy Young Award,” one scout says. Ugh.

Closer: Steve Cishek, Marlins. There are many reasons this team is off to a disappointing start and Redmond is an ex-manager. Cishek’s blowing four of his first seven save opportunities is a very large one.

3. Where It Turned Around for the Nationals

The Nationals have become the club we all thought they would be, ripping off 15 wins in their past 19 games heading into this week. And if Matt Williams’ team is playing deep into October this autumn, circle April 28 and 29 on your calendar as the dates it all turned around.

Yes, part of their slow start was because Jayson Werth, Denard Span and Anthony Rendon all opened the season on the disabled list (Rendon is still out). But that slow start ended for good not only when Washington stormed back from a 9-1 deficit against the Atlanta Braves to win 13-12 on April 28 but also when the Nats closed that series by winning 13-4 the next day.

“That game in Atlanta, I never said after any regular-season game, ‘This game means a lot,'” ace Max Scherzer told B/R over the weekend. “But when we had that great comeback and then won again the next day, that’s what got it going. Those two games. You can’t take one.

“That was one of the best regular-season wins I’ve ever been a part of. It was a cloud-nine moment, and I didn’t even play.”

4. The Long and Short of It

Talk to nearly anyone in the game, and the answer is just about unanimous: Nationals’ right-hander Tanner Roark is the best “sixth man” going (meaning the next starter up after a five-man rotation). He would be a part of any rotation in the game, except where he is—in Washington.

The Nationals know how good they have it too. Pitching coach Steve McCatty was still teasing Roark the other day about his numbers from Arizona last Wednesday: The tall right-hander worked 1.2 innings in relief, threw 49 pitches, surrendered three hits, walked two…and didn’t allow a run.

“I’ve never seen that before,” McCatty says.

Just the latest example of Roark the Magician.

5. You Want Out of the Box? This Is Out of the Box

So Cubs manager Joe Maddon canceled batting practice before Friday’s day game following Thursday night’s 6-5 win over the Mets.

Result? The Cubs outslugged the Pirates 11-10 in 12 innings.

Of course.

“I think it’s the most overrated thing we do,” Maddon said of batting practice before the game at Wrigley Field. “On a daily basis, we swing the bat way too often. I don’t know what the genesis of that was. If I had to nail it down, the ’80s—the early ’80s—when hitting coaches became more prominent and all this teaching became more prominent, batting practice became a longer exercise.

“And extra batting practice and hitting off tees and hitting in cages and swinging and swinging and swinging, and I think it can be counterproductive. I think guys can hit themselves right through feel. You can be feeling really well, and my point is if you do it too often, you get to the point where you lose that feel.”

6. Error: Colorado general manager Jeff Bridich

Regarding the ongoing (and endless) debate over whether the Colorado Rockies are going to trade Troy Tulowitzki or should trade Tulowitzki (the answer is yes, by the way), Bridich is taking the old blame-the-messenger route.

“Most of the media likes to create news,” he told reporters, via the Los Angeles Times.

He also told MLB Network Radio’s Jim Bowden it was media speculation.

Timeout here, because that’s a load of bunk.

This all started last week when Tulowitzki’s agent, Paul Cohen, told the New York Post on the record that he planned to meet with Tulo to discuss whether to ask for a trade.

“To say that is not a possibility would be silly,” Cohen said.

That is not media speculation.

That is an agent and a superstar steaming down the tracks together like a locomotive. And even though Tulowitzki backed off later in the week, this story isn’t going away.

7. Weekly Power Rankings

1. Bryce Harper: If he stays off the disabled list, you are looking at the NL MVP.

2. Mad Men: I’d like to buy the world a Coke…but only after Harper’s next at-bat is finished!

3. Giancarlo Stanton: Ka-BOOM! 

4. Adrian Beltre and Miguel Cabrera: Messrs. 400. Welcome to the club. Now…is Beltre a Hall of Famer?

5. B.B. King: Farewell to a legend. And it is so awesome that back in the day, Will “The Thrill” Clark greeted callers with an answering machine message featuring King’s “The Thrill Is Gone.” Perfect then; touching now.

8. Shelby Miller Joins the So-Close Club

One out away from a no-hitter Sunday against the Marlins, all Atlanta’s right-hander got was some dugout high-fives, some “attaboys” and a place on this list:

9. Please Don’t Shout ‘Fire!’ in a Crowded Stadium

Did you see that the smokestack in Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark caught fire during a game last week against the San Francisco Giants? And they played on without a delay.

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

One reason I will take the Rolling Stones over the Beatles (no offense, love the Beatles too) is because the Stones soaked themselves in the blues early on. And B.B. King always said he got on his knees and thanked them because that is one reason King and others remained popular—because legends like the Stones paid homage. Sleep well, Mr. King.

“Well, there’s one kind of favor I’ll ask of you
There’s just one kind of favor I’ll ask of you
You can see that my grave is kept clean
And there’s two white horses following me
And there’s two white horses following me
I got two white horses following me
Waiting on my burying ground”

— B.B. King, “See That My Grave is Kept Clean”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

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A hotly contested topic among the baseball world in the past week (and for quite some time now) has been whether or not the National League should change its rules to institute the use of the designated hitter. The American League adopted the DH in 1973, yet the Senior Circuit has remained surprisingly resilient through the years.

However, National League owners may be under increased pressure to make a change.

The debate was jump-started when St. Louis Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright, one of the elite starting pitchers in the MLB, tore his Achilles tendon running out of the batter’s box after putting the ball in play. The club announced that he would miss the rest of the season, which is a crippling blow to a St. Louis squad trying to advance to the NLCS for the fifth consecutive year.

Washington Nationals hurler Max Scherzer was the first to rally behind Wainwright’s banner. He told Jon Heyman of CBS Sports that he would not be opposed to bringing the DH to the National League, saying that it would be a great way to increase scoring and make the game more entertaining.

“If you look at it from the macro side, who’d people rather see hit—Big Papi or me?” Scherzer said. “Who would people rather see, a real hitter hitting home runs or a pitcher swinging a wet newspaper? Both leagues need to be on the same set of rules.”

This logic makes sense from Mad Max—having a designated hitter batting instead of a pitcher would make the game more fun to watch and ostensibly give the fans more bang for their buck. But his initial claims were met with a flurry of other opinions, and most weren’t in agreement with his.

Madison Bumgarner was the first to publicly disagree. The San Francisco Giants left-hander also happens to be one of the best hitting pitchers in the league, and he was not afraid to come down hard on Scherzer.

This was his comment to Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News about the Wainwright injury and the possibility of the DH entering National League play:

What if he got hurt pitching? Should we say he can’t pitch anymore? I hate what happened to him. He works his butt off out there. But I don’t think it was because he was hitting. What if he gets hurt getting out of his truck? You tell him not to drive anymore? That’s the way the game has to be played. I appreciate both sides of the argument and I get it. But [ending pitcher plate appearances] isn’t the way to go about [addressing] it.

That is an excellent point as well. It was an Achilles injury that Wainwright suffered. If that part of his body was going to tear, it could have been anywhere. He could just as easily have injured it pitching off the mound or covering first base as he did jogging out of the box.

One of Bumgarner‘s teammates, Jake Peavy, gave another reason why the designated hitter must stay away. He began by talking about a situation last year when Bumgarner hit against the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Zack Greinke in the eighth inning. It was late in the season in a crucial situation, and manager Bruce Bochy didn’t have to go to a pinch hitter and then a reliever. 

“We have a distinct advantage because of what he can do at the plate,” Peavy said, per Baggarly. “We’d take a ton of strategy out of our game. The bench player is so much more important a part of the game. Managers have their say in how the game is played out.

“As pitchers, it’s about taking pride in batting and baserunning and getting a bunt down or putting it in play. If you do that better than the other pitcher, you’ve got an advantage.”

For Scherzer, even his own general manager is not on his side. Nationals GM Mike Rizzo—who gave Scherzer a $210 million contract this offseason—went on record against the DH earlier this week.

Rizzo was very adamant on a Wednesday radio appearance he made on 106.7 The Fan that he will never favor the DH.

I hate the DH. I always have hated the DH. I would hate to see the DH in the National League, and I love the National League brand of baseball. Now, I worked with the Chicago White Sox for years, and the Boston Red Sox for years in the American League, and I’m a much bigger fan of the National League style of play, with the pitcher pitching and all the strategy that that employs. 

That’s my favorite part of this whole argument. The phrase “the strategy it employs.” Personally, that is one of the things I enjoy about the game of baseball. The managers competing in a chess match throughout the ballgame is arguably the most compelling thing about baseball and the main reason I like the National League better than the American League.

In the American League, the manager does not have nearly as many factors to worry about, most notably pinch hitting for the pitcher. To illustrate this, I’ll introduce a common situation in baseball. 

Let’s say Team A is winning by two runs in the seventh inning and the pitcher is due up next with runners on first and second with one out. The manager has a tough decision on his hands: Does he leave the pitcher in the game to pitch another inning even though it likely means they won’t tack on any runs that inning, or does he elect to use a pinch hitter in an attempt to add some cushion to the lead even though that move will result in leaning heavily on the bullpen to finish the game?

An American League manager is never faced with this dilemma. All he has to do is monitor the pitcher, and when he gets tired or ineffective, put in a reliever.

The Junior Circuit also does not incorporate nearly as many situational pitching changes or as much bunting as the National League does.

Now some fans don’t really care much about some of the finer points of the game—they prefer to see guys hit the ball as far as they can in high-scoring games, and that is perfectly fine. They can stick with the American League, but the NL does not need to change its rulebook to satisfy those fans.

The final witness in this trial is someone who should know better than anyone. Cubs manager Joe Maddon has spent time in both leagues, and even though he has only been in Chicago for a few months, he has already adapted the National League style of play and is against bringing the DH to the NL.

“That’s part of the game,” Maddon said, via the Chicago Tribune, about Wainwright’s injury. “That’s the way it works. It’s unfortunate. It stinks. I like the National League the way it sets. It’s a really interesting baseball game.”

Ultimately, it will be up to NL owners on whether or not they eventually adopt the DH. They might do it sometime in the future, but they don’t need to. Their brand of baseball is more of a traditional style of play, and contrary to popular belief there are still some old-fashioned baseball fans out there who have the attention spans to watch an entire game even if substitutions and pitching changes are involved.

In my opinion, the game is much better with all nine fielders hitting for themselves. It forces players to be more well-rounded, and it makes it more interesting from a strategy standpoint. Also, it results in more intriguing scouting, as pitchers handy with the bat continue to become more and more rare. As the Giants do right now with Bumgarner, NL teams with pitchers who can hit have a tremendous advantage over their opponents, and that is nothing to sneeze at.

Either way, this is a very polarizing debate. Each side has its pros and cons, and baseball pundits, coaches and players are obviously not afraid to state their case.

Bumgarner, Peavy, Rizzo and Maddon are for the DH staying the heck away from the National League, and I wholeheartedly agree with their arguments.

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When you are the Chicago Cubs, maybe the most cursed, endearing and followed team in Major League Baseball, there is no hiding. When you are this popular and have lost this ugly for this long, you cannot duck great hope.

And while most would try, the Cubs do not. The expectations are welcomed by a franchise that has not won a World Series since 1908 and more recently finished fifth in the National League Central five consecutive times.

It is also a franchise relying heavily on players in their early 20s who have never dealt with such expectations. That isn’t quelling the optimism, though.

“Bring on the expectations,” new manager Joe Maddon said during a Q&A session at the team’s fan event last weekend. “What’s wrong with that? I think it’s great.

“Every year when I go to spring training, I promise you, I’m going to talk 90-plus wins every year, I’m going to talk playoffs every year, and we’re going to believe it’s going to happen.”

The offbeat, silver-haired manager isn’t the only one who feels this way. A few days before Maddon’s statements, All-Star first baseman Anthony Rizzo predicted, “We’re going to win the NL Central.”

But Maddon is known for occasionally doing or saying outrageous things, and Rizzo is a 25-year-old player. Surely we would expect more modesty from the company’s buttoned-down brass, right?

Well, if you expected it, you were wrong. Sort of. Team president Theo Epstein’s remarks were tinged with humbleness, but he also made it clear that it was time for this organization to field a team that can get its massive fanbase excited.

“Please hold us accountable,” Epstein said at the event. “We’re trying to win. We’re also continuing to try to grow the organization. That means we’re going to be throwing a lot of young players out there. We ask for your patience with them because it’s a process. But hold us accountable.”

Cubs are in unique position of creating huge expectations yet are so young in so many key positions..tempering those same expectations

— karl ravech (@karlravechespn) December 10, 2014

There are plenty of reasons why the Cubs should be held accountable now. The team already signed Jon Lester to head their promising rotation, traded for outfielder Dexter Fowler and the door is not closed on adding another major piece to the pitching staff.

Still, it is one thing for the manager, a recently proven player and the front office to exude confidence and accept the expectations that come with a headline-making offseason. It is quite another for a group of guys who recently made their major league debuts, or who have yet to do so, to shoulder the burden of a 106-year drought.

The public does not care, apparently. Last month, Bovada, an online sports book, made the Cubs 12-1 favorites to win the World Series. The team is nowhere near that good—those odds are the same as the Detroit Tigers‘ and better than the St. Louis Cardinals‘—but odds shift depending on betters, a group of people who clearly went Cubs crazy after the team signed Lester.

The stark truth is those expectations are too much for a team counting on Rizzo and 24-year-old shortstop Starlin Castro to carry its offense.

Beyond that pair, Javier Baez, Arismendy Alcantara and Jorge Soler—who are all 23 or younger and have no more than 300 major league plate appearances—will be expected to contribute significantly. While that young trio is talented, growing pains are more likely than success in 2015.

Prospects are also contributing to fans’ expectations. Prospects, meaning players who have yet to play in a big league game. Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and C.J. Edwards, among several other promising minor leaguers, are all part of this new Cubs hope, but they are also all completely unproven at the major league level.

It is fine to welcome expectations if you’re the Cubs. It is time for Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer to start producing at the major league level, and it is understandable for fans to hold them accountable.

What is not understandable is the expectation that this young team—it could start up to four players with a combined 626 plate appearances—will contend for a division title, regardless of what Maddon and Rizzo say in January.

Before setting the bar for this season’s Cubs, some questions must be addressed. If we are asking if the expectations will be too high for this young team to handle, the answer is a definitive yes. However, that is only because the expectations are absurd. If we are asking if 2015 will be a stepping stone on the journey for the Cubs to eventually become a winner, the answer, again, is yes.

The Cubs have real talent, but it still has to be groomed. That is what much of 2015 will be about. Assuming the Cubs are aggressive again next offseason and players like Bryant and Edwards are ready to contribute in the majors, high expectations would be considered reasonable in 2016.

Until then, the hope has to grow with the youth movement. Rushing either of them is a mistake.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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The offseason has only just begun, and already it’s been a very tumultuous one for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Indeed, new president of baseball operations Matt Silverman—who took over the job in October after Andrew Friedman, his longtime predecessor, left for the Los Angeles Dodgers—has his work cut out for him.

Not only is Silverman new to his own job, but he also has to choose the man to succeed former skipper Joe Maddon, who did plenty of succeeding himself by posting a .529 winning percentage and winning two AL East titles and one AL pennant in his nine seasons before opting out of the final year of his contract and signing a five-year deal with the Chicago Cubs.

On Thursday, the team revealed the eight preliminary candidates to replace Maddon.

That’s a rather large number of baseball minds to bring in and interview for a managerial search, but the Rays can handle this however they desire.

And it sounds like there will be more to come, according to Silverman, who said, “This is a preliminary list of candidates, and we expect it will grow as we continue through this process.”

As for these eight to start, well, the list is—how do we put this?—eclectic. There’s really a little of everything to consider, which is why we’ll count down all of them, in order of least to most likely to actually land the gig.

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The Chicago Cubs got their man and their manager. By hiring skipper Joe Maddon, a move that became a reality with Monday’s introductory press conference, the franchise kicked off what looks to be a busy and productive offseason as the club embarks on the next stage of a long rebuilding process and return to relevance—and perhaps even the postseason—sooner than later.

Just ask Maddon himself.

“For me, I’m going to be talking playoffs next year,” Maddon said via Joey Nowak of MLB.com. “We’re going to set our mark high, and I’m going to talk playoffs and World Series this year, and I’m going to believe it.”

That’s a big statement from someone who’s new to a team that hasn’t reached the postseason since 2008 or the World Series since 1945—let alone won it all since 1908. Now it’s up to Maddon, as well as Cubs president Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer, to back that up.

In signing Maddon, who opted out of the final year of his contract with the Tampa Bay Rays last month, to a five-year deal that runs through the 2019 season, the Cubs are hoping a man widely regarded as one of the very best managers and tacticians in the sport can do for his new organization what he did for his old one.

That is, turn a cellar dweller into a perennial power.

But having Maddon take the place of Rick Renteria, who was abruptly dismissed late last week after just one season on the job, is far from the only big move Epstein and Hoyer will have to pull off to achieve that objective.

Remember, in addition to needing some skipper stability—Maddon checks in as the fifth manager since the beginning of the 2010 campaign—this is a franchise desperately requiring a return to relevance after five straight losing seasons.

With Maddon now officially in the fold and soon to be on the bench, here’s a rundown of what else the Cubs need to get done this offseason.

There’s plenty still to do if Maddon and Company really are aiming for the playoffs in 2015.

Spend on a Starter…

The Cubs need an arm or three, and it’s no secret that appears to be their priority this winter.

“We need to add impact pitching, from outside the organization,” Epstein said, according to Bruce Miles of the Chicago Daily Herald. “We fully acknowledge that. That’s a primary goal going forward. Certainly over the next 15 months, I’ll be disappointed if we don’t add impact pitching from outside the organization.”

The current rotation candidates include 2014 breakout pitcher Jake Arrieta, the regression-victimized Travis Wood and second-year arm Kyle Hendricks, who has made all of 13 starts with Chicago.

Beyond that trio, there’s veteran Edwin Jackson, who owns a nasty 5.58 ERA in his two years as a Cub, scrapheap projects Jacob Turner and Felix Doubront as well as Tsuyoshi Wada, who re-signed on Monday for one year, per Muskat, in a move that understandably received much less fanfare.

Lucky for the Cubs, the top two free agents on the market this year happen to be starting pitchers, left-hander Jon Lester and right-hander Max Scherzer.

Between those two, there has been more speculation, per Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times, that Lester could be the primary target given the left-hander’s potentially slightly lower price tag and lack of draft-pick compensation for being traded midseason. Not to mention, Lester has ties to Epstein from their Boston Red Sox days.

The other big name that has been rumored as a good fit is righty James Shields, as Wittenmyer writes, with whom Maddon is plenty familiar from their time in Tampa Bay together.

The front office should continue its bargain-bin shopping to unearth the next Arrieta, Scott Feldman or Jason Hammel, but it’s about time to pony up for a stud starter.

…and Maybe Trade for One Too

Again, this team needs arms—as in plural.

Considering how overloaded Chicago is on the position-player front, particularly in the infield, it might make sense for the club to at least dangle some of that potential excess to see what sort of offers come in.

Depending on how aggressive Epstein and Hoyer want to get, they have the goods to acquire just about any pitcher made available on the trade market, including aces like the Philadelphia Phillies‘ Cole Hamels or the Cincinnati Reds‘ Johnny Cueto, as well as solid mid-rotation arms like Mat Latos of the Reds or Tyson Ross of the San Diego Padres.

Heck, even old buddy Jeff Samardzija, whom they traded to the Oakland Athletics for top shortstop prospect Addison Russell last July, could be an option.

Find a Leader on the Field

Epstein, Hoyer and Maddon form quite a triumvirate of savvy, experienced decision-makers. The Cubs, however, are lacking that element on the diamond, in large part because the vast majority of the 25-man roster is so young.

Remarkably, only four players on the current 25-man roster have an age that begins with a “three” and not a “two”: 33-year-old Wada, 33-year-old John Baker, 31-year-old Jackson and 30-year-old Carlos Villanueva. None of that quartet, by the way, is anything close to a cog going forward.

As for the longest-tenured Cub? Why, that’d be shortstop Starlin Castro, who has played in 740 games since debuting as a 20-year-old in 2010.

“We need to add some reliable performance from veterans from whom we know what we’ll get because young players’ performance is so volatile early in their careers,” Epstein told Miles.

At the top of that list should be Russell Martin. Not only is the 31-year-old, nine-year veteran a leader, he also would address the need for a strong, all-around backstop.

In addition to his .402 on-base percentage in 2014, Martin has been a key component of a Pittsburgh club that went from 20 consecutive losing seasons—the most ever in America’s four professional sports—to two straight postseasons. Think the Cubs would value that kind of impact?

Although the Pirates just tendered a qualifying offer to Martin, per Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Cubs’ top draft pick—one of the first 10—is protected.

Get All that Young Talent to Maddon

Among his many strong suits with the Rays, one of Maddon‘s best traits was his ability to incorporate, develop and work with young players.

The Cubs possess arguably the top farm system in all of baseball, thanks to outfielder Albert Almora, right-hander C.J. Edwards and consensus top prospect Kris Bryant, among others.

But they also have a number of players in the nascent stages of their big league careers, including right fielder Jorge Soler, center fielder Arismendy Alcantara and infielder Javier Baez.

And although first baseman Anthony Rizzo and Castro have been around for a while, both will be only 25 entering 2015, so they’re more or less MLB adolescents still.

It behooves the Cubs to get all this young, still-maleable, on-the-verge talent to Maddon so they can have time to be molded, sculpted and brought along by him.

If that means not worrying so much about trivialities like the Super Two arbitration deadline, then so be it.

The first to-do item of the Cubs’ offseason—get Joe Maddon—has been taken care of. There’s still a lot to get done, but the plan is in place to get this franchise back to the playoffs soon. And if Maddon gets his way, perhaps it’ll be even as soon as next year.

Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.

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With one mantra during his introductory press conference on Monday as the new manager of the Chicago Cubs, Joe Maddon aptly summed up why he’s the perfect man to lead a talented young team to prominence.    

“Don’t ever permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure,” Maddon said on MLB Network. “That’s on the top of my lineup card every night.”       

If they were hollow words, perhaps they wouldn’t have resonated, but coming from one of the more eccentric and exuberant personalities in the game renowned for his outside-the-box thinking—and aimed at an organization that has suffered a World Series drought dating back to 1908—well, those words said everything.

So did these words, per Fox Sports MLB:

Maddon’s introduction was everything you’d expect from the manager—loose, upbeat, casual yet intellectual, wise yet not pretentious. He even showed some savvy right out of the gate, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today:

Had it been anyone else, it might have come off a bit phony or pandering, but as Buster Olney of ESPN tweeted, Maddon was just being Maddon at this press conference:

Maddon spoke about how his primary concern when signing with the club was his baseball philosophy aligning with the Cubs front office and noted that he felt very comfortable with the organization.

He also seemed thrilled with his new home digs, per MLB on Twitter:

And he didn’t stop at the ballpark, per Fox Sports MLB:

Maddon also talked about the challenges that he’ll face with the Cubs, via Bruce Levine of WSCR-AM and Richard Justice of MLB.com:

The vibrant farm system and young talent the organization has acquired are what makes this Cubs team so intriguing, and Maddon talked about how impressed he was with the player-development program and scouting.

Still, despite having so much unproven talent coming up through the ranks—and young talent already in the majors who’ve yet to reach their prime—Maddon preached some patience but also said his expectations will be high from the start, per the MLB on Twitter:

If anyone can do it, Maddon can.

He helped rejuvenate a Tampa Bay Rays organization that had languished for years in the basement of the AL East. He’ll combine a progressive and fresh approach to the game while establishing a positive, optimistic environment for the players. He’ll focus on his players as people, not just hitters and pitchers and fielders. He’ll lay out clear goals and a strategy for reaching them.

“It’s hard to find old-school and new-school in the same package,” Theo Epstein said during the press conference. 

That had to be a huge factor in deciding to fire Rick Renteria—who did quite well as the manager last season—and pursue Maddon so aggressively this offseason once he became available. As Bill Chuck of the Chicago Sun-Times noted, it was hardly a poor reflection on Renteria:

Still, watching the press conference, the fit between Maddon and the Cubs seemed perfect. After over 100 years of failure, a profoundly different approach was needed. If there is one thing Maddon provides, it’s a radical perspective.

Ending the press conference in the most Maddon-esque way, the new manager said he’d buy a shot and a beer for the room:

The first round is on Maddon, Chicago. But if he leads the Cubs to a World Series title, well, you can bet he’ll never have to buy himself a drink again.

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Boston Red Sox skipper Bobby Valentine hasn’t been right about a lot of things since he arrived at his new gig, but he’s spot with his latest comments. 

Things heated up in Boston Friday night after Red Sox reliever Franklin Morales pegged Luke Scott late in a 7-4 Tampa Bay Rays win, evoking a bench-clearing altercation that showcased an unusual amount of hostility from coaches on either side. 

After Rays manager Joe Maddon had some interesting comments about Valentine’s supposed decision to plunk Scott late in the game, Valentine fired back Saturday about the way Maddon’s coaching staff conducted themselves during the scrum.

“They seemed immature, out of control. Coaches are supposed to stop this from happening and their coaches were aggressive, agitating and instigating.” (via the Boston Herald)

Valentine could not be more right. 

Instructing your pitchers to throw at a batter happens. Instigating a bench-clearing situation that could put dozens of players in danger of injuries and suspensions has no place in America’s past time. 

I understand that boys will be boys and situations like these are inevitable. But coaches shouldn’t stoop to their level and get fired up during telling moments like this. 

It’s not obvious by any means that Valentine instructed Morales to do so, and I don’t agree with intentionally hitting batters. But he’s a coach, and his job is to put his team in the best position to succeed.

With their chances of scoring three runs in the game’s final inning very slim, sending a message to help motivate and inspire your team isn’t a dying strategy. The Red Sox have certainly lacked intensity this season, so engaging in some trash talk could help to fuel their hunger moving forward in the series (and beyond). 

Valentine can be seen during the bench-clearing fiasco talking down Scott, easily the most heated player on the field after being pitched at multiple times. 

Need I mention that the Rays hit Red Sox golden boy Dustin Pedroia earlier in the game? Whether it was intentional or not, payback is not uncommon in the MLB. 

Meanwhile, Rays coaches can be seen fired up and apparently ready to help make the situation a bit uglier. Coaches are to be held at a higher standard than players, which is why they’re rarely at the forefront of scrums such as these.

One thing is certain: Saturday night’s rematch should be interesting. 

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