Chicago Cubs: Maddon’s fate will be determined in second half

Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon is in the final year of his contract. How the team performs in the second half will ultimately decide his fate.

Joe Maddon is in the final year of his contract with the Chicago Cubs. He opted out of his deal with the Tampa Bay Rays after the 2014 season and was hired to be the Cubs 54th manager in franchise history on Halloween.

Not long after that, Jon Lester shocked everyone when he chose to sign with the Cubs and it was on from there. The 2015 season saw Kris Bryant and Addison Russell make their big league debuts in April and Kyle Schwarber followed in June.

The team would ride a 50-25 record in the second half of the season on their way to a 97 win total and securing the final Wild Card spot. After taking care of business against the Pittsburgh Pirates in that game, the Cubs knocked off the St. Louis Cardinals in four games but ultimately lost to the New York Mets in the NLCS.

That being said, all signs were pointing that the Cubs had arrived and in a short amount of time. In large part, it was due to the culture that Joe Maddon had created in the clubhouse while forming relationships with his players. He could relate to the young guys on the team, which was a good amount given the number of prospects that were called up.

The Cubs built off that 2015 success and turned that into bringing the World Series trophy back to the north side for the first time since 1908. They’ve made the playoffs in Maddon’s first four seasons, but after a quick exit in 2018, he is feeling the pressure. Many media sources believe that Maddon could not be brought back if the Cubs don’t, at the very least, reach the World Series this season.

The team has gotten off to a slow start in 2019, capped by a 14-15 record in the month of June and currently have just a 0.5 half lead over the Milwaukee Brewers atop the NL Central division. The Cubs have had their issues with RISP this season, but Maddon can only control so much of that.

Can the Cubs find their spark and begin a second-half run?

Second-half runs should be nothing new for Joe Maddon in his tenure with the Cubs. He has a combined record of 189-103 in the second half of the season through four seasons with the team. Sitting at just 4 games over the 0.500 mark at the All-Star break, the Cubs will need to get off to a fast start in the second half and will have the opportunity to do so with a nine-game home stand against the Pirates, Reds, and Padres.

Maddon was ejected in the final game of the Pirates series back on July 4 in what many people believed to be a Lou Piniella-type tactic to fire up the team. The team responded well that particular day but had a less than stellar showing in the two-game series against the White Sox to close out the first half.

Will Maddon’s message fall on deaf ears?

Eventually Joe Maddon can only say so many words to get his team motivated before it all starts to sound the same. It seems to happen near the end of every coach’s or manager’s career and usually indicates that a new voice is needed in the clubhouse. I’m not saying that this has already happened with the Cubs, but if they have a pedestrian second half of the season, all signs would point to Maddon’s message no longer being effective.

Can the Cubs clean up their defensive miscues?

The Cubs played sloppy baseball in the first half of the season, committing 65 errors which was good for second-worst in the National League. Last season, the Cubs committed 104 errors but they are on pace to shatter that this season if this trend continues. Javier Baez is going to make errors, it comes with the territory of trying to make those flashy plays.

Those you can live with. What you cannot live with is Kris Bryant and Willson Contreras making routine plays into errors. David Bote also needs to clean up his fielding as he’s tied with Baez with a team-leading 10 errors. He’s had several miscues in the field on routine ground balls that should be turned into outs but instead are keeping the door open for opposing teams.

If the Cubs can respond to all three of these questions, they should find themselves in good shape at the end of the season. If not, then the season finale in St. Louis on September 29 could be Maddon’s last game on the north side.