MESA, Ariz. — Curious to see how the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals respond to the Yu Darvish deal when there are so many free agents still out there?
“Not at all,” Joe Maddon said without hesitation.
The Cubs manager sometimes quotes legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden and the idea of focusing on your own players as opposed to the other team’s strengths and weaknesses. Maddon also works for a front office that — to use the comp from Darvish’s agent — recruits like the University of Alabama football team.
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An up-and-down season that still ended in last year’s National League Championship Series showed how difficult it is to build a dynasty. But Maddon talks about a Cubs Way of doing things and knows he won’t face the same limitations he once did with the Tampa Bay Rays.
After such an unusual offseason, it’s unclear what Saturday night’s flurry of activity exactly means. The Rays traded pitcher Jake Odorizzi to the Minnesota Twins — and DFA’d All-Star outfielder Corey Dickerson — and maybe that eliminates a landing spot for Jake Arrieta. Or perhaps patience will pay off for Arrieta and super-agent Scott Boras, the way it did when Eric Hosmer agreed to an eight-year, $144 million deal with the San Diego Padres.
Either way, Maddon will be much more concerned about how to unveil his off-the-wall commissioned portraits — two of Mona Lisa, Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol or graffiti artist Banksy — before Monday’s first full-squad workout at the Sloan Park complex in Mesa.
Maddon won’t be constantly refreshing Twitter to see if the Brewers sign Arrieta or the Cardinals get All-Star closer Greg Holland.
“What I’ve taught myself over the years is it’s about what we do,” Maddon said. “It’s what we do and the group that we have and how we play and our methods. [That’s] what’s important. Listen, God bless them. They’re good. They’re already good. They’re going to get better. That’s wonderful.
“But working with the Rays, you work against the Yankees and Red Sox every year. When you talk about financial abilities or not, I never, ever concern myself with that. It comes down to who plays better baseball. And that’s putting the art back into the game. Talking about that, energy and enthusiasm and fundamentals and execution. If we do that, we’re fine.
“You try to beat the game of baseball every day by playing a better game than that other team. That’s it. I really have a lot of faith in our guys that we’ll be able to do that. And when you do that, the record’s normally good at the end of the year.
“I want them to be good. I look forward to the competition. I think our guys do also.”
Coming off a World Series hangover, the Cubs weren’t all there for long stretches last season and still won the NL Central by six games over the Brewers. To fortify the pitching, the Cubs then spent $216 million-plus on free agents, or $202 million more than the Cardinals so far this winter.
The Cardinals lost 14 of 19 rivalry games against the Cubs last season and missed the playoffs for the second year in a row. They were eliminated from wild-card contention on a late-September night at Busch Stadium in which Taylor Davis notched the game-winning hit, Leonys Martin made the game-ending catch and Jen Ho-Tseng earned his first big-league win.
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Even after adding outfielders Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain, the Baseball Prospectus PECOTA system projects the Brewers as a third-place, 83-win team behind the Cubs (92-70) and Cardinals (84-78).
“It’s nice to be on the team that likes to add and doesn’t get complacent,” Gold Glove outfielder Jason Heyward said. “Those teams are going to come for us. We’re going to go for them. A lot of teams took a lot of strides last year in a lot of ways. That just shows you the game is not going to let you just (stand still). Everyone wants to get better.
“We expect those challenges and look forward to it.”
Arrieta could be the X-factor if he winds up staying in the NL Central and giving the Brewers or Cardinals the same sense of confidence and momentum he created during his Cy Young Award season with the 2015 Cubs.
“We’ve all been wondering that,” said Ben Zobrist, the 2016 World Series MVP. “It’s been a weird offseason, so I feel for him a little bit, but I know he’s still going to be just fine in the end.
“When you’re waiting around and not knowing where you’re going to play yet, it’s got to be difficult. I’m sure he’ll land really well on his feet somewhere. I just hope we don’t have to play him every day in our division or something like that.”
But that would be great for the media, Arrieta trying to prove the Cubs made the wrong decision while the Brewers just held a ticket presale for Wisconsin residents only, trying to keep Cubs fans out of Miller Park during I-94 games.
“We’re all just hoping now it’s outside our division somewhere,” Zobrist said.
Whatever happens, Maddon will shrug it off, because he thinks this team gathering in Arizona can win the World Series again.
“We are good,” Maddon said. “We’re going to be good again. We’ve made some wonderful additions ourselves. But we got to go out there properly every night. No assumptions [like]: ‘Oh, you’ve made some nice acquisitions in the winter time, that should guarantee or assure things.’ No, of course not, you go play. I think our guys get that.”
(Top photo: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
