The Cubs spent the early part of the offseason talking about climbing out the winner’s trap by letting go of the past and admitting that they needed to shake things up with a fresh perspective. Then they went out and hired David Ross, the very embodiment of that same nostalgia they were trying to distance themselves from, as the new manager. Hypocrisy or genius?
Skeptics will certainly go with the former, adding that the real idea was for Theo Epstein to install a puppet whose strings he could pull at will from the front office. But c’mon, that’s hardly what’s going on here.