The Beer List: Maddon ’15 Edition

This is The Beer List. It’s an opportunity, once every two weeks, for the staff here at BP Wrigleyville to get together (virtually, of course) and respond briefly to one small, usually quite open-ended, question. Despite the strenuous efforts of certain members of the writing crew to make it so, it has nothing to do with beer and is therefore agnostic between, for random example, Miller Light and Daisy Cutter. This week’s question is this: What has Joe Maddon done as manager that’s been most consequential for his team?

(1) Benching Starlin Castro. Something about beer and list-making causes me to gravitate towards the polarizing; I guess it’s no surprise, then, that Starlin Castro continues to be my favorite subject for the Beer List. On August 6th, the three-time All-Star went 0-for-4, seeing his season OPS drop to .575. Maddon promptly benched him, naming rookie Addison Russell as the team’s starting shortstop moving forward. It was a bold and perilous move for a skipper in his first year with the club, but he handled it deftly, showing keen leadership ability—not to mention moxie. How did the team respond? By winning nine straight, and 15 of 18. Heading into the off day yesterday, the team has gone 24-12 since August 6th, solidifying their grasp on the second Wild Card slot in the process.

To be sure, the team wasn’t the only beneficiary of the benching. Castro himself (all credit to him) has responded beautifully, hitting .366 with a .952 OPS since that day. He has also shown excellent defensive versatility, moving to second base and further opening up an enviable selection of matchup options for Maddon and the Cubs. Look for Castro to further reward Maddon’s boldness as we enter the stretch run. —Isaac Bennett 

(2) Keeping it loose. As they say, it’s a long season, and so it’s easy to lose your wits. Players do get mentally worn down over the course of a campaign, and one of the most important jobs a manager has is to keep the team from totally falling apart in the later months. Too often we see “tough guy” types who expect their players to go out there every day and end up wearing down their players both mentally and physically. Joe Maddon, thankfully, is not one of those guys, and is, in fact, quite the opposite.

Maddon keeps the team’s spirits up by making sure to always inject a sense of fun into baseball. Blackhawks jersey days, pajama parties, and inspirational speeches followed by magic shows have all been part of the Cubs team experience this season, and they were all the brainchildren of Maddon. You can see, just by watching this team, how much they enjoy each other’s company and how much fun they’re having. There are many teams out there where the players simply seem to take the sport far too seriously, and that ends up coming out as both obnoxiousness when the team wins and painful frustration when the team loses. Not the Cubs, though. I think we largely owe that to Maddon’s constant push to make sure that this team is always joking and having fun. —David Blumberg

(3) Moving Travis Wood to the ‘pen. If, back in March, you had told me that Travis Wood would spend the season in the bullpen, I would have thought it was because the Cubs acquired a fifth starter better suited for the job than the Arkansas lefty. The fact of the matter is that Wood is a completely serviceable starter. Sure, he’s had some luck-impacted seasons (both positively and negatively), but you can’t ask your fifth starter for anything more than three straight seasons of FIPs ranging from 3.89 to 4.85 over 500-plus innings.

But apparently Maddon can. On May 14th, Wood made his final start of 2015, soon to become a multi-inning reliever. Since then, his strikeout percentage has jumped up to 29.6 percent from 25 percent and opponent’s batting average has dropped to .232 from .258. He has been vital to the bullpen’s health, especially as the bottom of the rotation has continued to struggle to go deep into games. —Stanley Croussett

(4) Making full use of defensive aligments. I think the most consequential thing that Joe Maddon has done has to be moving the defensive alignments around, thereby utilizing the defensive versatility of his players to provide the best possible lineup on any given day, while allowing the other players to get their rest. Since defensive metrics aren’t too good at rating players at defensive positions that they play infrequently, I don’t have too many stats to throw at you on this topic.

But Kris Bryant has played third base, right field, and center field; Addison Russell and Starlin Castro have played second base and shortstop; Chris Coghlan has played left field, right field, third base, and second base; Javier Baez has played second base, shortstop, and third base; Kyle Schwarber has played left field and catcher. Maddon has allowed his players to move all around the field like I’ve never seen from a manager before, and I think this shuffling of the defense has allowed him to get all the hot bats in the lineup, no matter what a guy’s “primary position” is. —Ryan Davis

(5) Batting Kyle Schwarber second. Not since Tina Fey was patrolling the Second City mainstage has a pair of black rim hipster glasses accomplished as much in Chicago as it has this year. However, of all the consequential moves made by Joe Maddon in his first season as manager, none have been as important as batting Kyle Schwarber second. His willingness to put Schwarber, a 22-year-old rookie who did not arrive to stay until mid-July, ahead of Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant has been a masterstroke.

Entering play on Sunday, September 13th, 69.6 percent of Schwarber’s plate appearances have been from the two hole, and as you can see below, his production has dwarfed the rest of the National League’s two-hitters:

Additionally, 15 of his 16 home runs have come while hitting second. Schwarber arrived to stay on July 17th, the day the Cubs began the second half. Since then, among NL teams, the Cubs rank first in both home runs (80) and ISO (.194), and second in walk rate (9.4 percent) and OPS (.769). By batting Schwarber second, Maddon and his black rims sparked the team and took the offense to another level. Blerg! —Andrew Felper

(6) Finding the best in Jason Motte. One of the greatest things about Maddon is his willingness to not let labels and tradition effect his decision-making process. We saw this show through during the warm summer months when Maddon employed newly acquired bullpen arm Jason Motte as his closer for a decent run during the heart of the season. Motte, who has been mostly a crafty bullpen arm as of late, rather than the hard-throwing closer he had been during his days in Cardinal red, was doing the best he could with what he had—and it was working. From May 16th through July 22nd, Motte allowed a mere two earned runs in 26 appearances, finishing 12 games and posting an astonishing 0.78 ERA and 17 strikeouts.

The Cubs went on to win 20 of the 26 games Motte appeared in, which is a decent percentage of total games won in a season where their record currently sits at 82-60. Although Motte was working with his newfound repertoire of a mid-90s straight fastball, and giving up quite a bit of flyball contact, no one cared. He was getting outs, night after night, and for someone like me who likes to live in the Now, that was all that mattered. I’m getting the feeling that Maddon felt the same way. We knew this trick wouldn’t last forever, and it didn’t, but what matters is that when it did, it allowed Motte to contribute in quite bold ways. In a season full of magic, this really was just another incredibly fun event to watch unfold each night. With Motte now on the DL and Hector Rondon returned to his old form as Cubs closer, who could even shake their head about it now? All is well. Just another way Mr. Maddon has made 2015 so much fun to be a part of. —Cat Garcia

(7) Thinking outside of the bullpen box. While he’s not known as a great tactical manager (a fact highlighted by others’ choices of “extracurricular” goings-on) Maddon appears to be at least average in bullpen management. Cat and Stan have covered Wood and Motte, respectively, but I think it’s important to note that Maddon isn’t married to using his relievers in specific innings, and that his ‘pen trusts him enough to accept less clearly defined roles than they might have with other managers. Rondon generally gets the save situations, but Maddon has shown a willingness to deploy him in the seventh and eighth innings when necessary. Justin Grimm and Pedro Strop are the other high-leverage guys, but their recent struggles might force Maddon to be more creative with Seattle castaway Fernando Rodney, rail thin rookie Carl Edwards, Jr., or the recently injured Neil Ramirez in those spots. Maddon has also used Clayton Richard brilliantly, as something in between a long reliever and a LOOGY. Joe isn’t perfect—he’s been burned recently by some odd decisions—but his expanded September arsenal should help him find good matchups over the last three weeks and assemble a fine playoff bullpen. —Zack Moser

(8) He’s ready for prime time. I’m sure my colleagues will spell out thoughtful, evidence-based reasons Joe Maddon has been a godsend for the Cubs. So instead I’ll just say this: I trust him, and he makes me feel better about the team. That may seem like a small thing, but it’s not. Think of previous Cubs managers—did you feel confident Ricky Renteria was going to make the right decisions? Bruce Kimm? Tom Trebelhorn? I didn’t.

When it comes to organizations, I’m a firm believer in the saying, “A fish rots from its head down.” That means that if you have smart people in charge, they make smart decisions. And if not, well… So when I used to look at the Cubs bench and see the blindingly white teeth of Jim Lefebvre, or the vaguely angry, blank-eyed bewilderment of Dale Sveum, it told me there were issues that went beyond a lineup that included Joe Mather and Dave Sappelt. With guys like that at the helm, I knew that the Cubs simply weren’t ready for prime time.

But with Maddon, I know things are right. And it’s not just his work with Tampa Bay (although that helps). It’s when I hear him talk and see a smart guy who commands respect. Bigger picture than even that, his presence tells me ownership has gone out of its way to get the best people. The Cubs are sitting at the adult table now, their big-boy status now includes the savvy, bespectacled gent at the end of the bench. And it’s awesome. —Joel Reese

(9) Onesies. Maddon was brought in to move the Cubs from Point B to Point C, a place front office did not feel Ricky Renteria could travel to; at least not as quickly as  they believed Maddon could. In the process, Maddon has done a lot of good, quirky, and interesting things. The overwhelming majority of his decisions have had a positive effect on the club, so singling one particular instance out can be somewhat difficult. However, there is one big-time decision that will leave an everlasting mark on the club for years to come.

I’m talking about this.

You see, Maddon likes his dress-up gimmicks, and scheduling out pajama day was a fun, quirky move. Having the foresight to schedule it on the day that Jake Arrieta would through a no-hitter, thus ensuring that the post game interview would take place in a onesie? That’s real genius. Kudos to you, Joe Maddon. —Mauricio Rubio, Jr.

(10) Giving the Cubs perspective. What Joe Maddon does best is the most important thing a manager can do: develop and maximize the talent given him by the front office. The best symbol of that this season is the disco party in which the team indulges after every win. Lou Piniella used to talk about not getting too high or too low during a long season, and Maddon generally shares that view: celebrations of wins and mourning of losses are each limited to 30 minutes. In today’s baseball, though, keeping things level isn’t enough. The schedule is too unbalanced. The talent is too evenly distributed. If a team wants to reach the playoffs, they need to be able to get hot and ride some momentum to a long stretch of excellence. I’m staunchly in the camp that says that momentum is imaginary in baseball, and that getting hot isn’t predictive of staying hot. Sometimes, though, players have to not believe that. They have to have an outlet for their positive energy, something that reinforces their feeling of accomplishment and convinces them of their own invincibility. The season is long, and if a team starts to think of it as a mountain climb, they’ll run out of gas in August. The Cubs hit their stride in August, because (with Maddon’s help) they have learned to treat each game as a mountain, and each win as a triumphant trip to the summit. —Matt Trueblood