Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, and Joe Maddon today met with the media to announce that Joe Maddon will not return as the Chicago Cubs manager next year.
We’ll have more on the particulars of what they said (and thoughts on the Joe Maddon Era), but I know everyone was ready to hear this final word first. So here it is. After five very good years and a World Series, Joe Maddon is moving on as manager of the Chicago Cubs. Free agency awaits him with eager and open arms, I expect, and the Cubs will undertake the impossible task of replacing a guy like Maddon.
The fact that we knew this day was coming for so long – arguably as far back as this time last year – is certainly softening the blow. But I’m still feeling it.
Theo Epstein, on the meeting Saturday night with Joe Maddon. pic.twitter.com/eBIembfcw6
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) September 29, 2019
Joe Maddon is the best manager the Cubs have had in my lifetime, and that might still be true 30 years from now.
But that doesn’t mean these things don’t run a natural course. I’m prepared for any outcome today.
— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) September 29, 2019