In the least surprising news of the week, the Cubs have officially fired manager Rick Renteria:
#Cubs to replace manager Rick Renteria. Full statement: http://t.co/kpijTSyW8N
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) October 31, 2014
The move was made in lieu of the forthcoming hire of Joe Maddon as manager. It’s a pretty unfair situation for Renteria to have been put in, a sentiment not lost on the Cubs organization. In fact, Theo Epstein released a statement on the reasons behind the decision and was pretty straightforward about this being all about the opportunity to hire Maddon and nothing else. Other organizations in similar situations would’ve played dumb and acted like Maddon didn’t even exist. In that sense, it is a refreshing departure.
In another sense, it is still a pretty gauche move by Epstein and the Cubs. While they technically followed protocol in firing Renteria before officially hiring Maddon, everyone in baseball has known for days now that Maddon is taking Renteria’s job. Granted, Renteria had to have known that he was around mostly as a placeholder until the Cubs got competitive, but to get dismissed in this fashion after doing his job in a way that management was clearly happy with still kind of sucks.
