Nationals manager Dave Martinez won’t come right out and say that the Cubs are making a big mistake if they fire manager Joe Maddon after the season.
“I mean, I don’t make those decisions,” he said.
But Maddon’s longtime bench coach, who left the Cubs’ staff after 2017 to take his first managing job, also sounds like he stands firmly in the be-careful-what-you-wish-for camp when it comes to anyone who would blame Maddon for the Cubs’ issues – never mind anyone who would fire a guy with the franchise’s only championship in the last 110 seasons, its only four-year streak of postseason appearances and a 97-win average those four regular seasons.
“Call me biased, but I think Joe’s the best manager in the game. I was with him for a very long time. Through adversity, through all the things we went through together, he’s been the best. He’s always been that even-keeled guy that understands players, understands the system. He’s the guy who really started the whole analytical stuff. So he gets it.
“I don’t know what the future holds for him, but I know he’s going to manage [next year],” added Martinez, the longtime big-league outfielder drafted by the Cubs in 1983. I don’t follow what’s going on with him right now, but what I do know about Joe is that he is, if not the best, one of the best.”
But talk about trading places.
Martinez, a second-year manager widely considered on the hot seat as soon as the 97-win team he inherited won only 82 last year, not only seems to have more job security than his mentor these days. But he might wind up with a disproportionate role in influencing Maddon’s future with the Cubs.
After a slow start, Martinez’s team has the best record in the majors since May 24 – an 80-game roll of .675 baseball.
Their balanced lineup is healthy and raking – an .856 OPS since the All-Star break heading into Sunday that has helped produce 6.3 runs per game.
And when they beat the Cubs 7-5 in 11 innings Sunday to become the first opponent to sweep a series at Wrigley this season, they delivered at least a message, if not a big blow, to the Cubs’ October hopes.
Never mind where it left the second-place Cubs in the NL Central race as they prepare for a Mets pitching gauntlet in New York for three games this week.
The Nats pulled out to a four-game lead over the Cubs for the top wild-card position in the league, and if the playoffs started tomorrow the Cubs would play that wild-card game in Washington, facing the likes of Max Scherzer or Stephen Strasburg.
“If our pitching holds up, we’re going to be OK,” said Martinez – whose Bryce Harper-less lineup might be as scary as any in the league right now, with 104 runs in their last 11 games.
If Martinez, who has a year left on his contract, has more job security than Maddon these days, “I never thought about it,” he said.
His general manager, Mike Rizzo, recently told the Nats’ flagship radio station he credited Martinez with how the team weathered a slew of early season injuries to stay in position to make a run.
“He kept this club together when it could have splintered off very, very easily,” Rizzo said.
And if his Nats suddenly look like another opposing force against Maddon’s future with the Cubs, “You don’t think about it like that,” Martinez said, “because I’m thinking about the future of the Washington Nationals and trying to win.”
