CHICAGO -- After a week of silence, Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein had a lot to say. Or write.

On Friday afternoon, the Cubs sent out a 536-word press release, written by Epstein, explaining why the Cubs dumped current manager Rick Renteria to hire erstwhile Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon.

Judging by the reaction Epstein's prose got from his fanboys/girls, you’d think he just wrote the next Great American Novel. Of course, Epstein could fire his closest supporters in a letter and they’d still love him the same. The Cult of Theo is something, man.

Theo Epstein wants to bring a winner to Chicago, and the aggressive move to hire Joe Maddon could mean that time comes sooner rather than later. AP Photo/Matt York

As Epstein has joked numerous times, hopefully he’ll do something to really deserve those cheers, virtual or otherwise. And by that, he means run a playoff baseball team. I think that's coming sooner rather than later.

Judging by this aggressive move -- which was finalized later in the afternoon when the Cubs announced they would introduce Maddon as the 54th manager in team history on Monday -- the Cubs really do plan on winning games next year. They plan on mattering, and not just to the people who run top prospect lists.

Cubs fans should be excited about the future, and especially Maddon's hire. He's a culture changer, and there aren't a lot of those around professional sports.

His introductory press conference will be must-watch TV. I still remember Epstein’s introduction, when one columnist asked why such a good-looking smart guy went into baseball (!!!). Joe’s got a John Slattery thing going on, which fits with the “Maddon Men” theme.

As for this winter, most expect the Cubs to make a run at one high-priced pitcher and perhaps even catcher Russell Martin, who will be a major player in free agency.

All of a sudden, the Cubs are for real and well-positioned into the future with cost-controlled hitters.

As for this move, the breakdown of events, at least by Epstein’s perspective, was refreshing, I suppose. All he really needed was the headline: Cubs Fire Manager Rick Renteria.

In the letter, Epstein set the record straight about how the team carefully, and personally, told Renteria they think very highly of him, just not as highly as they think of Maddon.

As for the timeline of events, Epstein wrote that Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer visited with Renteria on Friday in California to keep him abreast that they were pursuing someone better in Maddon. They continued calling him. What did they say? "Things are great with Joe! He really makes us happy. We'll send the divorce papers soon."

While neither side commented as the World Series finished up, Renteria’s agent released a statement to a couple reporters on Monday that read, in part: “I continue to focus my offseason preparation on achieving the goal we established from the start: bringing a championship to Chicago.”

Epstein and Hoyer were doing the same thing, apparently. But it involves Maddon managing the team, not Renteria.

Let’s be clear. The Cubs absolutely made the right move in dumping Renteria for Maddon, who by all accounts is everything you want in a manager. Maddon knows how to manage disparate personalities, he understands how to use analytics in game situations and he can manage a game, which gets rightfully downplayed, but is still important. Renteria was a work in progress.

By hiring a placeholder in Renteria, you wonder if the Cubs expected Maddon to leave the Rays when his contract was supposed to be up next year. That plan, if it was ever hatched, was expedited when Maddon opted out of his deal after his boss, Andrew Friedman, got the Dodgers job.

Friedman, to his credit, quickly dispatched any rumors by standing by manager Don Mattingly.

The Cubs said nothing, which told us everything.

As for Renteria, he did a fine job in keeping the ship afloat last year, and no one can say the Cubs quit on him, despite another fire sale summer. From what I heard, the players respected him and liked him. And the young team took a step forward.

But Renteria wasn’t hired to manage a World Series team. He was hired because to keep things positive after Dale Sveum’s frustrating turn managing two terrible-by-design teams. He was hired to be the next Cubs manager to be fired, as I wrote last year when that move was announced.

Some thought I was too hard on the unimpressive hire, but it turned out the Cubs replaced him even earlier than I expected.

It was a rough situation, and I’m sure Epstein and Hoyer are truly pained by it. But it’s better they fired him now rather than making him a lame duck manager in the future. Imagine getting questions every week about your future from February through September.

While Renteria was a relative nobody hired to manage a team nobody expected to win, Chicago will welcome Maddon with open arms next week. His arrival means something, just like Dusty Baker's and Lou Piniella's did. For all the talk about how those big-name managers failed, as I recall, both went to the playoffs in their first year. Piniella took back-to-back Cubs teams to the postseason for the first time in the century.

That's pretty good to me.

If Maddon doesn't take that final step, taking the Cubs to the World Series, he'll be a failure too, I guess.

While being a Cubs manager isn’t the historical path to success, Maddon’s a unique manager and this is a unique situation.

I give him four years here.