Why new Cubs manager Craig Counsell was one of MLB’s most-coveted free agents this offseason

On Monday, the Chicago Cubs agreed to phrases with free agent manager Craig Counsell on a long-term contract that may make him the highest-paid skipper within the league. Counsell, the Milwaukee Brewers manager for the final 9 seasons, will now transfer in different places inside the National League Central to interchange Chicago’s incumbent skipper David Ross. (Ross, since fired, were beneath contract during the 2024 season.) 

In addition to the Cubs, Counsell were wanted via a host of different golf equipment. The incumbent Brewers, New York Mets, and Cleveland Guardians had been identified to have hobby. It mustn’t marvel any person if extra groups — together with those that already had managers — no less than regarded as creating a run at Counsell. 

You may marvel, simply what makes Counsell this kind of desired determine? Below, CBS Sports has highlighted 3 components that give a contribution to his status.

1. Proven monitor document

Figuring out who will and won’t be successful as a manager is a hard activity. That’s partly as a result of managers are sufferers of circumstance, virtually all the time judged on effects dictated via variables outdoor of their regulate. No one would have improper Terry Francona for a long run Hall of Fame skipper all through his days with the Philadelphia Phillies. Now, following a hit stints with the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Guardians? It turns out some distance much more likely. 

Contrariwise, Joe Maddon did not seem like a genius with the Los Angeles Angels after up to now guiding the Cubs and the Tampa Bay Rays to glory in the back of a mix of quirky antics and bleeding edge tactical strategies. 

The availability heuristic dictates that groups are maximum prone to believe confirmed amounts. If a glass has succeeded as a more in-depth, they are deemed to have the correct mentality to flourish in that function. By the similar token, if a manager has just about a decade of successful beneath their belt, they are most likely just right on the activity. It’s surface-level research, nevertheless it creates a (probably false) sense of safety.

With that during thoughts, we’re going to notice that Counsell has a substantive monitor document. In the ones 9 seasons with the Brewers, he received 53.1% of his common season contests. (He additionally led the Brewers to the playoffs in 5 of the ones makes an attempt, albeit whilst going 7-12 in October.) While a 53% successful share does not sound tremendous spectacular — it interprets to an 86-win season — understand that it is onerous to deal with that sort of fee over a big pattern. Indeed, it is a higher successful share than the ones possessed via Bruce Bochy, Bob Melvin, and virtually all of the sport’s different height skippers now not named Dave Roberts.

2. Does extra with much less

Another level in Counsell’s prefer is the belief that he is posted the ones effects with out being passed a top-tier roster. Oftentimes, that is a shorthand means of writing “their team didn’t spend money.” It’s true right here. The Brewers ranked higher than nineteenth in Opening Day payroll as soon as all through Counsell’s tenure, and in that outlier yr they ranked … seventeenth. Big spenders, they weren’t.

The surest solution to catch the attention of different groups is to display that you’ll be able to be successful while not having to spend cash. After all, what is usually a sweeter promise to an proprietor attempting their darndest to avoid wasting up for a new yacht?

Counsell indubitably has proved that he does not want marquee free-agent signings or splashy business acquisitions to clinch a playoff berth. 

Granted, there’s a chicken-or-egg dynamic at play. How a lot credit does Counsell deserve? Would some of Milwaukee’s unheralded pitchers — the Joel Payamps and Hoby Milners of the arena — have succeeded with out Counsell? How a lot of their utilization was dictated via him, as opposed to how a lot was dictated via the entrance workplace, or possibly even the pitching trainer? 

It’s a good line of wondering, one that us outsiders aren’t in particular well-suited to reply to. That leads us to our 3rd and ultimate level.

3. Works effectively with clubhouse, entrance workplace

As a laugh as it’s to judge managers in line with what they appear to do at the box — the pitching adjustments and pinch-hit selections and problem requests — their maximum vital paintings occurs in the back of closed doorways. 

These days, extra so than ever, they’ve to function a conduit between the membership’s entrance workplace and their clubhouse. It’s their activity to get the avid gamers on board with all of the daring, newfangled concepts and methods that the analysis division has in thoughts. It’s additionally their activity to place out fires when the ones newfangled concepts and methods annoy or offend the avid gamers in query, and to do the similar when one of the ones newfangled concepts and methods does not appear employable. 

If any/all of that appears like a headache — effectively, it’s. There are so much of egos and personalities to regulate in a big-league clubhouse, let on my own when the front-office sorts get entangled. Counsell seems as a way to relate to everybody, whilst additionally having the even-keeled character had to stay them at the identical web page and targeted all through a 162-game season. 

Counsell additionally turns out to have a just right really feel for what is going to or would possibly not paintings, and a willingness to specific his standpoint and thrust back as he sees have compatibility.

“One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed working with Craig so much is that he has the ability to question everything that he does and that we do as an organization,” former Brewers  boss David Stearns told the New York Times a few years back. “And through active questioning and discussion, he has naturally grown and altered his opinions on certain aspects of how he goes about it. But the general tenets of what he believes and strives to do is put players in the best position to succeed. That has been constant since day one.”

None of this promises that Counsell will lead the Cubs to the promised land. But, if you happen to had been development the perfect manager on paper, they’d most likely have so much of the demonstrated characteristics and qualities that he turns out to own.