The Chicago Cubs are expected to decide on the fates of manager Dale Sveum and the rest of the coaching staff sometime Monday, reports Carrie Muskat of MLB.com. The second-year manager and his coaching cohort will meet with team president Theo Epstein to learn their statuses for 2014.
Cubs rumors: Dale Sveum will learn his fate Monday
Once the regular season ends, Chicago isn’t going to waste any time in notifying the coaching staff what the future holds.
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Sveum is under contract through the 2014 season, but knows that doesn’t guarantee he’ll be back next year:
“I’m not going to sit here and lie and say you’re not wondering what’s going to happen four, five days from now,” Sveum said Wednesday. “That’s just human nature.
“There’s nothing you can do about it, or control those decisions. You just keep plugging away.”
The former big-league infielder has been rumored to be on the hot seat since early last week, when Epstein declined to give a definitive answer to the press about whether the skipper would be back for a third season after meeting with him for several hours before a game in Milwaukee.
Epstein said only that Sveum has done a “remarkable job” managing the clubhouse, which he called a “feather in Dale’s cap,” and that the team needed to go through a checklist before making a decision about anyone on the coaching staff.
The Cubs have said repeatedly that they are not evaluating anyone based on the team’s win-loss record, but rather are looking at a variety of other factors like overall clubhouse management and the ability to develop young players.
While Sveum has earned unanimous praise in the former category (see: above), he may run into issues when evaluated on the latter; the club's two young stars -- shortstop Starlin Castro and first baseman Anthony Rizzo -- have both taken big steps backwards this season.
It’s been rumored that the Cubs could try to talk Yankees manager Joe Girardi -- whose contract runs out this weekend -- into returning to his hometown club this fall if they do part ways with Sveum.
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