Yesterday afternoon Will Carroll reported that the Cubs were poised to take the interim tag from Mike Quade and make him the full time boss. He also said that they were going to name Ryne Sandberg bench coach. He said these moves could come as early as next week.
I buy the Quade part, as some People Who Know Things have been telling me for a while that they think he’ll get the job. Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times casts doubt on the Ryne Sandberg part of that, however, saying that Quade and Sandberg on the same staff isn’t likely. Which makes some intuitive sense in that Sandberg probably doesn’t want to play second fiddle -- he has made a point of saying that he is ready to manage, not apprentice -- and in that Quade probably doesn’t want a popular “people’s choice” type of guy on staff, because the minute things go sideways with the Cubs folks will be second guessing, calling for Sandberg to take over and all of that kind of nonsense.
As is always the case, we’ll see. For what it’s worth, those People Who Know Things say that the reason they think Quade will get the job is that he’s really popular among the players. Players like Ryan Dempster. Maybe not players like Joe Borowski, though. But really: you lettin’ Joe Borowski decide things? What are you, nuts?