The Chicago Cubs’ promise that all of their coaches were expected back after their NLCS ouster continues to look silly. The club’s manager made the comments immediately before his team was run out of the playoffs. Joe Maddon was asked whether or not he believed his staff was going to stay in tact and he responded that he truly believed it would. In fact, he seemed to act as though any questions about someone leaving was rather silly.
Two days later, the Chicago Cubs fired pitching coach Chris Bosio. A few days after that they fired their hitting coach and their third base coach.
While no one was going to shed a tear for either John Mallee or Gary Jones, the departures made a liar out of Maddon on a massive scale. Now it appears the team is going to lose another coach in Dave Martinez.
Chicago Cubs could be looking for new bench coach
To Maddon’s credit, the loss of Martinez is out of his hands. The team’s bench coach has long made it clear that he wants to be a manager. When the Washington Nationals decided they were going to fire Dusty Baker, it was a given that Martinez would apply for the job. There’s also no guarantee the Cubs are going to lose their bench coach.
Martinez has applied for this kind of job plenty of times before. He’s obviously never gotten the job as he has followed Maddon from when they were both in Tampa Bay to Chicago.
On the other hand, the Cubs Insider is reporting that Martinez has the inside track this time around.
The only reason the Cubs bench coach has not been announced yet is because the World Series is still going on. This is the only source that is reporting the Nationals have made their choice. The Washington Post is reporting nothing has been finalized just yet.
The Post also pointed out there was a time when the Nats were supposedly going to announce Bud Black as their man before Dusty Baker. Turns out those rampant rumors weren’t true.
World Series champs rebuilding in a different way
All of this means the team could be losing yet another coach in the very near future. It’s an interesting look for a team that has appeared in three straight NLCS and won a World Series.
Should Martinez leave, it would mean about 80 percent of the staff has been changed over.
Per multiple sources @fox5dc can report Dave Martinez will be the next #Nationals manager, won't be announced til after #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/oUzKwMQl0Z
— Brody Logan (@BrodyLogan) October 28, 2017
Whether or not the Chicago Cubs having a bunch of new voices is a good thing is something we won’t learn until next season. There is certainly an argument to be made that it might be exactly what a team that looked flat and lifeless in the playoffs had to have happen. The team isn’t retooling on the player level yet but it already has a new makeup.