NEWSLETTER
It was already anticipated before Jed Hoyer’s season-ending presser this week, but if there were any question at all about David Ross’s performance as manager in the eyes of his bosses, they were answered clearly: he’s done well. He’s done well enough to earn another year back at the helm in 2024.
Any thoughts of a surprising managerial change for the Cubs can be pushed away, and the focus instead has to be on how Ross can continue to be a great leader in the clubhouse, can continue to put his players in a position to succeed over the course of a full season, and can improve with some of the in-game areas where we saw some issues.
To that end, the Cubs duo at The Athletic want folks to remember that Ross doesn’t work alone, and he was hand-picked by this front office to serve in this role. Even still, next year probably will require more success:
From Mooney and Sharma:
A manager has to have those rare interpersonal skills, a feel for the clubhouse and the ability to connect with analysts, support staff, the media and corporate partners. Ross took the job with that kind of confidence and charisma. The relationships within the organization are meaningful. The emotional connection to Wrigley Field is genuine.
But the Cubs no longer have a rookie manager. The expectation is that Ross, who has a 262-284 record and zero playoff wins through four seasons, will continue to grow with his in-game decision-making. His contract is guaranteed for next season and includes a club option for 2025. The bottom line is the 2024 team has to win or else Hoyer may be forced to look in another direction (while heading into the final year of his own contract).
It’s not just that Ross has to continue to show his development as a manager, it’s the reality that 2024 is going to be viewed as a must-compete year for the Cubs. Even if 2023 was disappointing in its ending, it showed how close the Cubs are – and with enough investment this offseason, to pair with all the investment on the farm side the last five years, the wins have to come. Period.
For his part, Hoyer this week really underscored the part of the job that is less visible to us on the outside, but that we nevertheless know is critically important for the manager:
“Do we have disagreements? Do we have heated conversations? Of course we do. But you will with any manager. They have to make so many different decisions. They have so many different things to weigh. We work hard all the time to give him the right information. And if there are things that we disagree with, or things that we can do better, he’s very open-minded to that. He’s constantly trying to improve ….
“I don’t even know how many people are in a clubhouse on a given day. Let’s call it 50 to 60 people are down here every single day. All those people at some point in that day want or need his time. His mood, his direction, everything about the manager defines what happens in a clubhouse. This game is so up and down all the time.
“To be able to bring a positive energy, a productive energy every single day, to stay on message all the time, to be encouraging to the players and to keep their respect all the time, there’s not a lot of groups of humans more cynical than a group of major-league players. If they sense any weakness, if they sense any part of you is not genuine at all, you can lose that group of players really quickly.”
All good and fair, and I don’t want to ignore the things that went very well this year and fixate solely on my issues with not resting veterans, with using the core relievers too much in June-August in 3+ run games, with not using young reinforcements late, and with so many silly bunts.
I suspect there are aspects of the modern managerial job that Ross does very well, and I also suspect Hoyer wouldn’t want to pin his own success or failure on a guy he didn’t trust to do the job well. But next season is year five for Ross. Even as the first four were impacted by a pandemic, a lockout, and multiple sell-offs, I think we need to see CLEARLY by late next season that he’s still the right guy for the job.
