No mo' Joe

Yesterday the Chicago Cubs fired the only manager to win them a World Series since Frank Chance, which is what you do when the Team Built To Last fails to Last. All those kids and in-their-prime guys who were going to deliver yearly trips to the World Series, or at least the NLCS, led them instead straight downhill.

World Series title in 2016. NLCS loss in 2017. Wild-card loss in 2018. No playoffs at all in 2019.

And so Joe Maddon had to go, because firing the manager is what you do when you've run out of ideas. And the Cubs braintrust certainly seems to have. Whatever magic beans Theo Epstein brought to Chicago with him apparently have lost their potency. Prescription magic beans tend to do that over time.

Epstein promised a renewed sense of purpose for the Cubsters in spring training, and indeed they started out well. But since the end of May, they played .500 baseball. And for the second year in a row, they swooned in September.

Last year they went a beige 16-12 in September. This year, allegedly fighting for a playoff spot, they lost 10 of their last 12, including nine straight in the last week of the season.

This is not going to win any manager a re-up in his contract year, but as the season unraveled it also revealed Epstein's touch was not what it was. His solution to the Cubs' season-long lack of a closer, for instance, was to bring in former stud closer Craig Kimbrel. He lived up only to the "former" part.

And all those vibrant young kids of 2016, who were going to be the cornerstone of Built To Last?

Not so much.

Addison Russell, instead of getting better as he got older, regressed. And Kris Bryant, who batted .292 and hit 39 home runs in 2016, hasn't come within eight homers of that since. Plagued by injury, he  played only 102 games in 2018 and hit just 13 home runs; this season he rebounded to bat .282 and go deep 31 times.

But as a team, the Cubs again struggled to hit at times. And the bullpen, collectively, were Chicago's most notorious arsonists. And so ...

And so, Joe Maddon is gone. He was never a master strategist, even in the World Series season; his strength was creating and maintaining a culture that kept the clubhouse loose and the kids calm through the long slog of the season. But when David Ross retired after the 2016 season, Maddon never again had as effective a veteran lieutenant to anchor that process. This perhaps has not been given the weight it deserves in the Cubs' erosion from great team to still-a-really-solid-but-not-what-it-was team.

In any case, it will be interesting going forward to see who Epstein comes up with to pump air into the tire again. And to see where Maddon lands, because surely he'll land somewhere.

My cruddy Pittsburgh Pirates, for instance, have an opening at manager after firing Clint Hurdle. Just sayin'.