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Amid busy winter, Maddon plots course for ’17
- Updated: December 7, 2016
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Since winning the World Series, Cubs manager Joe Maddon has been riding his bike in Tampa Bay. He treated himself to a Challenger Hellcat that has 707 horsepower because he loves driving cars. He hung out with his college buddies at a football game at Lafayette and spoke at an event at Yogi Berra’s museum.
One thing Maddon hasn’t done is second guess any of his moves in Game 7 of the World Series.
“The second-guessing component is part of the game,” Maddon said Tuesday, the second day of the Winter Meetings. “I do embrace it, and I kind of enjoy it. To me, the outcome was a good one. Everything that we did to win that game was set up prior to that game.”
As Cubs fans know, the team did beat the Indians, 8-7, in 10 innings, to win the franchise’s first World Series since 1908. During his manager session on Tuesday, Maddon said he had planned on using starter Kyle Hendricks, Jon Lester and Aroldis Chapman in the game, and had prepped all three.
Even though the Cubs won, Maddon provided fans plenty of bar room banter when he pulled Hendricks after 4 2/3 innings, and when he inserted Lester into the game when it wasn’t a clean inning. Plus, Chapman was called on for the fifth time in the seven-game series and pushed for another 1 1/3 innings.
One month later, Maddon says he finds the second guessing fascinating.
“The only reality I know is that we won,” he said. “Often in the past, we’ve talked about outcome bias where people would anticipate if you did something differently, would it turn out better. Better than …
