Cubs Introduce Sveum as New Manager
By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 18, 2011 8:40PM
Cubs fans, your new manager is "Nuts." That's actually Dale Sveum's nickname, according to the Milwaukee Brewers media guide. (Brewers GM Doug Melvin wouldn't answer if the nickname is a reference to Sveum's temperament or his manhood.)
Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and GM Jed Hoyer introduced Sveum to an approving Chicago sports media this morning.
Epstein said the Cubs got their man. "He's as comfortable in his own skin as anyone I've ever been around." As for whether the Cubs hired a walk sound bite machine a la Ozzie Guillen, local sportswriters will be disappointed.
"I don’t show a lot of emotion. So probably stoic would be (a) better way (to describe) my personality.“One trait that you have to have as a manager is never to let your players see one way or the other how you’re feeling. Whether you’re nervous or whether you’re mad, whatever, I think it’s a bad trait to show body language to the players nowadays.”
As Joel Reese noted yesterday, Sveum's hire is another piece to the Cubs' rebuilding puzzle. He was also high atop Boston Red Sox GM Ben Cherrington's list of candidates to replace Terry Francona as manager. Francona, who had Sveum as his third-base coach the year they broke their World Series drought in 2004, also thought Sveum was deserving of the job when he spoke on ESPN AM 1000 earlier this week.
"Players love him and they should. I played with him actually in Milwaukee. He was kind of a player's player. He does things right. He's solid."
There are still some who think the hire was wrong.
Epstein's familiarity with Sveum was another thing the new manager had going for him. As the Sun-Times' Gordon Wittenmyer notes, the hire fits with Epstein's vision that all the principals in the baseball operations be on the same page, rather than have a manager try to change his philosophy to fit the vision of the club