Cubs fire Renteria to make way for Maddon
Rick Renteria’s one-year tenure with the Cubs is over. (USATSI)
In what is an obvious precursor to hiring Joe Maddon, the Cubs have fired Rick Renteria from their managerial post, the club announced Friday.
Maddon is even mentioned in the statement from Cubs president Theo Epstein. Here it is:
Today we made the difficult decision to replace Rick Renteria as manager of the Chicago Cubs. On behalf of Tom Ricketts and Jed Hoyer, I thank Rick for his dedication and commitment, and for making the Cubs a better organization.
Rick’s sterling reputation should only be enhanced by his season as Cubs manager. We challenged Rick to create an environment in which our young players could develop and thrive at the big league level, and he succeeded. Working with the youngest team in the league and an imperfect roster, Rick had the club playing hard and improving throughout the season. His passion, character, optimism and work ethic showed up every single day.
Rick deserved to come back for another season as Cubs manager, and we said as much when we announced that he would be returning in 2015. We met with Rick two weeks ago for a long end-of-season evaluation and discussed plans for next season. We praised Rick to the media and to our season ticket holders. These actions were made in good faith.
Last Thursday, we learned that Joe Maddon – who may be as well suited as anyone in the industry to manage the challenges that lie ahead of us – had become a free agent. We confirmed the news with Major League Baseball, and it became public knowledge the next day. We saw it as a unique opportunity and faced a clear dilemma: be loyal to Rick or be loyal to the organization. In this business of trying to win a world championship for the first time in 107 years, the organization has priority over any one individual. We decided to pursue Joe.
While there was no clear playbook for how to handle this type of situation, we knew we had to be transparent with Rick before engaging with Joe. Jed flew to San Diego last Friday and told Rick in person of our intention to talk to Joe about the managerial job. Subsequently, Jed and I provided updates to Rick via telephone and today informed him that we will indeed make a change.
We offered Rick a choice of other positions with the Cubs, but he is of course free to leave the organization and pursue opportunities elsewhere. Armed with the experience of a successful season and all the qualities that made him our choice a year ago, Rick will no doubt make an excellent major league manager when given his next chance.
Rick often said he was the beneficiary of the hard work of others who came before him. Now, in the young players he helped, we reap the benefits of his hard work as we move forward. He deserved better and we wish him nothing but the best.
We have clung to two important ideals during our three years in Chicago. The first is to always be loyal to our mission of building the Cubs into a championship organization that can sustain success. The second is to be transparent with our fans. As painful as the last week was at times, we believe we stayed true to these two ideals in handling a sensitive situation. To our fans: we hope you understand, and we appreciate your continued support of the Cubs.
Such a detailed statement, including mentioning Maddon by name like that, is incredibly rare. Most of the time it’s boilerplate, “Hey, we respect this guy and thank him for his time.” Instead, this looks an attempt to be fully honest and avoid any guesswork from the outside.
Renteria, 52, was hired last season by the Cubs after they fired Dale Sveum. Though the Cubs finished in last place, they improved their record by seven games from 2013, going 73-89. They were actually 28-27 in the season’s final two months.
Many young players, particularly Starlin Castro, Anthony Rizzo and Jake Arrieta, took big steps forward from the previous year, too.
Basically, Renteria has probably done enough that he’ll find another managerial opportunity. Only the Twins and Rays have openings now, so it might not be right away.
Renteria is under contract for two more years, so he’ll be paid by the Cubs through the 2016 season.
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