In case you haven’t heard, the Cubs won the World Series on Wednesday night, ending their 108-year title drought. Actually, that might be the only baseball news you’ve heard since Wednesday night. So it’s time to get caught up.
In the three days since that historic Game 7, three teams have made managerial moves (and the Rockies are still deciding on their next manager). Here are the details:
Cleveland Indians
The Tribe rewarded the outstanding job Terry Francona did during the 2016 regular season and postseason by exercising his options for the 2019 and 2020 seasons. In four seasons with the Indians, Francona is 352-294 during the regular season — the most wins in the American League over that span — and has led the team to a wild card in 2013 and the AL Central title in 2016.
He was the AL Manager of the Year in 2013 and is a candidate to earn the honor again this year after his masterful maneuvering of a roster that suffered several major injuries en route to falling just one win short of a World Series championship.
St. Louis Cardinals
Mike Matheny was set to enter the 2017 as a lame-duck manager before he and the Cardinals announced a three-year extension on Thursday that will keep him in the St. Louis dugout through the 2020 season.
In his five seasons since replacing Tony La Russa, Matheny has guided the Cardinals to the postseason four times and a MLB-best 461 regular-season wins. The exception to the postseason streak was this season when they finished one game back in the wild-card race. St. Louis has reached the World Series once and the NLCS two other times during Matheny’s tenure.
Arizona Diamondbacks
The influx of Red Sox personnel to the desert continued Friday when Arizona hired former Boston bench coach Torey Lovullo as its fifth full-time manager since 2009. Lovullo became the front-runner after the D-backs named Mike Hazen – formerly of the Red Sox – as their new general manager in mid-October.
Although he has nine years of managerial experience in the minors in the Red Sox and Indians organizations, this is Lovullo’s first non-interim gig in the majors. He inherits a D-backs squad that hasn't finished above .500 in the past five seasons.
