Joe Maddon is one of the best managers to come through the Chicago Cubs organization.

Raise your hand if you are a baseball fan and would take three straight trips to the NLCS/ALCS and one World Series championship. One of those years, your team had the best record in the MLB, another year you had the third best record in baseball and in the other year, you still won your division. Your team is still elite and the favorite to win your division again this year. You also still have the core of your team under control for a few more years. Many coaches would say having at least three more years in your window would be sublime. All while being coached by a manager that has brought nothing but success to your franchise. How many of you would take that? Unless you are maybe a Yankees fan, every franchise would take that.

The question then is why so many Cubs fans think Joe Maddon is horrible?

Every time the Cubs lose, just go look at a Cubs fan page. Or even for that matter, every time the lineup is released just check the comments. Fans cannot get over the fact that he changes his lineups each day. They think a set lineup is a way to be. Make hitters feel comfortable. Play the same guys every single day. Nevermind that the season is 162 games long. Why should any of the players get days off? They do not understand how much thinking goes into a lineup on any given day. They believe he just moves them around for the heck of it.

But in 2016, when the Cubs ran away with the division and won the World Series, they did not complain much. He used 130 different lineups that year. It’s not like he forgot what to do the last year and a half. He is the same manager. To get inside his mind lets take a look at his Game 7 lineup card and his legend behind it:

If Cubs fan trust anything, it’s to trust Joe Maddon’s process.

If you look at the lineup, there is an incredible amount of information that goes into them. This just happened to be Game 7 of the World Series. He has something like this every game. Maybe fans should trust his process of making a lineup up.

Fans also will cite how he handles Aroldis Chapman in the World Series and he may admit to some mistakes there, but how many times have coaches got in a situation like that and over-thought things? The Cubs still made it through and won the World Series.

Joe Maddon is a big believer in keeping his players fresh come playoff time instead of burning them out early in the season. That has led to slower starts the past two years then Cubs fans would like. It ended up being the right call last year as the Cubs came on strong at the end and if they did not run into a red-hot Dodgers team, they may have made it back to the World Series.

Joe Maddon deserves more love in Chicago.

So why so much hate for Maddon? Cubs have had very good teams in years past but never made won the World Series or been to three straight NLCS. From 1984-2014 the Cubs won 90 games just FOUR times. Maddon has led the Cubs to at least 90 wins THREE times in three years. The Cubs fans will argue that no other manager has ever had this much talent and he could just let them play and they could win 90 games. This may be true, but those that say that, do not understand how much a good manager can make a difference. There are many times when a team has had a ton of talent and been ruined by a bad manager.

Maddon is unorthodox and that can rub some people the wrong way. But, you can not argue with his success. If the Cubs fans think someone else could do better, then the challenge is who? What manager would you prefer to have and who could take the Cubs to greater heights. Maddon has done a great job with the Cubs and instead of questioning every move and every lineup Cubs fans, lets sit back and enjoy something we have never experienced ever in our lifetime.

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