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Home , Chili Davis, Jim Hickey (baseball), Mike North

October 12, 2018

• Sun-Times, Cubs fire hitting coach Chili Davis year after seeking new voice, style https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/cubs-fire-hitting-coach-chili-davis/

• Daily Herald, After all the computations, it says Dodgers over Milwaukee in 6 https://www.dailyherald.com/sports/20181011/after-all-the-computations-it-says-dodgers-over- milwaukee-in-6

• Daily Herald, After offensive struggles, Cubs fire hitting coach Chili Davis https://www.dailyherald.com/sports/20181011/after-offensive-struggles-cubs-fire-hitting-coach- chili-davis-

• The Athletic, It’s not you, it’s us: With Chili Davis gone, it’s on Cubs to fix broken offense https://theathletic.com/584840/2018/10/12/with-chili-davis-gone-on-cubs-to-fix-offensive-issues/

• The Athletic, What firing Chili Davis says about the myth of ‘The Cubs Way’ https://theathletic.com/584702/2018/10/11/what-firing-chili-davis-says-about-the-myth-of-the- cubs-way/

• The Athletic, Dollars and sense: After 20 years, Marc Silverman’s distinctive voice still resonates on ESPN 1000 https://theathletic.com/584506/2018/10/12/dollars-and-sense-after-20-years-marc-silvermans- distinctive-voice-still-resonates-on-espn-1000/

• Cubs.com, Cubs part ways with hitting coach Chili Davis https://www.mlb.com/cubs/news/cubs-dismiss-hitting-coach-chili-davis/c-297660896

• Cubs.com, Here are key FAQs about Cubs' offseason https://www.mlb.com/cubs/news/cubs-faqs-for-the-2018-19-offseason/c-297623228

• Cubs.com, Pipeline names Cubs' Prospects of the Year https://www.mlb.com/cubs/news/cubs-prospects-of-the-year-abbott-vosler/c-297279308

• ESPNChicago.com, Chili Davis fired as Cubs' hitting coach after 2nd-half plate woes http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24961564/chili-davis-fired-chicago-cubs-hitting-coach

• NBC Sports Chicago, Cubs part ways with hitting coach Chili Davis https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/cubs/cubs-part-ways-hitting-coach-chili-davis

• NBC Sports Chicago, Cubs bench coach Brandon Hyde interviewed for Rangers' manager opening https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/cubs/cubs-bench-coach-brandon-hyde-interviewed-rangers- manager-opening

• Chicago Tribune, Will be traded? 5 offseason questions for the Cubs about their http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-spt-cubs-offseason-questions-outfielders- 20181012-story.html

• Chicago Tribune, Cubs fire hitting coach Chili Davis after 1 season http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ct-spt-cubs-chili-davis-fired-20181011- story.html

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Chicago Sun-Times Cubs fire hitting coach Chili Davis year after seeking new voice, style By Gordon Wittenmyer

It appears launch angle is making a comeback on the North Side.

A year after making a shift in their organizational hitting philosophy, the Cubs fired hitting coach Chili Davis this week and now seek a better fit for still-developing young hitters who had trouble at times adapting to a more all-fields, less-launch-emphasis approach.

“Our offense broke,” team president Theo Epstein said, addressing the Cubs’ Achilles heel last week after a quick exit from the playoffs. “Somewhere along the lines. So, of course, there’s going to be a thorough examination, and, of course, we’re going to spend all of our energy trying to fix it. And fixing it.”

Epstein was quick to accept blame, adding, “This is not on the coaches.”

Davis seemed well-liked and fit in quickly on ’s coaching staff with a manager he has known for decades.

But it’s questionable how well the former All-Star and 19-year big-league hitter and his style fit with a young power-hitting core after three years drawing walks and hitting homers under the influence of hitting coach .

“He worked his tail off to make guys better, and so in that respect, he did everything that we asked of him,” Epstein said when talking about Davis and the goal “to sort of finish the development of our hitters,” including using all fields. “The goal was never to sacrifice power or, in my opinion, launch angle. It’s not a fad. The bottom line is line drives and balls in the air are way more productive than ground balls.”

It’s probably no accident that two of the most veteran hitters on the roster, Ben Zobrist and Jason Heyward, had the smoothest transition and strongest working relationships with Davis, both improving on their 2017 production.

The Cubs’ offensive numbers were similar to last year’s, despite their best hitter, Kris Bryant, spending four months hampered by a shoulder injury.

But it was a feast-or-famine lineup all year, and it slumped in the second half.

“Something happened to our offense in the second half,” Epstein said. “We stopped walking, stopped hitting home runs, stopped hitting the ball in the air.”

As Anthony Rizzo said when asked during the final homestand about the challenge of hitting into a right- side infield shift: “I’m not worried about that. I’m trying to the ball over the shift.”

The Cubs scored one or no runs in 39 of their 164 games this season, counting their 13-inning wild-card loss to the Rockies — including 20 of the final 66.

In the end, the front office’s decision seems less about scapegoating Davis than about continuing to search for how to get the best out of a young group of hitters — and quickly, while a competitive window remains open.

NOTE: Cubs bench coach Brandon Hyde was among the first candidates the interviewed in their search to replace fired manager Jeff Banister.

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Daily Herald After all the computations, it says Dodgers over Milwaukee in 6 By Bruce Miles

So who is going to win the championship series?

The upstart Milwaukee Brewers had the best record in the league, and they have an MVP front-runner, Christian Yelich, on their roster.

Or will it be the , who will be making their third straight NLCS appearance -- they went 1-1 against the Cubs in 2016 and 2017 -- after climbing out of an early-season hole?

Let's see if we can find out, using a formula from the stone age of sabermetrics.

Bill James wasn't the only person doing sabermetrics 30-40 years ago, but he was the most well-known and perhaps the most prolific. Waiting for James' annual Baseball Abstract back in the 1980s was like waiting for Christmas, only in late winter and early spring.

One particular Abstract caught my fancy, the 1984 edition, in which James expanded on a fun formula for predicting the winner of postseason series. James first introduced the formula in 1982 in Inside Sports magazine, a short-lived but great publication.

Compared with today's environment -- in which terms such as wRC+, wOBA and OPS+ roll off tongues as quickly as RBI and "clutch hitters" once did -- James' formula seems quaint.

But back in the day, James boasted of a 70 percent accuracy rate for his postseason formula. So let's give this 13-point formula a whirl for the Brewers-Dodgers battle, which begins Friday night at Miller Park.

• Give 1 point per half-game difference in record. The Brewers had the best regular-season NL record at 96-67. The Dodgers finished 92-71. So award 8 points to the Brewers.

• Award 3 points to team with more runs scored. The Dodgers get the 3 for their league-leading 804 runs, compared with 754 for the Brewers.

• Give 14 points to team with fewer doubles. The Brewers get the 14 points here. In doing his research for coming up with the formula, James wrote in the '84 Abstract: "Teams which hit a lot of doubles had been wiped out with demonic consistency."

• The team with more triples gets 12 points. So we give them to the Dodgers here.

• To the team with more homers, give 10 points. Even though the Brewers have some boppers, the Dodgers outhomered them 235-218.

• Let's get interesting here. Give 8 points to team with lower batting average. In the '84 Abstract, James wrote there was a "simple reason" to go against the team with the higher batting average: "It takes them too many hits to score." OK, so award 8 to the Dodgers, as they batted .250 as a team, while the Brewers were at .252.

• Switching to defense, give 8 points to the team with fewer errors. The Dodgers get the 8 here. We saw several games this year in which the Brewers' defense was subpar, and they were third worst in errors (108).

• But we're going to give 7 points to the Brewers for turning more plays.

• More on the counterintuitive side, go ahead and give 7 points to the team whose walked more batters. That would be the Brewers, whose pitchers walked 553 to 422 for the Dodgers.

• Give a whopping 19 points to the team that tossed more shutouts. Those points go to the Brewers, who had 14, compared with 11 for the Dodgers.

• The Dodgers will get 15 points for their league-leading 3.38 ERA The Brewers were fourth, at 3.73.

• For their postseason experience, the Dodgers will get 12 points for being in the playoffs more recently.

• Finally, the Dodgers will get 12 for going 4-3 in head-to-head play with the Brewers this season.

Adding it all up, the Dodgers have 80 points to 55 for the Brewers. So we'll call it a six-game NLCS victory for L.A., at least based on what we have here.

The last time I dusted off the old James formula was for the 2010 between the and the Texas Rangers. My own pick before running the numbers was that the Rangers would win in "seven exciting games." James' formula said otherwise, giving the Giants a whopping advantage. They wound up winning the World Series in five.

Just for fun and for this story, I retroactively did the numbers for the 2016 World Series between the Cubs and the Cleveland Indians. The James formula predicted a runaway series victory for the Cubs. The Cubs did win the Series that year, but it wasn't quite a runaway, if you recall.

We'll see how things play out beginning Friday in Milwaukee.

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Daily Herald After offensive struggles, Cubs fire hitting coach Chili Davis By Bruce Miles

A few years ago, president Theo Epstein joked that the job of hitting coach on the team was a lot like the drummer in the fictional band Spinal Tap.

In other words, it was ever changing.

Things changed again Thursday as the Cubs fired hitting coach Chili Davis after only one year on the job.

The move comes as no surprise. Last week, during his end-of-season meeting with the media, Epstein seemed both disappointed and angry about the poor performance of the Cubs offense this season.

It was just a year ago that manager Joe Maddon engineered a coaching purge that brought his old friend Davis to Chicago at the expense of John Mallee, who oversaw a Cubs offense that produced a world championship in 2016.

Things got off to a decent start for Cubs hitters this season. At the all-star break, they led the National League in runs scored, batting average, on-base percentage and OPS.

But things went off the rails in the second half, and the Cubs finished fourth in runs scored and 11th in home runs while still leading in average and finishing second in OBP.

"If you look back at the first half of the season, we led the league in virtually every significant offensive category," Epstein said. "And we were cruising We felt really good offensively. We had cut down on our . We had sacrificed some power but not all. We were getting on base at a huge clip and scoring a ton of runs.

"In the second half, things were dramatically different. Overall, we had 40 games in which scored zero or 1 , which is hard to fathom. In the second half, we only had 50 games in which we scored 2 or more runs. Our record in those games, when we got to 2 or more, as 37-13.

"We hit more groundballs in the second half than any other team by a huge margin. Our goal is to hit line drives and flyballs out of the ballpark."

Epstein added: "I've never been a part of something like this offensively, and I never want to be again. We have to be an offensive force. We should be with the talent we have on our roster."

Throughout the season, Maddon repeatedly denigrated the "launch-angle" revolution in baseball (a revolution embrace by Mallee) in favor of an approach that emphasized batters hitting line drives and using the entire field. During his meeting with the media after the Cubs were beaten by Colorado in the wild-card game, Epstein said that launch angle "was not a fad."

At that point, the writing seemed on the wall for Davis.

The Cubs will have more on their coaching staff later this off-season.

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The Athletic

It’s not you, it’s us: With Chili Davis gone, it’s on Cubs to fix broken offense By Sahadev Sharma

For the second consecutive offseason, the Cubs are moving on from their hitting coach. After a second- half offensive collapse that prompted team president Theo Epstein to say, “our offense broke somewhere along the lines,” at his year-end press conference, Chili Davis was informed by the Cubs that he would not return for the 2019 season.

“He worked his tail to make guys better,” Epstein said at that same press conference when asked whether Davis did what was asked of him. “So in that respect, he did everything that we asked of him. The goal, what Joe mentioned and certainly what I was hoping for, was never to sacrifice power or in my opinion, launch angle. It’s not a fad. The bottom line is, line drives and balls in the air are way more productive than ground balls. We weren’t looking to sacrifice power and walks in exchange for ground balls and opposite field hits. But in the second half, that’s what the results were. That’s not what we’re looking for.”

Epstein also said that regardless of whether they make any changes with the coaching staff, the team’s failures, particularly on offense, don’t lay on the shoulders of Davis or any other coach. Even with his departure, the Cubs will continue to send the message that Davis is not a scapegoat. They would be foolish not to. Davis was a hand-picked successor to John Mallee, the hitting coach Epstein and company chose not long before they brought Maddon into the fold during the winter preceding the 2015 season.

In their eyes, passing on Davis when he became available last offseason wasn’t an option, as they viewed him as an impact addition, something many believe is rare among coaches.

“It’s just a matter of availability with these other guys,” manager Joe Maddon said last winter when talking about the addition of Davis and third base coach Brian Butterfield. “We think that moving forward, they can possibly give us something with their skill set. Not only in the present, but we think these guys can really get us to where we want to be three, four, five years down the road. We think they can have a tremendous impact. These are definitely impact coaches.”

Those opinions likely haven’t changed on the Cubs’ end. Davis is gone, but blame for the Cubs’ offensive struggles can’t be placed solely at his feet. Epstein’s message after the season ended was more critical of the players themselves.

“It has to be more about production than talent going forward,” Epstein said. “And that includes our own assessments. Beyond that, it’s also trying to understand why we’re not where we should be with some individual players. In other words, if you look back, players who do certain things at 22 and 23, should be progressing into a better, more productive phase of their career at 24, 25 and 26.

“I’m the first one to talk about how development and progress, those aren’t linear things all the time. There are a lot of ups and downs. But I think there’s a trend where Javy (Báez) took the big step forward, but there are other guys who went the opposite direction or have been trending the opposite direction a little bit. We have to get to the bottom of that. It’s our job not just to assemble a talented group, but unearth that talent and have it manifest on the field. Because that’s ultimately all that matters.

“It’s an assessment on those two fronts. The talent that we have and who’s going to be productive, who’s not or where can we find that production. And then also understand the environment and are we doing everything that we can in creating just the right situation to get the most out of these guys.”

The Cubs’ offensive issues in the second half have been discussed ad nauseam, but this tweet summarizes them quite well.

Combine the Cubs’ decline in power and their inability to put the ball in the air with any authority or regularity with the ’s — Davis’ previous team — improvements in those areas and it’s an easy narrative to pin the Cubs’ offensive issues on their erstwhile hitting coach. A narrative that might not be completely fair. Some executives around the league were surprised by the move and suggested more blame needed to be placed on the Cubs players.

Take a look at the players that underperformed and it’s certainly not all on Davis. Kyle Schwarber has yet to live up to the lofty expectations placed upon him by this front office, but his wRC+ improved from 103 to 115 from 2017 to 2018. Albert Almora Jr. had a .332/.369/.461 line on June 30. But along with that, he had a .382 BABIP. Only a player who has exceptional speed or continually delivers hard contact could be expected to even come close to sustaining that type of success. Almora falls into neither category. In his remaining 218 plate appearances, he slashed .232/.267/.281 with a .282 BABIP. The reality is, he’s a contact-oriented hitter who doesn’t hit for a lot of power and doesn’t take many walks. It’s who he was projected to be back when he was in the minors and who he is now. Maybe there’s more to be untapped in there, but Almora not getting there can’t solely be on Davis.

Kris Bryant suffered through his worst season, but a shoulder injury is to blame there, not the hitting coach. Addison Russell never tapped into his vast offensive potential, but that’s just the beginning of his problems. Off-field issues leading to a 40-game suspension stemming from a violation of the league’s domestic violence policy go well beyond learning the intricacies that come with being a major-league hitter. Perhaps Willson Contreras and Ian Happ’s struggles at the plate have something to do with Davis, but they’re also young players who are learning to deal with a league full of talented pitchers supplied with loads of information on how to attack these hitters. Yes, Davis should be helping them adjust, but it’s also on the players to be able to soak in that information and apply it properly.

But that seems to be exactly part of what went wrong. According to a source familiar with the situation, the Cubs aren’t saying this is Davis’ fault, but rather the team’s hitters not being ready for what he had to offer. Apparently, not many of the players, outside of a few like Ben Zobrist, Jason Heyward and a handful of others, really ever clicked with Davis. At one point last winter, Maddon suggested Davis’ arrival would be like the Cubs hitters moving to a graduate level program. It appears as though too many of them were a few credits shy.

So now it’s on the Cubs to figure out how to fix these issues. The Cubs will say he’s not a scapegoat and the reality is, Davis can’t be one. The Cubs have made their first move of the offseason to try to fix a broken offense. But it can’t be their last. The next step has to be taking a hard look at the players and figuring out exactly which ones might not ever be ready to progress to a level the Cubs need them to reach, and which ones will be able to make that leap and be a part of a Cubs offense that’s good enough to help them win their next World Series.

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The Athletic What firing Chili Davis says about the myth of ‘The Cubs Way’ By Patrick Mooney

The Cubs are making Chili Davis – a hitting coach who hadn’t even been on the job for 365 days – a scapegoat for their one-and-done playoff season.

After seeing regression from several young hitters – part of a group that team president Theo Epstein repeatedly called out for a lack of urgency during last week’s exit press conference at Wrigley Field – the Cubs quietly announced on Thursday night that Davis will not return in 2019.

No, the Cubs did not have a great offensive season or play a particularly entertaining brand of baseball this year. There will be thoughts about Davis connecting or not connecting with certain players, reinterpretations of manager Joe Maddon’s anti-launch-angle riffs and reminders of how this is a bottom-line business.

But at a certain point, it’s on the players, and the people picking the players and the coaches, and managing them all in what Epstein himself has described as a complacent clubhouse since winning the 2016 World Series. Even making it to the championship rally at Grant Park didn’t save John Mallee, the handpicked hitting coach the Cubs fired last October only because Davis became available once the Boston Red Sox fired manager John Farrell.

“The Cubs Way” obviously has a lot going for it. Even a frustrating season ended with 95 victories and a fourth-straight playoff appearance — something this franchise had never done before. But there is also a disposable element to the entire operation that contradicts all the carefully crafted public images.

Epstein and Maddon were united in their belief in Davis, a three-time All-Star who contributed to three World Series-winning teams as a switch-hitter for the 1991 and the late-1990s ’ dynasty.

Maddon overlapped with Davis in the California Angels organization and raved about his in-depth knowledge and approachable personality, telling a Cubs Convention audience in January that the players would now be working with graduate-level instructors in him and new pitching coach Jim Hickey.

Epstein helped Davis transition into coaching, giving him a chance as Boston’s Triple-A hitting coach in 2011. Davis became a big-league hitting coach for the Oakland A’s (2012-14) and then returned to take the same job with the Red Sox (2015-17). During that time, the A’s and Red Sox went 5-for-6 in playoff appearances while Davis worked with emerging hitters like Josh Donaldson, Yoenis Céspedes, Josh Reddick, Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Andrew Benintendi.

After watching the Cubs barely survive an elimination game against the – and seeing the ways the Los Angeles Dodgers dominated the National League Championship Series – here is how Epstein described the Davis hire during an interview on Oct. 26, 2017:

“Chili’s well-established as one of the very best hitting coaches in the game. His philosophy and approach happened to fit with what we hope will be the next step for many of our hitters. We talked after the season about hoping to get better with situational hitting, with our two-strike approach, with using the whole field, with having competitive, team-based at-bats.

“That happens to be Chili’s core philosophy — hitting line drives to the middle of the field. Your line drives will turn into home runs. He’s excellent at teaching a two-strike approach and teaching situational hitting. He’s really good at helping to get hitters to understand that when an elite ’s on his game, you have to sometimes take what he gives you, and have an adjustable swing, an adjustable approach for those situations.

“He’s got the gravitas of a 19-year career, 350 homers, over 1,300 RBIs. That combined with his excellent manner and ability to communicate with players makes him a really impactful figure.”

As an offense, the Cubs never reached that next level, getting shut out 11 times, scoring only one run 28 times and scoring just two runs in 16 more games. That allowed the Milwaukee Brewers to erase a five- game division deficit in September, force a Game 163 tiebreaker at Wrigley Field and shove the Cubs into the wild-card game.

The Cubs then managed only one run against the Colorado Rockies during a 13-inning loss. Wrigley Field went dark in early October and Epstein signaled that changes would be coming. The Cubs weren’t ready on Thursday night to announce their plans for assistant hitting coach Andy Haines or the rest of Maddon’s coaching staff.

It’s impossible to truly measure a hitting coach. The growth of Boston’s monster offense can be traced back not to Davis leaving but to the Red Sox signing J.D. Martinez to a five-year, $110 million contract in February and then watching the slugger generate 43 homers and 130 RBIs.

If anything, Davis may have helped the Cubs salvage their $184 investment in Jason Heyward, who essentially became an average hitter (.731 OPS) to go along with his Gold Glove defense, baserunning and leadership skills. That became apparent during a genuine teacher-student moment in June, when Davis hugged Heyward at his locker after the walk-off grand slam that no one at Wrigley Field saw coming against Philadelphia Phillies lefty reliever Adam Morgan.

What about Javy Being Javy? During two separate conversations in the second half of the season, two instructors who worked with Javier Báez credited Davis for helping shape El Mago’s raw talents into an MVP candidate and quieting the bat waggle that left the swing out of sync with the leg kick.

This was the unprompted endorsement from ESPN analyst , who managed Báez in winter ball in Puerto Rico before Javy-mania exploded: “I thought it was brilliant that Chili and Andy have told him to embrace the aggressiveness instead of trying to teach him how to be patient. I think psychologically that’s probably worked in his best interests.”

There appeared to be a lot of rejoicing on Twitter after the Cubs fired Davis, a strange reaction for an accomplished professional who contributed to a 95-win team. It’s easier to blame Davis than wonder if those young players were rushed through the minors or anointed too early in their careers or stunted in development because of all the matchup-based lineups.

Maybe this team could’ve used another veteran hitter like Daniel Murphy – to talk through at-bats and process game plans faster – for more than just the last six weeks of the season. Kris Bryant’s left shoulder is kind of important to his swing – and the offense clearly wasn’t going to be the same with the 2016 NL MVP limited to only 102 games. It would be nice if the Cubs weren’t constantly looking back at the home plate umpires and making faces after called third strikes.

But this is what the Cubs have become now, a second-place team with a sense of entitlement. Everyone knows Epstein isn’t afraid to make big moves or uncomfortable decisions and this only feels like the beginning of a long winter of changes. Good luck to the next hitting coach, who will do a much better job if he’s working in the cage with Bryce Harper or Manny Machado.

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The Athletic Dollars and sense: After 20 years, Marc Silverman’s distinctive voice still resonates on ESPN 1000 By Jon Greenberg

Dollars and sense is a regular sports media and business column

Marc Silverman sat in the basement of his expansive suburban home with a big glass of wine in his famously small hands. A TV the size of a SmartCar hangs on the wall next to two smaller TVs, kids’ toys engulf the room, and homemade collages of his salad days covering the Michael Jordan Bulls line the walls.

“When did you feel like you made it?” I asked him.

“I still don’t feel like I’ve made it,” he said. “I mean, what is making it?”

ESPN 1000 is celebrating its 20th anniversary Friday in perfect sports radio fashion, by doing a bunch of shows at a suburban sports bar. Silverman will be there for the main event, hosting the 2 to 6 p.m. shift with his partner Tom Waddle.

Silverman didn’t always have a regular show on the fledging all-sports station. The then-27-year-old from Skokie was hired away from a plum gig at WGN with the promise to keep covering the Bears and also get the chance to host a weekend show as WMVP morphed into an all-sports station dominated by national shows.

While he enjoyed being a reporter in the fast-paced mid-to-late 1990s Chicago, Silverman wanted to be a host like Chet Coppock or Mike North.

Silverman can remember the day he interviewed for this job, because it was the day after Mark McGwire broke the record. Silverman had to work the post-game show solo from St. Louis because Pat Hughes and Ron Santo had to jump on the charter plane. He landed at Midway and went right to the interview.

When WMVP 1000 re-launched as a sports station as the first owned-and-operated ESPN Radio station 20 Octobers ago, the schedule was Tony Bruno and Mike Golic (with local guy Lou Canellis), Nanci Donnellan, the “Fabulous Sports Babe,” Tony Kornheiser and then in afternoon drive, Harry Teinowitz and Spike Manton. Only the latter was a completely local show. (Why anyone at ESPN thought this lineup was a good idea remains a mystery.)

Every day, as Silverman remembered this week, ESPN program director Mitch Rosen had a 9 a.m. conference call with his reporters. Since they didn’t have the power of local programming, Rosen wanted to have a strong reporting team to file newsers that would air during the national programs, provide audio for the non-stop SportsCenter updates and give the station some kind of Chicago voice.

So Silverman, Bruce Levine, Steve Kashul and David Schuster would dial in and Rosen would quiz them on what’s going on with the news.

“Because as reporters he would want us to know everything that’s going on,” Silverman said. “And Bruce would try to one-up everybody with his knowledge. The next thing you knew, Schu was arguing with Bruce and I’m arguing with Bruce. All we were doing was try to set the schedule of what we were covering for the day and it just turned into one gigantic pig fuck. It was like four old guys sitting around Max & Benny’s yelling about cold corned beef.”

Silverman laughed when he told the story, because if you got Levine, Schuster and Silverman on a conference call this morning, they’d still be arguing like old men at a deli.

The station didn’t exactly take off. And so Rosen often told Silverman to rent, not to buy. Literally. Silverman remembers Rosen telling him not to buy a condo.

“That’s how little confidence he had, that we all had,” Silverman said.

Flash forward 16 years. On Oct. 21, 2014, Silverman found himself in the Chicago Tribune’s real estate column for paying nearly a million dollars for a home in Riverwoods for him, his wife and his young son.

His renting days had long been over, but some would say that moment was making it.

Still…

“I get to do something that I love every single day in my dream job in Chicago,” Silverman said. “But you always said to yourself, ‘Hey I just want to be No. 1’ at some time. You want to get really good at what you do. But then you always read the quotes from people who made it that it’s harder to stay on top. Then you’re stressed about staying there.”

Silverman, now 47 with two kids, Mason and Braxton, a wife, Allie, and a career talking sports on the radio, is living the dream of every kid who grew up in suburban Chicago listening to Coppock or North or, in later years, The Afternoon Saloon, on the radio.

The “Waddle & Silvy” show has been on the air since spring 2007. That’s impressive longevity in an uncertain industry. (I believe only The Score’s Terry Boers and Dan Bernstein lasted longer as a partnership, from 1999 through 2016.)

If The Afternoon Saloon of Dan McNeil, Teinowitz and John Jurkovic was the most important show in ESPN 1000’s history, I’d argue Silverman is the personification of the station’s success. (Because I was the second reporter to call Waddle about this story idea, he said the station’s anniversary should be renamed “Silverfest.”)

Along with Carmen DeFalco, who came on board shortly after the station’s launch, Silverman has been there from the beginning, when the station had an ESPN name but no cachet to back it up.

Silverman was a teenager in Skokie in the 1980s, the birth of the modern era of success in Chicago sports. You had Michael Jordan, the 1984 Cubs, the ’85 Bears, decent Blackhawks teams, the “Winning Ugly” White Sox. If there was ever a time for kids to dream about being sportscasters rather than doctors or lawyers, it was then. But Silverman didn’t want to be Jody Davis or Gary Fencik.

“The guy I always remembered listening to was Coppock,” he said. “I was obsessed. I was obsessed with Coppock in the ’80s. I’d sit in my little bedroom in Skokie and I’d have my radio on when I was supposed to be doing homework, trying to dial in to talk to Chet Coppock. I still remember it: ‘All right, let’s go to Skokie, land of Barnum & Bagel. Let’s pick it up with Marc. Marc, your dime, your dance floor.’

“I still remember it because I recorded it on a cassette tape. And I asked a stupid question about the Houston Oilers bumping Willie Gault off the line of scrimmage.”

Silverman was fortunate that his grandfather had season tickets to the Bulls and on the way home from games he’d shush him to hear Coppock’s take on what they just watched.

“I knew then that’s what I wanted to do,” he said.

The Score debuted when Silverman was in college and it clarified his path.

“Who is this guy yelling at me through my speakers, oh my gosh,” he said of North. “‘I want to do that! This is a thing? Sports radio is a thing?’”

Early in ESPN 1000’s tenure, Teinowitz and Manton were pushed out of their slot and in came “The Huge Show” with Bill Simonson. Canellis was his co-host. Needless to say, the hugeness of the show didn’t rattle the competition.

“Here we are trying to compete with The Score, an all-Chicago station with Chicago to the core guys and we come with our only local show and here’s this dude who’s whacked out of his mind from Grand Rapids, Michigan,” Silverman said.

The “Huge Show” ran from March 1999 through April 2001, when the station hired McNeil to host an afternoon show with ex-NFL player Jurkovic and Teinowitz, who was still working at the station, mostly doing weekly bits with Mike & Mike.

“I remember listening to the first show of Mac, Jurko and Harry,” Silverman said. “Because I was the Bears reporter and I was doing weekend talk. I was at a Cubs game on a rooftop. I knew the rooftop owner and asked him if he could put it on to start the show just to hear what the beginning of the show was going to sound like. It was really the first time that I felt like, wow, we got a legitimate talk show. A legit real professional show in the afternoon locally. It was a huge deal when they went on the air.”

That show’s success changed the path of the station.

“Until they got there, it was month to month,” Silverman said.

After hosting with DeFalco in the evenings for about a year, Silverman got his first daytime hosting gig in February 2004 as a true sidekick to Jay Mariotti. The success of Mac, Jurko and Harry pushed the ESPN Radio higher-ups to finally pay for a second full-time local show and the irascible Sun-Times columnist got the mid-day gig.

“Mariotti, as much as people didn’t like him, people listened to him, because he had thoughts,” Silverman said.

What was hosting with Mariotti like for those of us that missed those, uh, months? Silverman said they “never had a bad relationship,” but can laugh that he was essentially an Ed McMahon-like sidekick to the opinionated columnist.

“The show would open and it would basically be 17 minutes of Jay reciting his column and giving his take on everything,” Silverman said. “Then he would say, ‘So Silvy, what do you think about that?’ And then he goes, ‘Oh wait a minute, we gotta break.’ So I would basically sit and watch Jay for the first 20 minutes of the show and not get to speak until 9:30 when we came back.”

Mariotti wasn’t always easy to deal with, but Silvy said there was only one time he really felt Mariotti’s wrath. Silverman had defended the White Sox point-of-view in a tricky Magglio Ordóñez situation and given Mariotti was in a forever war with the Sox and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, it caused an argument on-air that spilled off-air.

“He was convinced I was taking that stand because of the Jerry Reinsdorf influence,” Silverman said. “He left me a 5-minute voice mail after he left for home that scorched me. ‘Don’t ever blanking do this again.

Blank, blank. I will have you off the show. I will sue you.’ That was his famous thing he told everybody. We got over it. I sat him down and I told him for better or worse, I have opinions and when I give an opinion, it comes from me. I’d never give an opinion because my boss told me, that’s not true to yourself.”

But Mariotti’s Reinsdorf paranoia was well-founded in this case. Mariotti was let go in late December, despite very good ratings in the Fall 2004 Arbitron book. The station’s GM Bob Snyder, who hired Mariotti, was already canned.

“I think that’s probably what ended up getting me fired,” Snyder told me. “I stuck to my guns on Mariotti. Jerry complained, as is his right. When Jerry complains, he talks to Bob Iger or Michael Eisner. Someone probably called my boss and said, ‘Who’s this guy Snyder pissing off Reinsdorf?”

While ESPN tried out a number of hosts to fill in for Mariotti, DeFalco got the gig as Silverman urged. The young guys were on the come up, but management at the time wasn’t fully supportive.

“We didn’t know what were doing then,” Silverman said. “We thought we did. But I still believe that would’ve been a big show.”

(Daily Herald sports media columnist Ted Cox wasn’t always a big Silvy fan. On Dec. 6, 2005, he wrote, “Silvy’s opinions are like his voice: shrill, emotional, lacking in substance.”)

When they were suspended for two weeks in late January 2006 — they allowed a poorly edited voice mail to play on the air that was full of expletives, Silverman said — the station brought in ESPN NFL analyst Sean Salisbury and regular fill-in host and Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Rosenbloom to do a fill-in show. That spring, those two were hired to do the mid-day show, while Silverman and DeFalco, who were doing good in the ratings, were exiled back to nights.

That temporary setback turned out to be the best move of both of their careers.

The Afternoon Saloon was still doing gangbusters, as were Mike & Mike in the morning. But Salisbury and Rosenbloom, which launched in May 2006, was widely panned, with the ex-QB doing most of the shows from Dallas or Bristol and Rosenbloom stuck here trying to make it work. The on-air product never clicked.

“‘Salisbury and Rosenbloom’ is probably the worst sports talk radio show of all time,” former ESPN producer Ben Finfer said.

“It’s on the totem pole of the worst Chicago sport radio shows of all time,” Silverman said.

In early 2007, ESPN hired Waddle away from WGN. He was put on nights with Silverman and the two built up a rapport before the obvious move was made. They would replace the mid-day show for the spring book. For Silverman, already in his mid-30s, this was his third chance at a regular show and as it turned out, his best one.

Silverman remembers the early days of the show, which aired from 9 a.m. to noon, as promising, but uneven.

“I always thought the good stuff was there,” Silverman said. “I think early on it was sometimes not doing one talk show, but two talk shows. You gotta find your rhythm. Some of the things that made us different was what made us good, some of the things that made us different made us not so good.”

Waddle knew a younger Silverman from their WGN days as a hard-working reporter, but someone who was wired a little tight.

“I don’t think he’d get mad if I say he was a red-ass,” Waddle said. “He was competitive. That was his nature. He wanted to be the first to get the story. I knew on Day 1 he was going to be a success, because no one worked harder, grinded more. That’s kind of how I played football.”

Waddle was being serious there (I think), but their partnership works because they are both self- deprecating and can toggle between hardcore sports discussions and giggly goofiness. Waddle was the undrafted free agent receiver who wasn’t afraid to go over the middle but had no illusions about the grandness of his NFL career, while Silvy is the self-described “dork sports guy.” Waddle and Silvy can laugh at themselves — it’s actually a driving theme to their show — which is an underrated trait for anyone in our business.

Waddle already had four young kids when the show began. He thinks his more laid-back attitude about life has rubbed off on Silvy, while his partner’s attention to detail helped him grow as a host.

“I was a lot more serious, thats what you learn as you grow up,” Silvy said. “I was young and dumb. Completely young and dumb. I’m a single guy, no one depends on me. I don’t have to worry about anybody else. All I’m worried about is are Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich and Luol Deng going to be good enough to beat the Detroit Pistons, and that was my life. Is Alfonso Soriano going to hit in the leadoff spot? I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t have a kid. You know what I mean? You learn. You grow up. I’m still passionate. I will still give you an opinion, but it’s not going to be same thing as it was.”

(Silvy isn’t so buttoned-up that he won’t tweet exhortations to athletes for three hours straight during a Cubs game.)

McNeil once told me the station was at its best when Waddle and Silvy’s show got cooking. It made ESPN 1000 feel more complete. The show has grown and thrived over the years, flipping time slots with DeFalco and Jurkovic in Spring 2013, moving to the coveted 2 to 6 p.m. drive time shift, where they battled with Boers and Bernstein, Bernstein and Jason Goff and now McNeil and Danny Parkins.

Ratings success comes and goes, but Silvy said he and Waddle talk often about keeping the show fresh as it chugs along.

“I don’t feel in any way, shape or form that we’ve grown stale,” Waddle said. “I’m not tired of the show. I’m not tired of our relationship. I’m not tired of him. Every so often you have to reinvent yourself, but I don’t see a point of diminishing return with this show. I see a long future of doing what we’re doing.”

When ESPN Chicago launched as a companion website in Spring 2009, it helped raise the show’s profile. Now every time they had a guest break news on the air — like Charles Barkley ripping Michael Jordan’s Charlotte organization — it would be written up in a news story on the main ESPN website and they started getting recognized more and more on SportsCenter.

“It was sort of a validation,” Silvy said. “It’s always interesting trying to strike a balance because you want to break stories but you want to be entertaining. That’s the way you establish more trust with your listeners.”

Not long after, ESPN started to use the duo for national guest-hosting gigs on both TV and radio.

But Waddle said he thinks what really cemented them into the Chicago sports consciousness was the Jay Cutler Show, their weekly show with the Bears quarterback that ran during Bears seasons from 2012-14.

Waddle and Silvy got the reticent Cutler to open up on air, which I believe helped improve his media interactions through the end of his Bears career. But the most impressive part of the show to me was how Silvy would challenge Cutler, both on the show and during the week.

Given the serious financial commitment the station and its sponsors made to the show — I believe Cutler earned $10,000 an episode the first year, and the price went up in the second season — Silvy’s intense interviewing style during trying times was impressive from a journalistic sense.

“Silvy won’t back down to anyone, that’s one of his greatest qualities,” Waddle said. “There’s no backing down, but he doesn’t demean the person either. He stands his ground and asks tough questions, but he doesn’t get pissy trying to make a name for himself by creating controversy. Jay probably respected the times Silvy would challenge him. Sometimes when the show would be over, Jay would say ‘Fuck Silvy’ and Silvy would say ‘Fuck Jay.’ And then next Thursday, we’d be back high-fiving and everyone got along.”

(Except for all those times Cutler didn’t show up and they had to scramble and get Kyle Long or Brandon Marshall to do it.)

Possibly my favorite Silvy moment on the radio was another upfront interview. Before Derrick Rose’s second year in the NBA, the show had Vinny Del Negro on to preview the season and at the very end of the interview, Silvy said, “DRose at the end of the game.” It started a spirited back-and-forth with Del Negro, who was criticized for not playing Rose at the end of close games as a rookie. Needless to say, Silvy was right.

Like a lot of successful people in a creative industry, Silverman had to not only outlast the competition, but he needed some breaks on his side to make it work. Yes, he was fortunate that he grew up in a city where he could pursue his profession at a high level and be able to work early on for no money. But he also had to be willing to do the work.

“When I started at WGN, I worked 70 hours a week and got paid zero,” he said of his internship. “Because I wanted to do it. You saw at ESPN, we had some interns who didn’t get it. You run into kids who say they want to do it, but they don’t really want to do it.”

Silverman didn’t have a backup plan then and he jokes now that even while he’s at his most successful, he probably needs one. Sports radio is a fickle business, in that regard. When Boers had a retirement party in 2016, I realized it was the only time I’ve seen a host retire on his volition. Waddle made an intelligent point to me that they are lucky they’ve had continuity in management. Down the dial, we’ve seen how a change up top can alter a performing lineup.

But while an uncertain future is always in the back of Silverman’s mind, how he made it is a lesson for every teenager listening to his show on their laptop while they’re supposed to be doing their homework.

“If you work, you’re gonna get it,” he said. “I’m 100 percent on that. I don’t have the prototypical voice. I’m not the smartest guy out there. But I will outwork anybody in this business.”

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Cubs.com

Cubs part ways with hitting coach Chili Davis By Carrie Muskat

CHICAGO -- Last week during his end-of-the-season wrapup, Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein said the offense "broke" in the second half of the season and vowed to fix it. On Thursday, the Cubs took one step and dismissed hitting coach Chili Davis after one season.

Davis, 58, had joined the Cubs after stints with the Athletics in 2012-14 and Red Sox in 2015-17.

The Cubs will make a formal announcement regarding the rest of the coaching staff at a later date.

"Part of getting better is facing the problem and our offense broke somewhere along the lines," Epstein said last week. "If you look back at the first half of the season, we led the league in runs scored, we led the league in OPS, we led the league in virtually every significant offensive category. We were cruising.

"In the second half, things were dramatically different, culminating in what happened down the stretch and these last couple weeks."

In the first half of the season, the Cubs led the National League in runs (476) and on-base percentage (.345). That changed in the second half when they dropped to eighth in runs scored (.285) and ninth in OBP (.316).

In the second half, the Cubs scored two or more runs in 50 games and posted a 37-13 record. In the first half, they hit 100 home runs; they hit 67 in the second half.

In 39 games, the Cubs scored zero or one run, including a tiebreaker game against the Brewers on Oct. 1 and the Wild Card Game on Oct. 2.

When Davis was hired, manager Joe Maddon said the former big leaguer gives the team "the graduate school finishing touch," and the Cubs did finish the season leading the National League with a .258 batting average. While Javier Baez improved, others, such as Willson Contreras, Ian Happ and Addison Russell, struggled.

"We hit more ground balls in the second half than any other team by a huge margin," Epstein said. "Our goal is to hit line drives and fly balls out of the ballpark. We hit 49.5 ground ball rate, and the next closest team was at 47 percent.

"Something happened to our offense in the second half," Epstein said. "We stopped walking, we stopped hitting home runs, we stopped hitting the ball in the air, and we stopped being productive. Not being able to get to two runs that many times in the second half is really unacceptable."

Davis was hired to replace John Mallee, who was dismissed after the 2017 season and is now the Phillies' hitting coach.

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Cubs.com Here are key FAQs about Cubs' offseason By Carrie Muskat

CHICAGO -- The Cubs have packed their gear and headed home after the 2018 season ended abruptly with a loss in the National League Wild Card Game to the Rockies. Here are some questions heading into the offseason:

Who will be a free agent? Daniel Murphy, Justin Wilson, Jorge De La Rosa, Jesse Chavez and Bobby Wilson will all be free agents. Cole Hamels has a $20 million option for 2019 (and a $6 million buyout that the Rangers would be obligated to pay). Pedro Strop has a $6.25 million club option ($500,000 buyout). Brandon Kintzler has a $10 million club option or $5 million player option. Jaime Garcia has a $10 million club option ($2 million buyout).

Also worth noting is Jason Heyward may opt out of his contract after this season. He signed an eight- year, $184 million contract with the Cubs in December 2015.

Are any of the potential free agents likely to re-sign? After the Wild Card Game, both Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and Hamels talked about the left-hander returning in 2019. Epstein also talked about how much Strop has contributed to the team, and the right-hander could be back. Chavez proved to be very valuable, and the Cubs may try to retain him.

What about the 33-year-old Murphy? He contributed not just on the field but behind the scenes, talking hitting with the young Cubs. He made $17.5 million last season.

"I wouldn't rule anything out," Epstein said when asked about Murphy returning. "He did a lot to right our offense right after he got here and contributed while being asked to play a bigger role than we envisioned when we got him because of injuries and because of a lack of performance offensively, and because of the schedule."

Do the Cubs have payroll flexibility? The Cubs' 2018 payroll was about $182 million, and they have $136 million already committed to '19 salaries, which obviously doesn't include the arbitration-eligible players.

Will the Cubs make any qualifying offers? The Cubs are not expected to make a qualifying offer to any of their free agents. Only players who spent the entire 2018 season with the same organization are eligible to receive a qualifying offer, which is $17.9 million this year.

When will free agency open? All eligible players will become free agents the day after the 2018 World Series ends. Players can start signing with other clubs five days after that date.

Who will be arbitration-eligible? Kris Bryant, Kyle Hendricks, Addison Russell, Tommy La Stella, Javier Baez, Mike Montgomery, Kyle Schwarber and Carl Edwards Jr. all are arbitration-eligible. It's the first time for Baez, Montgomery, Schwarber and Edwards.

Are any of these players non-tender candidates? No. The date to tender 2019 contract offers to unsigned players is Nov. 30.

Who do the Cubs need to protect from the Rule 5 Draft?

Some of the Minor Leaguers eligible for selection in the Rule 5 Draft include left-handed pitcher Justin Steele, right-hander Trevor Clifton, P.J. Higgins, infielder Jason Vosler, catcher Jhonny Pereda, catcher Ian Rice and right-handed pitcher Erling Moreno. Steele is coming back from Tommy John surgery and pitching in the Arizona Fall League.

All teams must set their 40-man rosters by Nov. 20. Remember, any player selected in the Rule 5 Draft must stay on a big league team's 25-man roster for the entire season.

What's on the wish list? Once again, it's pitching. The Cubs want to be better prepared, especially after what they dealt with this season after Yu Darvish and Brandon Morrow were injured.

"We're set up to have some depth in the starting staff next year," Epstein said. "We're not looking to get rid of starting pitchers. We're looking to have as much depth as possible so we can withstand multiple injuries."

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Cubs.com Pipeline names Cubs' Prospects of the Year By Carrie Muskat

CHICAGO -- Right-hander Cory Abbott and infielder Jason Vosler were named the top Cubs Minor League pitcher and player, respectively, by MLB Pipeline.

Each team's Hitting and Pitching Prospects of the Year were chosen by the MLB Pipeline staff. To receive consideration, players must have spent at least half the year in the Minors and appeared on the team's Top 30 Prospects list.

Abbott, 23, a second-round pick in 2017, pitched for both low Class A South Bend and Class A Advanced Myrtle Beach in his first full professional season. With South Bend, the right-hander was 4-1 with a 2.47 ERA in nine starts and went 4-5 with a 2.53 ERA in 13 games at Myrtle Beach. Abbott struck out 131 and walked 39 over 115 innings in his 22 starts. In his last three outings, Abbott did not give up a run over 16 innings, striking out 20.

Cubs player development director Jaron Madison said Abbott's feel for his pitches is pretty advanced.

"He's a guy who throws strikes with four pitches," Madison said. "He shows a plus fastball that he can move around the zone and he has a solid average curveball and a solid average slider and a changeup that's coming. He's a guy who's really interesting because of his stuff -- three average to solid average or better pitches and his ability to move it around the zone and command is pretty special.

"He forced our hand and made us move him up to Myrtle Beach by his performance," Madison said. "A few guys got promoted ahead of him and we continued to challenge him to get better with his changeup and he struck out almost 31 percent of the batters in South Bend and continued to strike out almost 30 percent of the guys and only walking like 7 percent."

Abbott was named the Cubs' Minor League Pitcher of the Month for May, posting a 3-1 record and 2.67 ERA, and was honored again in August after going 2-0 with a 0.67 ERA in five starts.

Vosler, 25, began the season at Double-A Tennessee, where he batted .238 with 12 homers, 18 doubles and 46 RBIs, then was promoted to Triple-A Iowa, where he hit .263 with 11 homers, 11 doubles and 47 RBIs. A 16th-round pick in the 2014 Draft, he played primarily third base but also played first and second.

"This year, he really focused on tapping into his power and leveraging his lower half," Madison said of Vosler. "He's really got a good feel for his swing now and what he wants to do with every pitch, every swing. He's not going up there looking to spray the ball around, he's looking to hit it as hard and as far as he can to the middle and pull side of the field. Now, he's starting to understand how pitchers are trying to pitch to him and making the adjustment and finding pitches he can do damage with."

Vosler hit 14 home runs in his first three Minor League seasons but then studied hitters like Joey Votto, J.D. Martinez and Justin Turner and focused on hitting line drives.

"I just want to hit line drives -- line drives that rise," Vosler said in an interview this summer with the Des Moines Register. "In batting practice, if I'm hitting line drives at the center fielder, that's good. Because if I miss under it, now I have a home run. If I miss over it, I might have a ground ball up the middle. But if I'm staying through the middle of the field with a line drive, I think that's kind of the best result you can have."

Vosler also took advantage of having Hall of Famer Alan Trammell around when the infielder played in the Arizona Fall League last year.

"It wasn't like he sat down and talked to us, but more on-the-field stuff," Vosler said this spring. "He was kind of cool because right when he got to [Mesa], he immersed himself into the whole thing, right on the field, introducing himself to everybody. Most of the coordinators who came from other teams worked with their own guys and [Trammell] worked with the whole team, which was awesome."

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ESPNChicago.com Chili Davis fired as Cubs' hitting coach after 2nd-half plate woes By Jesse Rogers

CHICAGO -- After a season in which the offense collapsed in the second half, the Chicago Cubs fired hitting coach Chili Davis on Thursday, the club announced.

Under Davis' watch, Cubs hitters saw a notable drop in production, especially in power, where they dropped from near the top of the league in home runs in 2017 to 11th in the NL this season.

"He worked his tail off to make guys better," team president Theo Epstein said of Davis last week. "In that respect he did everything that we asked of him."

But the offense faltered down the stretch, scoring only one run in three of the team's final four games, including Game No. 163 for the NL Central Division title and then again the next night in the wild-card game. The Cubs lost both games.

The team ranked first in OPS in the first half, posting a .771 mark that was in line with last season's production, but that fell to .705 after the All-Star break, ranking 10th in the NL.

"Our offense broke somewhere along the lines," Epstein said. "Of course there is going to be a thorough examination."

Davis' firing came after exit meetings between the front office and players as well as two sit-downs with Davis. He was hired after the Cubs fired former coach John Mallee, who guided hitters for the previous three seasons, including 2016, when the team won the World Series.

Mallee brought out the power in many Cubs hitters, with "launch angle" becoming a key phrase around the team. But they struggled in situational moments, which was thought to be Davis' strength. In fact, the team said they fired Mallee to hire one guy, and one guy only: Davis.

"Chili really has a good method regarding situations in general," manager Joe Maddon said when Davis was hired. "I was on the staff when he was a player, and even then I thought he'd be a great coach. I like his methods. I like what he says and how he says it beyond theory. I'm talking about practicality, reality, the kind of things I think he can do in-game besides just the work. He has a great message, and he's very good at delivering the message."

The Cubs slightly improved from 2017 to 2018 in getting a man home from third with fewer than two outs, ranking 20th this season after finishing 28th in 2017. But the drop in power combined with the second-half collapse probably did in Davis. The Boston Red Sox also had a precipitous drop in power when Davis was their hitting coach until the end of 2017.

The Cubs did lead the NL in opposite-field hits this year, something Maddon was seeking more of. Also, Davis might not have connected with Cubs players in the same way Mallee did, according to a source close to the situation.

"We weren't looking to sacrifice power and walks in exchange for ground balls and opposite-field hits," Epstein said. "But in the second half, that's what the results were. That's not what we're looking for."

The Cubs have not made any announcements about other coaches on the staff and haven't indicated a timetable to replace Davis.

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NBC Sports Chicago Cubs part ways with hitting coach Chili Davis By Tony Andracki

For the second straight offseason, the Cubs will be searching for solutions for an offense that struggled in the year's most important games.

And for the second straight offseason, the Cubs will also be searching for a new hitting coach.

The team announced Thursday evening they are parting ways with Chili Davis, who served as the Cubs' hitting coach in 2018. It was his first year with the club after serving in the same capacity for the Boston Red Sox.

Both Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon have a long history with Davis and the former big-leaguer came highly recommended for his tutelage in the art of hitting - physically and mentally.

Initially, the Cubs offense looked good under Davis, who preached a full-field approach and a desire for more contact and fewer strikeouts.

Before the All-Star Break, the Cubs led baseball in on-base percentage (.345), were 4th in runs scored per game (5.12) and 7th in slugging (.426).

After the All-Star Break, something in the Cubs offense "broke," as Epstein put it in his state of the team address last week. The Cubs regressed across the board, finishing 17th in MLB in OBP (.316), 23rd in runs/game (4.07) and 27th in SLG (.389) in the second half.

The Cubs tied for the MLB lead for the most games with 1 or 0 runs scored (40), tying the 115-loss Baltimore Orioles (though the Cubs needed a Game 163 and the NL Wild-Card Game to reach that mark).

The lackluster offense was a major talking point for the entire second half of the season and came to the forefront as the Cubs scored just 1 run in three of their final four games as they were sent home disappointed with an early exit from the postseason.

Hours after the Cubs were eliminated, Epstein was asked if Davis did everything that was asked of him and responded with:

"He worked his tail off to make guys better. So in that respect, he did everything that we asked of him. I think the goal - I think what Joe mentioned and certainly what I was hoping for was never to sacrifice power or launch angle. It's not a fad - I mean, the bottom line is line drives and balls in the air are generally way more productive than ground balls. We weren't looking to sacrifice power and walks in exchange for groundballs and opposite field hits. But in the second half, that's what the results were. That's not what we're looking for."

The Cubs previously employed John Mallee as the hitting coach when they notched three straight NLCS appearances and won the 2016 World Series. Mallee is now the hitting coach of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Cubs will make an official announcement on the rest of their coaching staff in the coming days.

Chris Kamka contributed to this article.

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NBC Sports Chicago Cubs bench coach Brandon Hyde interviewed for Rangers' manager opening By Dan Santaromita

The Cubs just lost one coach with hitting coach Chili Davis getting fired. Another opening on Joe Maddon's coaching staff could also open up.

According to report from MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan, bench coach Brandon Hyde interviewed with the Rangers on Thursday.

Rangers farm director Jayce Tingler was the first candidate the club interviewed, but Hyde and Astros bench coach Joe Espada were also interviewed.

The 45-year-old Hyde has been with the Cubs since 2014. He was a bench coach in 2014 under Rick Renteria before moving to first base coach from 2015-17. This past season he moved back to his original role as bench coach.

He played four seasons in the minors for the White Sox.

The Rangers job opened up when Jeff Banister was fired on Sept. 21. Banister won AL Manager of the Year in 2015 and guided the Rangers to back-to-back playoff appearances in 2015 and 2016, but couldn't get out of the ALDS either year. A 78-84 season in 2017 was followed by an even worse 2018, which led to his firing late this season.

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Chicago Tribune Will Kyle Schwarber be traded? 5 offseason questions for the Cubs about their outfielders By Mark Gonzales

This is the fifth in a series of position-by-position analyses about the Cubs entering the offseason.

1. What is Albert Almora Jr.’s future?

Given the pleas from his supporters for more playing time, it’s somewhat remarkable Almora played in a career-high 152 games with 479 plate appearances.

Almora was serviceable in a variety of roles: providing the offense a lift during parts of April, May and June; playing highlight-reel defense in center field; and displaying pinch-hitting prowess late in the season. He produced a .368 on-base percentage from the leadoff spot despite seeing his opportunities diminish after the arrival of Daniel Murphy on Aug. 22.

Almora batted a respectable .282 against right-handed pitchers, but his on-base percentage dipped 15 points to .323 against righties and he grounded into 12 double plays. With the Cubs facing a plethora of right-handed starters, Almora appeared to be a good fit in the fifth or sixth spot.

His right-handed bat is an asset against teams with plenty of left-handed pitchers, but the Cubs are at a crossroads in terms of evaluating talent versus production. Almora is only 24 but doesn’t have much power — a tool the Cubs lacked in 2018.

The Cubs didn’t attempt to re-sign Jon Jay after the 2017 season because they wanted to provide more playing time for Kyle Schwarber, Ian Happ and Almora. In the case of Almora, they must decide whether his on-base percentage will increase and his strikeouts will decrease, or if he will be better-served on another team.

2. Is Kyle Schwarber’s power too valuable to trade?

From this corner, yes. Schwarber’s 26 home runs was the second-highest total on the team, although Kris Bryant and Willson Contreras figure to hit more in 2019 than they did this year.

Schwarber increased his batting average by 27 points and cut down his strikeouts by 10 despite 24 more plate appearances than he had in 2017.

Defensively, Schwarber made his biggest improvement as manager Joe Maddon eventually allowed him to stay in left field for the entire game in victories in late August after pulling him early in the season. Only Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig had more outfield assists (12) than Schwarber’s 11.

The improvements seem to indicate Schwarber’s value has increased. Would he bring enough in return that the Cubs might risk the loss of power by moving him?

3. Was 2018 as good as it gets for Jason Heyward?

A hamstring injury on Aug. 30 sidelined Heyward for more than two weeks, disrupted the rhythm he had displayed at the plate and led to a .222 average and .263 on-base percentage in September. The most noticeable difference was he reverted to using his arms more than his wrists, resulting in the soft contact that accounted for a .230 average and .325 in his first season with the Cubs in 2016.

Heyward won’t be known for his power, but he did raise his average by 11 points while striking out only 60 times in 489 plate appearances. Most impressive, he batted .324 with runners in scoring position and .346 with runners in scoring position with two outs.

“(Hitting coach) Chili Davis has done a good job of getting him from where he was to now,” a National League scout said.

But that was almost two weeks before the Cubs fired Davis on Thursday after only one season, leaving Heyward to work under his third hitting coach in as many seasons.

The same scout observed that Heyward, 29, has lost a step and doesn’t throw as well as he once did. Nevertheless, his plus defense in center field as well as right is welcome for a pitching staff that relies heavily on its defense.

That is one strong consideration if the Cubs make a push for free agent Bryce Harper, although resolving the shortstop situation remains paramount.

Don’t expect Heyward to opt out of the final five years of his eight-year, $184 million contract. And keep in mind that two other teams offered more money before Heyward signed with the Cubs before the 2016 season.

4. Can Ian Happ cut down on his strikeouts?

According to one scout, it might take changes in his swing.

“He has a bad low-ball swing,” the scout said. “The launch angle will kill him.”

Happ has averaged 2.5 at-bats per during his first two seasons, although he showed better discipline during the final week of the season and had a .353 on-base percentage.

The switch-hitting Happ presents a tough call for the Cubs. He is only 24, possesses good power, can play multiple positions adequately and runs well. One scout agreed with Maddon’s decision to play Happ more frequently in center field, believing his routes to the ball were more precise.

Happ managed to avoid a demotion to the minors this year despite a rough start that caused him to lose the leadoff job three weeks into the season.

Happ was 7-for-23 (.304) with two home runs and four walks as a pinch hitter, but he’s too young and talented to be pigeonholed into that role. Like Almora, he could benefit from more guaranteed playing time elsewhere.

5. Can Ben Zobrist duplicate his 2018 performance?

The script couldn’t have been written and followed more perfectly. Minutes after the Dodgers eliminated the Cubs in the 2017 NL Championship Series, Zobrist vowed to embark on a strength program after allowing his sore left wrist to heal.

He responded at age 37 with contributions deeper than his .305 average and .378 on-base percentage. He epitomized the meaning of “team at-bat” by striking out once per 11.5 plate appearances and batting .307 with runners in scoring position.

Zobrist made 62 of his 108 starts in the outfield, and he started more frequently in right in September. But the White Sox ran aggressively on every ball hit to Zobrist’s foul-line side during a three-game series last month.

Zobrist’s bat is so valuable that Maddon will need to become even more creative to preserve his strength and production.

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Chicago Tribune Cubs fire hitting coach Chili Davis after 1 season By Mark Gonzales

The persistent inconsistency of the Cubs’ offense in the second half of the season cost hitting coach Chili Davis his job after only one season.

Davis, 58, was informed of his dismissal Thursday — nine days after the Rockies eliminated the Cubs in the National League wild-card game. The Cubs scored one run in three of their final four games, including the 2-1 loss to the Rockies in 13 innings.

Davis’ firing will result in their third hitting coach in as many seasons. It also will turn up the heat on manager Joe Maddon, who enters the final year of his five-year contract and expressed his support for Davis, assistant Andy Haines and the advance scouts during the offense’s rut.

Nevertheless, the struggles persisted and continued a few weeks after the acquisition of left-handed hitter Daniel Murphy from the Nationals on Aug. 21.

The Cubs finished the first half with a .265 batting average, a .345 on-base percentage and 476 runs in 93 games. But in their 70 games in the second half, they batted .249 with a .316 on-base percentage and 285 runs, including 50 games in which they scored two runs or fewer. Their OPS dropped from .771 to .705.

Those deficiencies overshadowed the fact that the Cubs led the league in batting average (.258) despite missing the services of slugger Kris Bryant for nearly one-third of the season because of a left shoulder injury.

The Cubs were only 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position in a 3-1 loss to the Brewers in the NL Central tiebreaker and to the Rockies.

“The responsibility ends with me,’ President Theo Epstein said on Oct. 3 — one day after the Cubs were eliminated from the postseason. “It’s my responsibility to fix it.”

The offense, according to Epstein, produced a 49.5 percent ground ball rate in the second half that made them among the worst in homers, walk rate, OPS and runs.

Concerns about the offense became obvious during a five-game stretch at Pittsburgh (Aug. 16-19) and at Detroit (Aug. 21), in which the Cubs scored one run in each of those five games.

Once Murphy arrived, the Cubs embarked on a seven-game winning streak in which they scored seven runs or more in five of those victories.

But the offense eventually regressed.

“I’ve never been a part of something like this offensively, and I never want to be a part of this again,” said Epstein, who spent an extraordinary amount of time behind the batting cage with Davis before a game against the Diamondbacks on Sept. 18.

The Cubs have yet to make a formal announcement on their 2019 coaching staff. Bench coach Brandon Hyde has interviewed for the vacant managerial position with the Rangers, a source confirmed.

Haines has been with the organization since 2017, when he served as the minor-league hitting coordinator.

Triple-A hitting coach Desi Wilson, who has been with the organization for 11 seasons, and minor-league hitting coordinator Jacob Cruz spent time with the major-league club in September.

But it’s common for minor-league coaches to with the major-league team after their seasons conclude.

Davis replaced John Mallee, who supervised a group of young hitters that helped the Cubs win the 2016 World Series in his second season as hitting coach.

But the Cubs sought improvement in situational hitting and thought Davis, who worked six seasons with the Athletics (2012-14) and Red Sox (2015-17), would enhance their development.

One possible replacement could be longtime hitting coach , who filled that role with the Red Sox for six seasons after Epstein hired him for the 2007 season. The 16-year big-league veteran is available after the Diamondbacks didn’t retain him.

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