La Stella rejoins Cubs, addresses teammates

CHICAGO — Tommy La Stella, who opted to go home rather than report to the Minor Leagues when he was optioned to Triple-A Iowa in late July, rejoined the Cubs on Wednesday and addressed his teammates in what manager Joe Maddon said could be a “galvanizing moment” for the club.

“He’s back, he talked to the boys, he’s done everything properly and he’s ready to participate for the rest of the season,” Maddon said.

It’s not that simple, though. Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein admitted that his initial reaction to La Stella’s decision to go home rather than join the Minor League team was to punish the infielder and possibly release him. But Epstein said they took time to talk to La Stella.

“After having those conversations, while I felt like he wasn’t handling it the way I would’ve liked, and he may have been making a mistake, I felt like it was the type of mistake we could work with him to grow from and it wasn’t a mistake that we wanted to punish him for,” Epstein said. “I can understand different people coming from different perspectives, maybe with not quite all the information or not privy to those conversations, might not understand that, and I get it, but I think we handled it the right way as an organization.

“This is actually a good outcome. This is not how we’ll handle it every time. Hopefully we’re not in this situation again.”

The Cubs wanted to call up La Stella on Monday but opted to keep an extra pitcher after a tough West Coast trip. An extra-inning game on Monday against the Pirates further delayed the promotion. Right-hander Spencer Patton was optioned to Iowa to open a roster spot on Wednesday.

La Stella asked to talk to his teammates prior to …

continue reading in source mlb.mlb.com