Day 85 for David Ross as manager of the Cubs was a little different than all the ones before it.
It came with the realization that some comments — very positive ones — he made on Day 84 might come back to bite him.
“There’s no ceiling for this team,” he said Thursday at a charity event. “I really think this team can win the World Series.”
Coming off an 84-win season? Without the front office having done anything of substance yet to improve the roster? With Kris Bryant’s status unknown? With Joe Maddon 2,000 miles away?
Really?
By the time Ross arrived Friday for the opening night of the Cubs Convention, he was well aware he’d inadvertently lit a fuse — and that’s putting it mildly.
“It was like I dropped a bomb in the little media scrum, right?” he said. “It was like, ‘What?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ”
So, want to walk it back a little? Or how about doubling down?
Presented with those options about an hour before being introduced to the crowd at the downtown Sheraton Grand hotel, Maddon’s successor picked neither.
Instead, he tripled down.
“I like high expectations, and I like putting out high expectations,” he said. “Maybe fans aren’t there. Maybe [the media] aren’t there. But I’m there. I believe it.
“A lot to me taking this job has to do with the talent of the guys that I believe in around here. I still believe a lot of these guys haven’t lived up to what their potential is. I think, to a man, these guys feel like they can improve [whether] they’ve had great seasons or really haven’t blossomed yet. I look around position by position and go around the league, and I like our chances. I like our chances a lot.”
Clearly, we can put Ross in the shiny Cubs bucket — the one filled with those who believe the team can still maintain its recent winning ways. Of course, these same people would have a hard time believing the White Sox are getting good enough to steal all the Cubs’ thunder.
There are a good many folks in the dingy Cubs bucket, but they aren’t the types who show up to the Cubs Convention.
“Congratulations to the White Sox for having a great offseason,” Kyle Schwarber said. “But our team, our organization, we’ve embedded winning into the city for the last five years. We don’t expect anything less than winning, and I don’t think our fans do, either.”
Jason Heyward put a finer point on what the Sox have accomplished this offseason, which seems to the naked eye to be a whole heck of a lot.
“You could say they dominated the offseason, but you could also say they’re playing catch-up,” Heyward said. “And not just to us, not just to the Cubs, but to their division. They want to win the division. They want to get to the postseason. They’ve got some catching up to do, so they made some moves to do so.”
Ross doesn’t plan to use all the doubt that’s out there about the Cubs in 2020 as a motivational tool with his players. It’s just not his style to invite the negative into the room like that.
“I want to look at the positives,” he said. “That’s my heart.”
But his players aren’t necessarily wired like that.
“You know what?” Schwarber said. “To be written off is never a good feeling. You want to write us off? OK, do it. Then we’ll see.”
The ultimate in pie-in-the-sky would, as always, be a Cubs-Sox World Series. If we’re going to think big here, why not go all the way?
“If that ever happened? If these two teams played in the World Series? Oh, my god,” Ian Happ said. “This city would burn down.”
