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Miles: To be fair, Cubs owe Renteria a quick answer

The Cubs' silence on the Joe Maddon situation is telling.

As I tweeted Friday, team President Theo Epstein and General Manager Jed Hoyer immediately could have stopped all of the speculation about them seeking out Maddon to manage the Cubs after news broke of him opting out of his contract in Tampa Bay.

Instead, there has been nothing from Cubs camp either way.

The guy who has to be most uncomfortable about all of this is current manager Rick Renteria, who completed his first season as a major-league skipper and got good marks from Epstein and Hoyer.

There is something unfair about all of this, even if no harm is intended.

Maddon now is one of the most sought-after people on the baseball market, and no doubt the Cubs are interested suitors.

Many other teams likely are intrigued by Maddon, too, and if the situation goes on for, say, weeks, that's how long Renteria (and other managers around baseball) will be left to twist in the wind.

As I also wrote, the Cubs ought to look into hiring Maddon, a two-time Manager of the Year who is highly regarded in the industry as someone who gets the most out of his talent and who has worked for a team on a shoestring budget.

Maddon has expressed his affection for Wrigley Field, so a pairing with the Cubs seems only natural. But Maddon and his agent will want to test the market, as well they should.

The idea of the Cubs changing managers this off-season was unthinkable just 48 hours ago, but Maddon opting out in Tampa Bay changed everything, including and especially for the Cubs.

The Cubs made positive strides on the field this season, and the cruel irony for Renteria is that it happened under him. Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro bounced back from subpar 2013 seasons and made the 2014 all-star team. So you can't blame Renteria if he's at home feeling he's a victim of his own success.

The improvement the Cubs made, going from 66 wins last year to 73 this season, had them feeling confident, so much so that they've talked of contending for the National League Central title as early as next year.

Few people probably believed that Renteria would be the manager when the Cubs were ready to contend, but if the Cubs are ready, they got to this point faster than expected.

That likely has Epstein and Hoyer thinking they need their Point A to Point B manager a year or two early, as well. The possibility of Maddon falling into their laps is an unexpected stroke of good luck for the Cubs.

All of that brings us back to Renteria. He worked a long time to get his first big-league managing job, and now it might be yanked from underneath him. Even if the Cubs don't get Maddon, Epstein's not giving Renteria an immediate statement of backing may have him feeling less than secure about his long-term future, even though he does have the financial security of a three-year contract.

In the end, this is a reminder that major-league baseball, like all pro sports, is a business with little room for sentimentality and that sometimes life is unfair.

The least the Cubs can do for Renteria is to try to get this over with quickly.

bmiles@dailyherald.com

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