Oh! Hi there, Ozzie.
Yep, you read that title correctly. Apparently, after hearing that Dave Martinez was finally getting his shot to manage a big league ball club, the former (World Series winning! it apparently did happen!) manager of the Chicago White Sox would be open to taking the now-vacant Cubs bench coach job:
Of course yes, if @CubsJoeMadd asked me to be his bench coach I 'd do it. says @OzzieGuillen
— Mully And Hanley (@mullyhanley) October 31, 2017
Of course!
Guillen, you’ll recall, last managed in the big leagues with the Miami Marlins for one season (2012), but was let go after going 69-93 (and also because of some inflammatory remarks about Fidel Castro). As far as I can tell, he took a few years away from baseball, before signing on to manage the Tibruones de La Guaria in his home country of Venezuela this past season.
Unfortunately for Ozzie, I’m not quite sure he’s the right fit for this Cubs team, front office, and, perhaps especially, manager. Indeed, despite some recent questionable decisions to the contrary, Joe Maddon is a fairly new-school manager, who believes in and utilizes advanced analytics on a daily basis.
Guillen, on the other hand, was just on 670 The Score discussing, to an extent, his distaste for how far the game has gone in that (sabermetric) direction.
Guillen, it seems, is much more of a “go with your gut” kind of guy than Maddon will probably ever be. On top of that, he didn’t seem to like the fact that, now, managers have to be so much more than just coaches to their players. I’m paraphrasing, but he mentioned that when he was a manager, all he had to do was teach a player to hit and say goodbye, but now, managers are expected to help players with the mental half of the game and act like “fathers” and “uncles,” a job Guillen doesn’t see fit for a manager.
Again, given how much we know Maddon (and this front office) does buy into that sort of stuff, Guillen just doesn’t feel like the right fit. But it’s still a funny thing to think about, given Ozzie’s candid nature and connection to Chicago. Of course, in the end, I think the Cubs and Joe Maddon will look elsewhere for a second first mate (I guess my major in Maritime Law didn’t pay off).