In attempting to put the 2016 championship season in the rear view mirror, the Cubs went and hired the guy who got carried off the field that night in Cleveland to be their new manager.
Not exactly the kind of distance you might have expected.
David Ross is in the manager’s chair now, the new skipper on the North Side after Joe Maddon’s title-winning tenure came to an end last month. Despite a whopping 471 wins during Maddon’s five years at the helm, team president Theo Epstein has talked constantly about the need for change, the need for these Cubs to stop resting on the laurels of breaking a 108-year championship drought.
But Ross’ name is one fans will tie most closely to that dream season, when he became a crowd favorite, spurring standing ovations during his “Forever Young” walk-up music and sending barrooms and living rooms alike into frenzies with his home run in Game 7.
So how does a team looking for something new sever such strong ties to the season they’re trying to forget?
“I think it starts with the accountability, the winning ways that I’ve talked about over and over again,” Ross said during his introductory press conference Monday. “There’s some good things from 2016, some experiences that anybody would trade (for) and have going in with their players with experiencing those moments and coming through and having success in those moments.
“But it’s not about 2016, it’s an expectation of winning. It’s about winning championships. It’s about holding yourself accountable to things that you’ve found in winning. You have that experience. Let’s emphasize those, let’s hold each other to a high standard.
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“I want to win a championship. I want to win multiple championships. I want to bring championships back to Chicago. We’ve done that before, I’ve done that in another city, and I know what that looks like. And when you see the opposite — I’ve been on some losing teams — you’ve got to call it out as soon as possible.”
Yes, accountability was the buzzword of the day, one even Ross and Epstein might be tired of hearing at this point. But that’s how the Cubs plan to do away with any lingering elements of the 2016 season that might be holding the current group back. “When you see the opposite, you’ve got to call it out as soon as possible.” Perhaps a hint that “the opposite” was going on in the final year under Maddon’s watch and not enough was done to address it?
Whether that was the case or not, the main part of Epstein’s on-the-fly revamp seems to be bringing in a manager who will get in guys’ faces more than allowing them to play with zoo animals or dress up in pajamas for late-night flights. Critics will point to Maddon’s style working well enough to win a World Series in 2016, but that’s the point Epstein’s trying to make: that it might not be the best way to win a World Series in 2020.
“For me, a lot of references to 2016 internally and in the clubhouse have almost become a crutch,” he said. “The game moves quickly. Next year, the World Series champion, when they’re crowned, it will be four full years from when that happened. That’s an entire generation of players. There’s been a ton of change and growth in this game. Things aren’t being done the same way, team-wide, that they were four years ago.
“When there’s too much looking back to 2016, it can become a crutch, individually and organizationally, that prevents you from moving forward. And the way I’ve seen David handle it, the way he handled it in the interview, and the way he’s lived it the last three years (as a part of the Cubs’ front office), is when people, whether it’s in the front office or players, start to look back toward 2016 as a crutch or an excuse or, ‘Why don’t we go back and do things the way we did then that helped us win?’ he’s going to say, ‘No, it’s about moving forward.’
“If you want to take something from 2016, take the grind from 2016, take the work and the preparation and the intensity and the team building that we did. That’s fine, those things are universal. You can’t look back, you have to look forward. Things are different now, expectations are higher. And I just have all the confidence in the world that he’s going to establish a new direction, a new voice that’s completely looking forward and not at all looking backward.”
Back in 2016, the talk surrounding that young Cubs team involved the word “dynasty.” Three years later, they’ve been lapped in that department by the Houston Astros and could see their championship window slam shut in just a couple seasons, when several key contributors are all slated to hit free agency at the same time. Will this generation of Cubs teams end up more ‘85 Bears than Jordan Bulls?
Epstein has spent a lot of time talking about urgency the last few offseasons. Bringing in Ross is a part of bringing it. These aren’t the year-too-early, out-of-nowhere Cubs of 2015, nor are they the steamroll-the-National-League Cubs of 2016. These are Cubs with high expectations and recent results that have disappointed. Complacent? Maybe that’s too harsh, at least for Epstein. But if there was a little of that going around, Epstein hopes Ross is the guy to clear it from the team’s system.
“Complacency is a tough word to throw around, but have we, collectively as an organization or individually, every player, pushed themselves to new heights and found ways to continually get better and thrive? No,” he said. “We’ve had some regression the last two years, and that’s unacceptable.
“It’s hard to win that way. It’s hard to live up to our standards that way. That helped lead to our desire for a new voice and a new voice that obviously would be comfortable making guys uncomfortable in their pursuit of growth and continual improvement and the high standard of what it takes to win in modern baseball.”
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