Joe Maddon aims to keep managing for at least five more years, which would take him beyond both his current deal with the Cubs and past his 68th birthday, Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times writes. (Maddon had previously made similar comments to Jon Heyman of Fan Rag.) The Cubs have yet to speak to Maddon about an extension, with GM Jed Hoyer that any discussions between the two sides won’t be made public, though there isn’t yet any immediate need for talks given that Maddon is still under contract through the 2019 campaign. At age 64, Maddon is the oldest manager in baseball, though by all appearances he still connects with younger players as well as any skipper. His clear desire is to stay with the Cubs, as Maddon said “I can’t imagine doing this anywhere else, I really can’t. I’m very loyal to groups. It also comes down to whether the Cubs want me or not, too. That’s really what it comes down to.”
Here’s some more from around the NL Central…
- Kevin Siegrist will “probably look at other options first” before considering a Triple-A assignment if the Pirates don’t add him to their 25-man roster, the left-hander tells The Athletic’s Rob Biertempfel (subscription required). Siegrist signed a minor league deal with the Bucs in February that will pay him $1.5MM in guaranteed salary if he cracks the big leagues, and he can opt out of the deal if the Pirates don’t put him on the Opening Day roster and another club offers him an MLB job. (The contract also contains a second opt-out clause, which Biertempfel reports is on June 1.) A workhorse out of the Cardinals bullpen in 2015-16, Siegrist struggled with injuries last season and has yet to show much this spring, with a 7.94 ERA in 5 2/3 Grapefruit League innings. Pittsburgh already has Steven Brault and Josh Smoker as left-handed options for the bullpen, so Siegrist could become expendable.
- Ji-Man Choi has become a popular figure both on and off the field with the Brewers, Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes, as he has quickly won friends in the clubhouse and forced his way into consideration for a roster spot after a big spring. Choi entered the day with a whopping 1.253 OPS over 51 plate appearances in camp, and though the Brew Crew are pretty set with first base options, manager Craig Counsell and GM David Stearns haven’t closed the door on the possibility of Choi being with the team on Opening Day. Choi hasn’t hit much over 147 career Major League PA with the Angels and Yankees, though he has an impressive .305/.402/.497 slash line over 1943 plate appearances in the minors. His minor league contract with the Brewers carries an opt-out date of May 15 if Choi hasn’t already been promoted to the big leagues.
- Kyle Hendricks isn’t scheduled to hit free agency until after the 2020 season, and the Cubs right-hander tells The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney (subscription required) that he isn’t yet thinking about a potential contract extension with the team. While Hendricks is taking a broader look at the game’s overall business due to his role as the Cubs’ assistant MLBPA representatives, his view when it comes to his own performance is “If you do the things out on the field, it’s going to end up taking care of itself.” Hendricks will earn $4.175MM this season after agreeing to a deal to avoid arbitration with the Cubs, and his emergence as a front-of-the-rotation starter certainly puts him in line for more healthy salaries before he reaches the open market, unless Chicago looks to lock him up beforehand.
Yes, extend Maddon.
I agree. The Cubs also have to figure out how to keep KB and the young core locked in long term. As a fan since 1959, I am really enjoying this club these days. MLB, however, just has too many teams. There really isn’t enough MLB talent to go around…
There’s plenty of talent to go around.
There are a few teams that don’t know how to be successful, though.
One way to do it is by keeping their favorite (also ONLY) manager ahead of the team.
There is a tremendous amount of talent and MLB should probably expand under the right ownerships and stadium neighborhoods.
Idk about that. There’s some talent but you also have what 6-7 teams that aren’t even trying to be competitive right now. Seth Smith is good enough to be on a ML roster but he isn’t and I think that has more to do with teams like the marlins, tigers etc not trying to win. Don’t think we need an expansion. Maybe a relocation for a team or two but definitely not an expansion.
I’d be surprised if the Pirates don’t keep Siegrist, even as bad as he’s been. Smoker has an option left. Edgar Santana is currently penciled into Jason Martinez’s roster projection, but he has 2 options left, so I could see Huntingdon opting to keep depth in the organization by giving Siegrist a 25 man spot to start the year.
“I’m very loyal to groups” says guy who randomly quit his original group.
Nothing “random” about a substantial pay raise. I’m sure the opportunity to manage a long suffering franchise on the uptick influenced his decision to leave the Rays as well.
Cool and I’d leave too but that’s not what loyalty means so…
They paid his replacement the same dollar amount that he was given by the Cubs
Maybe they just didn’t type the whole quote. Maybe he said he was loyal to groups until he found an opportunity he liked better that’d pay him significantly more.
So he’s disloyal because he acted on an agreed upon clause in his contract?
Sure. The same clause that he claimed to not know about after talking about how he wanted to stay in Tampa. He sure jumped ship pretty quickly once he “found out” about that clause.
Again, nobody is blaming him for actually leaving.
Yea like you’re loyal to your job?
What does any of us being loyal to our job have to do with anything? I certainly am not. If a better opportunity for me and my family came up, I’d take it in a heartbeat. I also wouldn’t go around talking about how loyal I am after accepting the new job. But hey, that’s just me.
Exactly. I’m not dissing Maddon for leaving, I’m dissing him for pretending he didn’t.
He didn’t randomly quit. The exec he worked for left for LA and his contract was written with an option to leave if Friedman left. He’d put in nine years — incredibly long for a manager in baseball— for a club that paid at the bottom of the scale and it was his one chance to hit it big. Who’d turn down that chance?
Well said.
Nobody (sane). But I’d also not go around talking publicly about how loyal I was to employers after jumping ship for a payday. Offer me millions of $$, and I’ll put in my 2 weeks notice tomorrow. But then I’ll STFU.
He said he’s loyal to “groups,” not to general organizations. Which I completely understand.
For instance, let’s say you work for a company, your management core is awesome, and then they suddenly leave, and you’re stuck working for the biggest satanic p.o.s.’s on planet Earth. What would you do? You would leave.
Blind loyalty to an organization isn’t a good thing. If you’re treated well, then you treat them well.
Maddon is simply saying that he loves “the group” of Ricketts, Theo, Jed, his current core players, etc.
Maddon is loyal to his huge paycheck ! That’s it! He’s the most 2-face , fake manager in the game !
I sense a disgruntled Tampa Bay fan. Lol.
Love Choi, hope he gets a shot
Me too… I think he has done everything needed to stick around. Stearns has a few tough decisions to make soon,
Ji-Man or Jesus? Tough call!
With Aguilar out of options he won’t. He’s great depth for us to have though and if Braun or Thames get hurt he will be up. Aguilar will need to be traded 10 days into the season when we need a 5th starter. I know we lose leverage as teams know that but hopefully the Yanks losing Bird or someone else further down the waiver wire will pony up a low level prospect.