Manager of the Year Maddon says Wrigley's the place to be
The Chicago Cubs are 2-for-2 in the awards department, with a chance for a triple on Wednesday.
Kris Bryant won the National League Rookie of the Year award Monday.
On Tuesday, Joe Maddon spent the evening celebrating with pizza and vino after being named the NL Manager of the Year.
If Jake Arrieta can snag the Cy Young Wednesday night as the NL's top pitcher, not only will the Cubs walk away with three major awards (they have no finalist for the Most Valuable Player), Maddon says he feels Chicago will become the place to be.
“Obviously, the spotlight is shining from Wrigley Field,” he said. “You just like to believe that's going to attract other people that want to be there. Obviously, a huge attraction is the fact that we've not won a World Series in over 100 years. I think a lot of major-league players would like to be a member of the first to do that. Of course, that's going to be a pretty good player that wants that kind of challenge.”
Maddon received 18 of 30 first-place votes in balloting by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny finished second with 9 first place votes, with the Mets' Terry Collins third with 3 first-place votes. Maddon was the only manager named on all 30 ballots, and he totaled 124 points to Matheny's 87 and Collins' 49.
The 61-year-old Maddon won his third Manager of the Year Award. He won with Tampa Bay in 2008 and 2011. He is the fourth manager in Cubs history to win the honor and the first since Lou Piniella in 2008. Don Zimmer (1989) and Jim Frey (1984) also won the award, and Maddon joins Frey as the only two Cubs managers to earn it in their first seasons with the Cubs.
The Cubs improved from 73-89 under Rick Renteria in 2014 to 97-65 this season. They finished with the third-best record in baseball and in third place in the NL Central behind the Cardinals (100-62) and Pirates (98-64).
After beating the Pirates in the wild-card playoff game, the Cubs got past the Cardinals in four games to win the division series before they fell in four straight to Collins' Mets.
As he has all year, Maddon sounded familiar themes for the Cubs' success.
“The most rewarding part, and I hate to go in this direction with you guys, but it's just the way we came together as a group,” he said. “It's not easy to walk into a situation like we did without knowing anyone, whether it's players, the front office, ownership and extract the kind of year that we did. To me that really stands out.
“From a personal perspective, it validates the approach I took intentionally at the beginning when I talked about relationships. And it also speaks to the quality of our players and the coaching staff. More than anything, it's about the approach in regards to getting the group together.”
In many ways, the Cubs were a work in progress all season, as they routinely trotted out lineups that featured rookies Bryant, Addison Russell, Jorge Soler and Kyle Schwarber.
The starting rotation featured only two consistent pitchers from start to finish: Arrieta and Jon Lester. The bullpen had many moving parts throughout the season.
The Cubs swept a four-game series against the Giants in early August to catch and pass them in the wild-card race.
It was a young squad with some holes, but Maddon kept them loose all season. And you won't hear him saying his young Cubs “overachieved.”
“When it comes to semantics, I'm really careful,” he said. “'Overachieving' would indicate that we really did not have that level of talent. And I don't believe that's true. I believe that what occurred eventually was that we kind of realized our potentials.
“And you heard me talk a lot about the veterans in our clubhouse, whether it's David (catcher Ross) Jon or Jake or the guys in the bullpen, Jason Motte. These guys are really vital to get to teach the young players and get to the point where you can win 97 games.
“It's not overachieving necessarily as much as it is understanding how to play this game daily and actually meeting your level of expectation of the talent level because the talent is that good.”
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