I'll Give A Million Dollars To Anyone Who Predicted The Cubs Would Fire David Ross To Hire Craig Counsell
Knee Jerk reaction:
Thoughtful reaction in bulleted notes:
- I love David Ross as much as you can love a former player that spent two seasons with your team. With or without taking the manager job. I love David Ross and any Cubs fan should feel the same level of love. Guy is an absolute legend and should be remembered as such regardless of how this turns out.
- I grossly underestimated how mad leadership was about choking away the playoffs this year. I thought it was house money. I thought they looked at things in a 3-5 year window. I never thought this would transpire to David Ross losing his job.
- This is much more about Counsell being available, and the Cubs being so far behind the Braves/Dodgers, and Counsell being the best manager in baseball. That's a 3-part recipe of how this went down with no part being more important than the other. He's the only guy I'd trade David Ross for. He's the best manager to become publicly available since Joe Maddon. The Cubs have lost a ton of ground in the last 5 years on the top of the national league. All of that works together to say you can take drastic action.
- This is the most surprised I have ever been as a Cubs fan. By far and away, without hesitation or debate, the MOST shocked and surprised I have ever been as a fan of anything. Nobody in the universe saw this coming.
- One step further, nobody sees this coming but Shohei will be a Cub because of this move. This is how you convince the best player in the world that you're willing to do ANYTHING to compete for a World Series. You swap out your beloved leader with your arch nemesis and then you keep making offseason moves. That's how you parlay one crazy move into a powerhouse decade. You start by gutting the diehards, then you add Shohei and then you don't stop until you've assembled the best NL roster.
- Still hasn't hit yet that David Ross is out
- Craig Counsell is getting $40,000,000 for 5 years. He made like $20M as a player.
- Crazy to think this whole time the Cubs have been getting spanked the Brewers, their head honcho just wanted to be a Cub. That's honestly the most absurd thing about all this. THE WHOLE TIME HE WANTED THE OTHER DUGOUT.
- I'm happy the Mets fans at Barstool are devastated by this. They thought they were getting Counsell and now they got Mendoza. I can't wait to talk to Klemmer and hear his pain.
For now though, my closing thought is thank you to David Ross for everything. Sorry you got a knife in your back. For what it's worth, nobody wanted it and this is extremely uncomfortable. Everybody loves you though and that will never change, ever.