Report: Joe Maddon To Manage The Cubs

Well, that happened pretty quickly. It's been less than a week since Joe Maddon left the Tampa Bay Rays in the dust, and he's already found himself a new job managing the Chicago Cubs, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.

This is a significant come-up for Maddon. He left a Rays team whose analytics-driven golden era seems to be coming to an end, and will (apparently) inherit a Cubs roster that has a ton of young talent in the pipeline. We've already gotten looks at what Jorge Soler and Javier Baez can do, and top prospects Kris Bryant and Addison Russell will soon be joining them on the major-league roster.

With one of the better managers in the game, a collection of major-league ready prospects, a competent front office, and the undying devotion of millions of people who pump ungodly sums of money into their garbage-ass team, the Cubs would look pretty well set up to become a not-bad baseball team for the first time in a while. That's a lot different than actually being a good baseball team—remember that they were a consensus pick to win the World Series not that long ago—but things are definitely looking up.