Cubs Manager Watch - Day 4

According to Bruce Miles over at the Daily Herald, you can cross Buck Showalter off your short list of Cubs manager candidates. Showalter is too much of a control freak, according to Miles, and he's not someone that Hendry is interested in. Apparently, Hendry interviewed Showalter previously and was not overly impressed with him. So there's another one down.

The article by Miles indicated that the current manager candidate list includes:

Joe Girardi
Lou Pinella
Bob Brenly
Manny Acta
Ron Washington

I'm pulling for either Girardi or Pinella. I like Brenly, but I don't think he would be significantly different than Dusty. As you'll recall, Brenly was brought in to manage the D'Backs after control-freak Showalter built the team and the D'Backs were looking for less of a disciplinarian (i.e. more of a players manager) to lead the team. Brenly built a reputation as a laid back manager who didn't get in his players faces and who tended to overuse his pitchers (sound familiar?). Having said this, Brenly won a WS in his second year in Arizona, so I can't be too critical of him.

I honestly don't know much about Manny Acta or Ron Washington. If the Cubs decide to go with an unproven, no-name manager - particularly if they would like to go with a minority candidate - Acta or Washington may get the nod. However, I've got to believe that both of these guys are extreme long shots.

Juan Pierre and Aramis Ramirez have both apparently made comments that they would like to see who the Cubs next manager is before they make a decision about coming back in 2007. So it looks like the first off-season move for the Cubs (at least the first addition) will be the signing of a manager. Players can declare themselves as free agents during the first 15 days following the end of the WS. That means Hendry has about a month or month-and-a-half to find a manager, sign him, and negotiate with Pierre and ARam. It's going to be a busy month.