CHICAGO — On the day after the All-Star Game, Cubs manager Joe Maddon was busy texting with Javy Báez. The Cubs had the first game back from the break — a day earlier than the rest of the league — and he needed to find out from Báez whether he should use him in the lineup the next night.
Maddon said Báez gave the John Wayne act at first, ready to be tough and take on the Cardinals the next night. But after some pressing from his manager, Báez admitted he could use the next night off. He had hit in the home run derby and led off the All-Star Game. He needed a break.
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Since 2015, the Cubs have been the best second-half team in baseball. Not including the post-All-Star break games played this year, they have a 150-73 record in the second half, good for a .670 winning percentage. The next best team in that stretch has been the Indians, at .615. The key to this success, Maddon and members of his team said, comes down to youth and rest.
“We avoid fatigue early,” Maddon told Sporting News. “That’s been intentional.”
His rotating lineups can sometimes cause fans and even analysts to chirp in protest, but there’s a method to this madness. Maddon said he often does it to avoid beating up his guys. He works the clubhouse carefully, getting a sense for how his players feel on a daily basis. Maddon regularly texts with them, like he did with Báez last Wednesday, to make sure his read on their readiness to play is accurate.
“Joe does a great job of resting players,” Addison Russell told SN. “He has an open-door policy, so if our bodies are feeling beat up and worn down, you can talk to him, and you’ll have a conversation about whether you should go or not.”
And this policy is made clear to everyone, especially the new guys. Jesse Chavez, acquired by the Cubs in a Thursday night trade, arrived with the team Saturday. He said his initial conversation with Maddon centered around the importance of communication.
“Be honest about when you need a break,” Chavez said, summing up what Maddon told him during that first talk.
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Convincing some of his star players to take a day off is a delicate task for Maddon because athletes in general are not wired to want to sit out, but Russell said that Maddon’s considerable coaching and managing experience helps him pick up on the flow of the clubhouse. Maddon has been a full-time manager since 2006, and he has been in one coaching capacity or another since 1979.
Ben Zobrist, who joined Maddon and the Cubs in 2016, also played for him with the Rays from 2006 to 2014. He echoed the words of Russell, saying that a lot of the winning the Cubs do in the second half comes from having a roster of guys who are well rested. Maddon might have gotten even better at this than he was during his tenure with the Rays, Zobrist said.
“[It’s] Joe being very conscious about resting guys more than maybe he did when I was in Tampa Bay,” he said. “But when you have young players that have a lot of energy, particularly on the position-player side, it’s easier to have better second halfs because those guys are just more fresh overall.”
The youth of the team certainly helps Maddon’s efforts. In 2015, his first season in Chicago, the average age on his 40-man roster was 26.7. That year, the team won 97 games, 50 of which came in the second half. That propelled them into the postseason for the first time since 2008. The next season, their winning percentage went from .602 to .685 after the All-Star break, and in 2017 they jumped from .489 to .662. And despite the passage of three seasons and roster changes, the average age on the Cubs has hardly changed. This season, it’s just 26.9.
It helps, too, that contained in that youth is a host of talent. Maddon is able to rotate Ian Happ and Albert Almora in the outfield and keep Zobrist fresh by using Tommy La Stella as needed. Happ and Almora are 1.6 and 1.7 fWAR, respectively, and even La Stella sits slightly above replacement level. This affords Maddon the luxury of continuing to win even while he rests his starting players. That winning fuels the momentum of the second half, Zobrist said.
The Cubs had to grind to get to the playoffs in 2017, and that left them gassed for the postseason, he said. But Zobrist said that never staying too far behind the Brewers in the division and leap-frogging past them before the All-Star break this year has the Cubs feeling more like they did in 2016, when they won the World Series.
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There’s a different energy in the second half too, as the playoff chase looms. That’s in contrast to the first half, when getting ramped up for games of the early months can be tough.
“Playing a May game in Cincinnati when nobody’s in the stands, it’s kind of like, ‘All right, let’s go out there and play’,” Jon Lester said.
But, Lester added, the second half can sometimes come with the adrenaline boost of the postseason, especially for teams that have been there recently.
“Mentally it’s like you get that high again,” he said. “We have the lights on, now we gotta go do something.”
Past success in the second half don’t guarantee that the Cubs will do it again this year, but Maddon has kept his methods the same. He has the luxury of youth and depth on his side, so he can keep his roster fresh and focused on winning.
“The bench is so good,” Maddon said. “As long as you have those kinds of suitable replacements, it’s easy to give guys days off.”