The Cubs Way

by Tom Verducci

  The DiSarcina moment jolted him in the same way as the Shipley moment. It was another epiphany. For years baseball teams rarely shared evaluations about players with the players themselves. Scouts and evaluators filed reports, and the information remained closely held internally, buried in file cabinets or kept to one’s opinion about the player. It occurred to Epstein that the first time a team truly tells a player he’s not good enough is when it’s too late—when it releases him. It sounded absurd to him that a team wouldn’t tell a player about his strengths and weaknesses. Around the same time, he discovered that Mark Shapiro, then the Cleveland Indians’ general manager, had regularly shared evaluations with players since he worked in that organization as its player development director. Epstein decided in Boston to start using Individual Player Development Plans.

  “To their credit I think Cleveland was the first to start it. Mark Shapiro [did it] when he was farm director there,” he said. “We stole it in Boston and stole it again in Chicago. It does really create a great connection with the player and helps him develop himself. And we just try to make it fun.”

  Minor league players meet with the vice president of player personnel three times a year: spring training, midseason, and after the season. Major league players meet with Epstein, Maddon, Hoyer, and either the pitching, hitting, or catching coach in spring training. The review covers the player’s physical, fundamental, and mental strengths and weaknesses. The information is logged on a review sheet that the player must sign. The player keeps one copy and the team keeps another.

  Epstein wanted a culture in which the players could trust the front office. And the way to help build that trust was to develop an open and honest personal connection.

  “The player plans were a huge part of that,” he said. “ ‘Here’s what we see. Here’s what you need to work on to become a big leaguer. Here’s a plan to work on it.’ Then a player gets to give their feedback and give their input. They get to argue, ‘No, that’s actually not a weakness. I do that fine. Here are things I want to work on.’

  “And you see this transition. Their first year they’re just listening. They sign the page. But by the time they reach Double-A, the guys who are starting to reach their ceilings, they’re starting to take responsibility and accountability for their own development.

  “The kids who really start to take responsibility start to run the meeting. ‘Okay, here’s what I need to work on. Here’s where I’m at.’ That’s the key to player development—when you stop developing them and they start to develop themselves. They start to trust you that you’re in it for their best interests because you’re being transparent. You’re not hiding the ball. It’s really different from the way it used to be.”

  Epstein knew that having a 259-page manual was important, but even more important would be how those ideals were carried out. The organization’s managers, coaches, instructors, and coordinators were responsible for turning those words into a workplace environment that promoted growth. It took Epstein a year to sort through the skills of the people in his system. Many of those at the 2012 preseason summit meeting who feared change under the new administration were let go after the season.

  In April 2012, Epstein hired Vanderbilt pitching coach Derek Johnson as organizational pitching coordinator. After that season, Epstein hired Tim Cossins out of the Marlins organization to be the Cubs’ minor league field coordinator. Brandon Hyde, who held that job, was promoted to director of player development. Both Cossins and Hyde recommended to Hoyer that he hire Anthony Iapoce, who played 11 minor league seasons with the Marlins and Brewers and had spent the previous three seasons as the roving hitting coach in the Blue Jays organization. Epstein and Hoyer hired Iapoce as special assistant to the general manager/hitting coordinator.

  “I give most of the credit to changing the culture in the minor leagues to the coordinators,” Epstein said. “Mostly Cossins and Iapoce. Those guys made it really fun to be around, and created a great vibe. Now, all of a sudden, you’re a minor leaguer in the Cubs system, you are looking around, and it’s like, ‘Wow, Bryant is pretty good, Baez is really good, Schwarber is really good….We’re going to win, and this is fun.’

  “In 2012 we were more about just getting our team in place. We really had it in place in 2013.”

  The 2013 Cubs, with 96 losses, were only slightly less terrible than the 2012 Cubs, who lost 101. Under manager Dale Sveum, the 2013 Cubs used 56 players, of whom not a single homegrown player would remain three years later. The pitching staff walked the most batters in the league for a fourth straight year, and ranked in the bottom four in ERA for the fourth of five straight seasons. The team batting average was .238. Only one Cubs team ever hit worse over a full season: in 1892, back when Benjamin Harrison was president.

  Underneath the flotsam on the surface, however, the Cubs were changing the very definition of what it meant to be a Cub. The best place to see such change was completely off the major league radar.

  “The morale was incredible in the minor leagues, down below,” Epstein said. “It was not great in the big leagues, understandably, because we were losing. But you’d go to Instructional League, you’d go to the back fields of spring training, and it was so much fun to see the talent emerge.”

  Morale was so high at that 2013 Instructional League camp in October in Mesa that an image-changing mantra emerged. Whenever somebody executed a winning-type fundamental play—advancing a baserunner, executing a relay, taking an extra base, or anything straight out of The Cubs Way—a coach or coordinator might shout, “That’s Cub!” Soon players picked up on shouting the honor themselves.

  “Meanwhile,” Epstein said, “the narrative that surrounds the big league team is that ‘That’s Cub’ is still a reference to lovable losers. So there was a real dichotomy between the secret we all knew we had—this mass base of talent and morale and character that was developing in the minor leagues—versus the understandable ongoing struggle that we had in the big leagues just to be respectable.”

  “That’s Cub” started organically and grew into an official source of pride. By 2016, Epstein had folded it into the latest version of The Cubs Way—the one with Kyle Schwarber on the cover—carving out a space for it in the player development manual under the Mental Skills Program.

  “Ultimately what it means is that something was done that is right on point with what we are working to accomplish in this organization,” the manual stated. It even turned “That’s CUB” into an acronym: C stands for the courage “to do the right thing,” even if it is scary or uncomfortable; U is for the urgency “to do the right thing right now”; and B is for the belief “that we can do it.”

  Every time “Cubs” was mentioned in that section of the manual, it was put in boldface, including this summary of the organization attitude:

  The Cubs attitude is positive, powerful, action-oriented, and resilient. It is an attitude that says, “I am” and “I do.” It is an attitude that says, “No matter what happens, I will continue to grow, and I will always find a way.”

  In sight and sound, that 2013 Instructional League camp was the most obvious evidence yet to Epstein that the organization had turned a corner—even if the rest of the world didn’t know it yet. For the first time in more than half a century, Cubs players, albeit in the minor leagues, were developing with an attitude that they were winners—that they were supposed to be good.

  “How many 24 and unders do we have in there?”

  Joe Maddon looked at his lineup card before Game 2 of the World Series and began counting. He answered his own question.

  “Six.”

  No one had ever said that before. Until this night, managers had filled out exactly 1,300 World Series lineup cards and never once before had started six position players who had not yet reached their 25th birthday. The previous record was five such starters, used by manager Dick Williams of the 1967 Boston Red Sox. Here were the Cubs in danger of falling behind two games to none in the World Series, playing
on the road and reeling from a 15-strikeout shutout loss the previous night, and Maddon was counting on an unprecedented youthful lineup to bail him out. The kiddie corps consisted of shortstop Addison Russell, 22, designated hitter Kyle Schwarber, 23, second baseman Javier Baez, 23, catcher Willson Contreras, 24, rightfielder Jorge Soler, 24, and third baseman Kris Bryant, 24—none of whom had been in the big leagues as recently as two and a half years before.

  Maddon wasn’t worried. In fact, he recalled Game 4 of the National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, when his young team was playing on the road coming off two shutouts, and by the time it reached the fourth inning it had not scored a run in 21 consecutive innings. But after a leadoff bunt single by Ben Zobrist in the fourth inning, youngsters Baez, Contreras, and Russell all smashed hits en route to producing four runs. A two-run homer by Russell was the biggest blow in the revival inning. It was the turning point of the series. Chicago never lost again to Los Angeles.

  “Look what just happened against the Dodgers,” Maddon said. “Not hitting, down two games to one, in Los Angeles, crazy crowd, tremendous tradition they have of winning in the postseason, and we came through it and bounced back. Addison starts hitting homers. I mean, to me that was a real growth point for us.

  “Moving forward, I just see all of this as a positive. Hopefully, we win it but even if you did not win it, just like last year, the way it influenced this year, based on getting eliminated by the Mets, it didn’t bother us. I don’t see it. I just see this as one big positive moving forward. With good health, these guys are going to get better.

  “There are others on the way. I’m good with all this stuff. I don’t see the negative. Like last night, that’s all great starting pitching. That’s not unlike what Kershaw did to us. It happens every postseason to somebody.”

  Maddon also felt confident because of how Schwarber looked at the plate in Game 1. Schwarber had ripped a double against Cleveland ace Corey Kluber and drew a walk against über reliever Andrew Miller, the two toughest pitchers on the Cleveland staff, in his first major league action since tearing up his knee in April.

  “I loved the walk against Miller,” Maddon said. “I thought that was outstanding. The double I thought was a homer when it left the bat. If the wind isn’t blowing in that’s a homer right there. Did you talk to him? It’s like he’s in Indiana right now and they’re playing friggin’ Notre Dame or Indiana State. That’s where he’s at right now. He’s just really good. He’s fine.”

  Against Cleveland’s Game 2 starter Trevor Bauer, Maddon did not play rightfielder Jason Heyward again, nor did he start left-handed-hitting catcher Miguel Montero. Bauer, he said, was “a reverse split guy,” someone with better numbers against left-handed batters than against right-handed batters, primarily because of his wicked curveball. So Maddon started Jorge Soler in rightfield—“Soler is definitely capable of going crazy the next couple of days,” Maddon said—and Contreras behind the plate.

  The key for the game would be a running theme for the Cubs throughout the World Series: Would a lineup stacked with a record number of young players have the discipline to lay off teaser breaking balls? Batters hit just .126 during the regular season off Bauer’s curveball, which ranked among the six best curveballs in baseball. (Kluber’s curveball also ranked among the best hooks in baseball.)

  “Spin strikes we’re actually pretty good with,” Maddon said. “Bryant hits the breaking ball strike well. Schwarber [does] if he’s hot. Baez will kill a breaking ball strike. Contreras will hit a breaking ball strike. Soler will hit a breaking ball strike. It’s there, but it has to be a strike. If we’re chasing, we’re screwed. But if we’re spitting on the ball and make him throw it over the plate, we’ll hit it.

  “Zobrist is all about velocity. Even at this age he hits velocity. Rizzo, middle down. K.B. will crush a breaking ball strike. One-handed, too. It just goes.

  “The biggest thing with Bauer is make him throw the ball over the plate. He’s going to want to make you chase. He likes the cutter on lefties, elevated fastball, and he wants you to chase that breaking ball in the dirt. I think if we’re patient and score first—you see teams are 12–0 in the postseason when they score first—I’ve seen it before. When this guy gets on a roll, he gets going good, but if you can put just a little doubt in his head he starts making mistakes.”

  On paper, the Cubs looked to have the decided advantage in the pitching matchup. Maddon was giving the ball to Jake Arrieta, the 2015 Cy Young Award winner, who was well rested. This was his third postseason start, and he had made them with 12, 7, and 7 days of rest, respectively. Arrieta inevitably slipped back from the amazing heights of his Cy Young season, in which he won 22 games and posted a 1.77 ERA. But the slippage was noticeable: 18 wins and a 3.10 ERA.

  The biggest difference in the 2015 and 2016 versions of Arrieta was that he had lost the command of his sharp breaking ball, the one that resembles a cutter when it is thrown hard and with a tight break, and a slider when it is thrown with slightly less velocity and a bigger break. For most of the year, Arrieta fought his mechanics on the pitch. In trying too hard for movement and velocity, he reached too far behind him on his arm swing, causing his torso to overrotate, which caused timing problems in his delivery. Timing problems cause command problems because they prevent the pitcher from repeating his delivery. Late in the season, Maddon noticed something in Arrieta’s prepitch routine that caused the overrotation, and suggested a change.

  “When he was off for a bit, I got involved,” Maddon said. “There [were] some dramatic differences in him in his prepitch, compared to the year before. A lot of times when guys get like that, it’s usually more of what he’s thinking than what is physically wrong. I think he was physically off in his setup. It got a little bit better in the latter part of the season—balls and strikes, being able to repeat his delivery well…If you remember before then he was missing by a lot. When he set up, he was laying back so much he was overrotating. When he got to the position he’s supposed to, he was better.”

  The game plan seemed obvious to Maddon. To even the series, he needed the good version of Arrieta to show up, and he needed his hitters to put doubt in the head of Bauer, forcing him into mistakes.

  He got exactly what he wanted.

  —

  Arrieta was brilliant. He no-hit the Indians through 51⁄3 innings, and gave up two hits and one run before departing one out later. He struck out six, the most in a World Series win for a Cubs starter since Orval Overall in 1908. Arrieta walked off the mound with a 5–1 lead—it would remain the final score—as Chicago’s young hitters pounded a rattled Bauer early and often.

  The record six 24-and-unders in the Cubs’ lineup reached base 10 times against seven Cleveland pitchers, including 5 times by walks. They were cool under pressure. Most dramatically, Schwarber kept raking as if he had never missed those six months with the knee injury. He twice drove in runs with singles and walked another time. In two nights in the World Series, fresh off only six at-bats in front of just dozens of people in the Arizona Fall League, Schwarber reached base 5 times in nine trips to the plate. He saw 40 pitches in those nine plate appearances. He left his teammates in awe.

  “People have no idea how hard it is to do what he just did,” Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “Only someone who is a freak of nature could do this. He’s a natural-born hitter. This is the stuff of legends as the World Series goes on.”

  Said teammate Kris Bryant, “To do this, especially with the stuff that staff has? No way. I couldn’t do it.”

  Said Hoyer, “I asked Rizzo, ‘How long would it take you to get ready?’ He said, ‘Thirty at-bats.’ And Anthony Rizzo is a great hitter. But that’s in spring training after you’ve been hitting since January. What he just did is crazy.

  “How could anybody have expected this? We couldn’t. But because of who he is, he gets the benefit of the doubt. He’s just a freakishly good hitter and a genuinely great guy.”

&
nbsp; The World Series never had seen anything like this. The closest historical comparison to someone playing this well after missing so much time occurred in 1945, the last time the Cubs played in the World Series. Detroit pitcher Virgil Trucks missed virtually the entire season while on military service for World War II. Three days after he was discharged, he pitched the pennant-winning game for the Tigers. Shortly thereafter, he beat the Cubs with a complete game in Game 2 of the World Series. Schwarber’s story is even more amazing, given the severity of his injury and the demands and speed of the modern game.

  “To use ‘shocked’ and ‘Kyle Schwarber’ in the same sentence is probably a bad combo,” said Cubs catcher David Ross. “The legend of Kyle Schwarber—the guy is a legend already.”

  The least nonplussed of the Cubs was Schwarber himself.

  “I’m just trying to put in team at-bats right now,” Schwarber said. “I want to help this team get to the ultimate goal. That’s why I did all of this—it was for these guys in the clubhouse and for our organization. It wasn’t for me. So, like I said, I just want to put in good team at-bats every time I go to the plate and take that result.”

  The Cubs had regained their equipoise. They had just won their first World Series game since 1945, and they had done so with the youngest starting lineup in Fall Classic history. With a core of young position players, it was happening just as Epstein had planned. None of it would have been possible, however, unless he found pitchers like Arrieta.

  One day in February 2016, inside a workout room at the Cubs’ spring training headquarters, pitcher Jake Arrieta stood with teammates Matt Szczur, Anthony Rizzo, and Kyle Schwarber in front of a wood contraption called a Pilates reformer, a sledlike device developed by German-born Joseph Pilates in the first half of the 20th century to stretch and strengthen the muscles in the body, particularly in the core. Arrieta had the reformer custom-built and delivered to the Arizona facility. A fierce devotee of the training method, Arrieta wanted not so much to spread the gospel of Pilates as he wanted his teammates to know he was there for them.