In Year 4, Chicago Cubs still embracing Joe Maddon's message
Every year he has been manager of the Cubs, Joe Maddon has preached the importance of getting off to a good start.
Maddon's reasoning, in part, is that if a team can cruise early, it won't have to floor the gas pedal in September and be worn out by October.
It's a balancing act, and Maddon hopes he has struck the right balance this spring.
During the Cubs' run to a world championship in 2016, they got off to a 17-5 start in April. Last year, with the now-infamous "World Series hangover" in full effect, the Cubs went 13-11 in April and 12-16 in May.
The team lost in five games to the Dodgers in the National League championship series, and Maddon spent the off-season trying to come up with something new for this year.
There was more than just words behind his spring slogan of "energy and enthusiasm."
"I want them on a daily basis to be concerned with their enthusiasm and their energy - energy and enthusiasm. I really believe if we can understand just showing up, really showing up mentally every day with a lot of energy and life, combine that with what we do naturally well anyway, I think that will permit us to get off to a good start.
"Energy, enthusiasm, execution, fundamentally, but I try to present it in a different way. Listen, it's my fourth year of doing it here, and you never want the message to grow old. So I think it's important to say the same thing in other words. I think that's the essence of a good instructor."
The Cubs certainly have the talent, enough to make them the easy preseason favorites in the National League Central and the World Series pick of many around the country.
And this year, there is no headache - happily suffered as it was - of a "World Series hangover."
"If you look at my notes from last year compared to this year - last year it was 'uncomfortable,' 'growth' and all this other stuff - I don't think I emphasized quick start enough," Maddon said. "But I was concerned. I was concerned about fatigue. I thought if I pushed too quickly, any chance that we had to play in the latter part of the season would go away because we would just burn it out too soon. Regardless if you liked the start or not last year, it just had to be that way, I think.
"But to our guys' credit, they put it together in the middle and rebounded. If maybe we had gotten off to a blazing hot April and May and that would have meant we would have gone home in September-October, who knows? So you've just got to try to play your hand as well as you possibly can. The best way I can describe it to you is the message is kind of the same, but in other words."
This year's spring-training camp, energized early by the signing of free-agent pitcher Yu Darvish and by a largely new coaching staff, was businesslike, efficient and largely uneventful.
In other words, there's no good reason for the Cubs not to get off to a good start.
"It's been a great camp, run very smoothly, very crisp," opening-day starting pitcher Jon Lester told the media late in spring training. "I like where we're at. These guys, knowing these young guys and how they operate, they'll be amped up and ready for Opening Day."
In the off-season, the Cubs made as many changes off the field as they did on the field.
Chili Davis replaced Chicagoan John Mallee as hitting coach. His immediate charge was to get right fielder Jason Heyward and left fielder Kyle Schwarber back on track. Heyward, a two-time Gold Glover with the Cubs and a team leader, was only marginally better at the plate last year than he was in 2016. Schwarber, miscast as a leadoff man to start the 2017 season, wound up in the minor leagues before coming back and rebounding.
Another Chicago native, Jim Hickey, replaced longtime pitching coach Chris Bosio. One of Hickey's main jobs is to help the relievers throw more strikes.
Brian Butterfield replaced Gary Jones as third-base coach. Butterfield made his presence felt early in spring with demonstrative baserunning instruction.
Dave Martinez, a longtime Maddon confidant, left his job as Cubs bench coach to manage the Washington Nationals, with Brandon Hyde moving from the first-base coaching box to sit next to Maddon on the bench. Will Venable takes over at first base, and he adds a dose of youth to the staff at age 35. He also has big-league playing experience.
The team on the field looks much the same as last season, which to say it's loaded.
Third baseman Kris Bryant and first baseman Anthony Rizzo combined for 61 home runs last year, and for all the talk of his "bad year," Schwarber wound up with 30.
This figures to be the year second baseman Javier Baez gets everyday playing time after compiling 469 at-bats last year and hitting 23 homers. Maddon will have to work his mind magic with veteran Ben Zobrist, who may get aced out of playing time with the emergence of Baez. Zobrist, the MVP of the 2016 World Series, has the advantage of playing multiple positions, and with the way Maddon juggles lineups, he may get more playing time than one might expect.
The addition of Darvish gives the Cubs the best rotation in the NL Central, if not the league. There was a gaping hole left after former ace Jake Arrieta opted for free agency. Darvish fills that nicely, and he'll fit in behind Lester and Kyle Hendricks and ahead of Jose Quintana and newcomer Tyler Chatwood, whom the Cubs feel is a sleeper after spending much of his career at hitter-friendly Coors Field with the Colorado Rockies.
Any one of the Cubs' first four starters could be an opening-day starter on many big-league clubs.
"Without being too specific, I think this group right here is just a little bit more talented in certain areas, whether it's strike-throwing, pitch making, experience level," Maddon said. "As a rounded-out group, they complement each other very well."
The bullpen will have a new man in the ninth inning: Brandon Morrow. The Cubs got and eyeful of Morrow last fall in the NLCS against the Dodgers. So did everybody else, as Morrow appeared in all seven games of the World Series.
Unlike the Cubs' previous two closers, Wade Davis and Aroldis Chapman, Morrow is not a closer by trade but he has pitched in plenty of high-leverage situations.
With everything seemingly in place and the team well rested, Rizzo sees no reason the Cubs can't get off to the fast start their manager wants.
"I think it feels like, yeah, it's definitely different," Rizzo said. "It's a good feeling. It's a good, hungry feeling. Obviously last year was a little more coming off a major high. This is more like everyone is focused early and shifting our energy to getting off to a really good start and how important that is."
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