RON MALY HAS BEEN WATCHING THE PARADE GO BY FOR A LONG TIME. THIS IS ONE OF HIS WEBSITES.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Joe Maddon Is Already My Manager Of the Year

By RON MALY

Major league baseball's 2015 season is about halfway finished. Next week's all-star game is 
Joe Maddon
supposed to be the mid-point, but by that time the teams will have played more than half of their schedules. That includes the Chicago Cubs, who are still fielding a team. And a pretty good team, if I say so myself. The Cubs, who are usually gasping for air  and trading their players to contending teams at this part of the season, are actually 8 games above .500 while sitting in third place in the Central Division of the National League standings. If they continue playing the way they
are now, they might actually make a wild-card appearance in the postseason playoffs. The players are certainly not the reason for the Cubs' success.  Well, certainly guys like Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant have done their share of situational hitting, but they are not The Story. All of the credit goes to Joe Maddon, the Cubs' first-year manager. There is no one in the Cubs' lineup who is hitting .300, the team doesn't get many hits or score many runs, and Jon Lester--who signed a $155 million contract to pitch for Chicago this season--has won 4 games. In their last two games, the Cubs had four hits and three hits, and won both times. In Sunday's game, they had one hit while leading the Florida Marlins, 1-0, in the eighth inning. They eventually won, 2-0. What I'm saying is that the Cubs' Joe Maddon is already my Manager of the Year. Not in just the National League, but in all of baseball. I know the Manager of the Year award isn't supposed to be presented until next November or December, but in my book he has a stranglehold on the prize. How Maddon, who performed his magic act at Tampa Bay in the American League before signing on the with the Cubs prior to this season,  keeps pushing the right buttons I don't know. All I hope is that he keeps it up. And that he wins a game or two from the Cardinals one of these nights.