The Reckoning Begins as Chicago Cubs Part Ways with Joe Maddon

Ironically, the ultimate proof that Joe Maddon performed walk-on-water miracles for the Chicago Cubs is the very fact that as of Sunday afternoon, he was finished in Chicago.

There was a time when any manager leading the Chicago Cubs to a World Series championship would have had the job for life. For two lives. Tell people back in 1950 or 1970 or 1990 that the team would willingly bid farewell to a man just three years removed from leading the Cubs to a World Series title, and they would have demanded, What's next? People carrying phones with them 24/7 and actually snapping pictures with the devices, too?

Well, yeah.      

Times change. Maddon no longer has the keys to Wrigley Field because it is a far different culture there now than when he arrived in 2015. A culture created, in large part, by him. He tried not to suck. He brilliantly communicated as if speaking in tongues, reaching everybody—players, fans, front office, media, the zoo animals he scheduled for annual spring training visits. He was part manager, part emcee, part ringmaster, making baseball fun all over again, every day. And he won. The franchise's first World Series in 108 years. Took the team to three consecutive National League Championship Series.

Now, the North Side's outsized expectations are higher than the Sears Tower. Check that. It's now called the Willis Tower.

Times change.

"The expectations that this organization has now—it's really World Series or bust," third baseman Kris Bryant told me when the Cubs were in San Diego a couple of weeks ago and Maddon's impending departure from Chicago was becoming clearer by the day. "I look back to last year and when we made the playoffs, we didn't even have a celebration because we weren't happy with the wild card.

"That says a lot about where we're at. You look at our first year, in 2015 when we made the wild card, we were on top of the world celebrating. Then in 2018, we're pissed."

And now in 2019, the man who managed the Cubs through the most successful period in their history will pack up his famous "Cousin Eddie" RV and head for greener pastures.

The San Diego Padres are both an attractive job now that they employ maybe the best young player in the game, Fernando Tatis Jr., and they're very interested in Maddon. Maybe the Philadelphia Phillies or New York Mets will change skippers. The thing not everybody understood all summer when debating whether the Cubs would fire Maddon is that by allowing his contract to expire, it became his decision, too.

What's left behind is a mess not all of Maddon's making—not even close. When the miracles ceased late last year and the Cubs blew the NL Central title to the Milwaukee Brewers, and when the water turned stagnant instead of into wine this summer (the only season in five Maddon didn't lead the Cubs to the playoffs), it had far more to do with the roster of players he was handed than what he did with it.

Fixing that, for President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer, is a far deeper issue than finding a new manager.

Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press

Cubs leadoff hitters this season were shamefully bad, ranking 30th—dead last—in the majors in on-base percentage (.214). Granted, Ben Zobrist took an unexpected and extended leave of absence in May when his marriage blew up. But the Cubs never adjusted.

Recent free-agent signings largely have ranged from disappointing to shockingly poor. Given his long history of injuries, Brandon Morrow had as much of a chance of being a dependable closer for the Cubs as he did kicking field goals for the Bears. Tyler Chatwood failed as a starter. Yu Darvish helped sink the Cubs last year, and his six-year, $126 million deal still looks problematic. Jason Heyward did contribute to winning a World Series, but the Cubs after this year will still be sucking on four years and $86 million.

Craig Kimbrel failed to save either his or the Cubs' summer after holding out until June. Overall, the Cubs ranked third in the NL with 28 blown saves. Rowan Wick? Brad Wieck? David Phelps? Even old hand Pedro Strop? Please.

Epstein last winter promised a "season of reckoning" if the Cubs failed to live up to expectations.

And so the reckoning begins.

"I love Joe," Anthony Rizzo said. Bryant professed surprise that Joe was even in this situation "because of what he's been able to do here and what he's been able to change, the culture and stuff like that."

Benny Sieu/Associated Press

Maddon may be the only manager for whom Bryant has ever played, but Bryant also is no longer that naive rookie who debuted in the first month of Maddon's Cubs stint in April 2015. Times change.

"The business of the game is that everybody's always looking for a change and looking for the next bigger and better thing," Bryant said. "Sometimes, it's right in front of your face.

"Joe has always been that guy to me. He's one of the best managers in the game for a reason. I really hope he's here, but if he isn't, he's going to have no problem getting a job elsewhere. Because he's just that good."

Maddon has always been ahead of his time: hip, erudite and savvy in both baseball and in life. But some 30 years down the road, time finally caught him.

Clubs no longer are interested in paying managers $6 million a year (as Maddon was making). Don't discount that as one of the reasons for this split, either. Monies that once went to managers and scouts now are funneled into pumping up baseball operations and analytics departments.

Justin Berl/Getty Images

And these are no longer the days when it was understood that a general manager's job was to acquire players and a manager's job was to decide—solo—how to deploy them. This isn't to say that today's collaborative effort between front offices and managers is necessarily bad, but it does shorten a skipper's shelf life: Eventually, familiarity breeds contempt. Work together every single day for an eight- or nine-month season, plus the winter, under stressful and intense conditions, and new voices are needed sooner than later.

"Nothing in baseball surprises me. We just saw the guy that just led the Red Sox to the World Series last year let go," said Zobrist, referring to President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski's axing earlier this month. "It feels like there's less tenure for everybody in the game right now.

"That being said, Joe's track record speaks for itself. He's been a winner. He's a winning manager, and he's a forward-thinking manager, and he brings out the best in ballclubs when he goes places."

And he'll do it again.

For those who enjoy symmetry—and that includes Maddon, always a big reader—his days leading the Cubs ended as they began: over a bottle of wine with Epstein late into the night in St. Louis on Saturday, talking baseball and life. Five Octobers ago, Theo and Jed flew to Florida, stopped by Publix for a $20 bottle of wine and met Maddon by his RV on a deserted beach, a recruiting visit/interview that now seems like a lifetime ago. Check out the pictures. The three all look so much younger and less stressed then.

David Banks/Getty Images

It's what happens, even when you win. The haters are never happy, and there will be those who will chirp about Maddon's bullpen usage, arguing his flaws into the winter. But the bottom line is: He wins, and he connects, with both veterans and young players. It helped lead the Tampa Bay Rays to one World Series (2008) and made the Cubs October regulars for the first time ever.

They'll always have Cubstock—the word the rock-and-roll manager Maddon coined from Woodstock—the celebration of a lifetime in 2016.

But nobody will ever be that young again—not Theo and Jed, not Joe, not the Cubs fans worldwide. So treasure it for what it was.

The Houston Astros, heavy favorites to win a second World Series in three years this fall, are what the Cubs were supposed to become. And it's going to be an unseasonably cold fall in Chicago, where the wrecking ball is in place for the reckoning.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.