Rozner: Is Cubs, Maddon compromise possible?

For the better part of two years, it has felt inevitable that the Cubs would let Joe Maddon's contract run out at the end of this season, and that the two parties would go their separate ways after the most successful era in the last 100 years of Cubs baseball.

Teams are going much cheaper and younger in the dugout these days, with managers embracing analytics and technology, not to mention input from the front office.

Not that this relationship hasn't worked. The evidence is in the record and there's a strong mutual respect between Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon despite what you may believe.

But after listening to Epstein and Maddon on Friday at Wrigley Field, a possibility hit me I confess I hadn't considered until now.

It's been a foregone conclusion here that Maddon was done, that he wouldn't take a one-year extension and that the Cubs really want to move on anyway.

But a short extension of two years - through 2021 - at perhaps $3 million a year makes a fair amount of sense.

Maddon's currently making $5 million a year, so why would he take less in an extension?

Well, there's not going to be a deal for him out there that resembles the five years and $25 million the Cubs gave him before the 2015 season, unless he finds a really bad team that's truly desperate, and losing 100 games a year doesn't sound like a fun way to end a career.

Maddon will turn 66 next February, and if there's another contract in his future, it's probably his last.

If he were willing to take a shortened deal - and the Cubs were willing to offer it - he could finish his career in Chicago having been part of a truly historical run on the North Side.

Why would the Cubs do it?

It saves them from having to live through a winter of explaining why they fired the most successful Cubs manager since Frank Chance, and would allow them to focus on 2020 instead.

They can't possibly blame 2018 or 2019 on Maddon, though a failure to bring him back will be interpreted precisely that way.

The question of just how much better off they will be without Maddon is a reasonable one, given the many downsides to making a managerial change.

A young and cheap manager would be learning on the job, adjusting to a new situation while the players take time to adjust to him, and the Cubs are in the middle of a winning window.

It's what has been referred to here as "The Bryant Window."

Kris Bryant is property of the Cubs through 2021, as are Javy Baez, Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Schwarber, Jon Lester and Craig Kimbrel.

And, oh yeah, so is Theo Epstein, who will have completed 10 years in Chicago at that point. Epstein has said before that a decade in any one job is enough.

If Maddon accepted two years it would give them all the same expiration date, at which point you may see an entirely different operation at Wrigley Field.

No, Maddon is not the perfect manager for an analytics-driven front office - and his postseason managing debacles have been well chronicled here - but it's also not a front office that loses sight of the human side of baseball, and that's the best part of Maddon the manager.

Epstein and Jason McLeod spend as much time focused on the character side of scouting as they do on the talent itself.

And Maddon's strength is in how he manages players off the field, admitting Friday pregame that he saw a tight group Thursday in San Diego and promptly addressed it.

"He's always got a good feel for how his players are feeling and what the mood is down there," Epstein said Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field before the Cubs loosened up and pounded the Pirates. "You're dealing with human beings and trying to elicit certain responses, but he's always really consistent.

"Some managers can create an environment where it leads to players pressing and Joe is never guilty of that at all. If anything, he's going to help them relax."

For this contract to happen, Epstein would have to want Maddon back and Maddon would have to be willing to take a pay cut and a shorter term.

It does make some sense for the Cubs and for Maddon, who can enjoy his restaurant and the Chicago scene for a couple more years and then ride off into the sunset, possibly with several of those named above.

Of course, this still feels like a longshot and if you ask just about anyone near this, they'll tell you it sounds unlikely.

Maybe so.

But if you strain your eyes through the fog of a pennant race, you might just see some logic to it.