Article: Craig Counsell Got to Shape This Roster, and He's Using It Fearlessly

[Matthew Trueblood]

When the Chicago Cubs ponied up an unprecedented sum (somewhere on the other side of $40 million) for the best managerial free agent in recent memory, they conferred significant power upon him. He's using it.

Image courtesy of © Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

 

Whereas the Cubs were persistently cautious about investing playing time in Christopher Morel over the last two seasons, Craig Counsell immediately made it clear that he wanted him in the lineup every day. Before Counsell came aboard, the team envisioned an offseason move that could land Morel permanently at first base, but Counsell elected to give him a wide-open lane via which to reach the everyday job at third. Right from the jump, in spring training, Counsell batted Morel in the cleanup spot alongside other regulars, marking him as a linchpin of the lineup.

A contract like Counsell's implicitly includes the right to much more influence on roster construction than the typical modern manager has, and you can see that Counsell has that, in places. He's not an old-fashioned manager (or 1990s NFL-style coach-slash-GM), but the faith the Cubs showed by paying this much for his services naturally extends itself into the selection of players. Morel is here, and certainly is playing third base, as much because of Counsell as because of any attachment to him Jed Hoyer or Carter Hawkins harbor.

It's been fascinating to watch Counsell solve a problem of his own voluntary creation within games. Except when grounder-friendly lefty Justin Steele was on the mound on Opening Day, Counsell has stuck to Morel as his starting third baseman, and he's locked him into the cleanup spot. As soon as possible within each competitive contest, though, he's lifted Morel for Nick Madrigal. The last two days, that's meant letting Madrigal occupy the cleanup spot (between Cody Bellinger and Dansby Swanson) for the last three or four innings, but if Counsell were desperately disturbed by the prospect of having Madrigal come up in a big spot, he wouldn't keep writing Morel in as the cleanup guy, or at the hot corner.

Last week at Baseball Prospectus, I wrote about this very subject, although with the lens inverted: I foresaw a setup whereby Morel would sit the first part of the game and come in midway through, to maximize the leverage of some offensive situation in which he might contribute. The main point is the same, though: managers have traditionally been too reluctant to make early tactical substitutions. Counsell is exploring that frontier in his treatment of Morel and Madrigal, and the radical nature of his approach would make it tough to support for any skipper with less power and leverage than this one has.

Counsell also told Mike Tauchman he would be on the 26-man roster right at the beginning of camp, even as many fans speculated that he would be a casualty if and when the team re-signed Bellinger. Not only is Tauchman around, but he's started a game in each corner already, spelling and saving the legs of Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki. Tauchman is a Counsell-style player, and guaranteeing his spot on the roster was no happenstance. While fans might have wrung their hands over the possibility that Tauchman would spend a big chunk of another season as the leadoff man, Counsell properly noticed that he's a useful fourth outfielder and lineup lengthener against right-handed pitching.

Taking Happ and Suzuki off their feet defensively for a game each in the early going is also a hallmark of Counsell's style. He thinks well ahead and views the whole calendar of the season--the full, 162-game grind--as carefully as any manager in baseball. This is also why he let Ben Brown stay out there and wear hideous numbers in his big-league debut, and why he asked Drew Smyly for two innings to close out the win in the home opener. Unlike David Ross, Counsell assiduously avoids "chasing" wins by using high-leverage arms when the team is trailing, and he tries to reserve his best hurlers for the moments when they matter most.

Expect Counsell to keep getting chances to shape the roster, and to use that roster in creative and interesting ways. If Morel can't improve at least somewhat, the team's experiment with him at third base will end soon, but Counsell seems likely to keep batting him fourth most days, either way. If that means bringing on Madrigal at the earliest moment when that opportunity presents itself, so be it. Over the last 50 seasons, only four teams have given 50 or more plate appearances to substitutes in the cleanup spot from the fifth inning on. Only 13 have allotted 40 or more such plate appearances. Only 36 have had at least 30. Madrigal already has two sub plate appearances, through four games. Counsell believes he can consistently find the right moment to make that substitution, and coming from him, that's a bold but credible choice.

When he was at the helm of a series of Brewers teams who kicked out the Cubs at the sprinting finish of the marathon season, Counsell owned September. Brewers fans took to calling the month "Craigtember," because he had learned his own roster and managed his resources so much better than many of his colleagues that his team had a persistent advantage in that month. The Cubs are hoping the same thing will be true in 2024, and Counsell has set just such a tone with his selection and deployment of the roster in the very early going.

 

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[Bertz]

One of my favorite things about the Counsell hiring is the irony that the fans who most vocally hated Ross are going to find out Counsell not only does those same things they complained about but turns them up to 11. 

Fans lost their GD minds any time Ross was proactive about load management, getting mad at very benign things like not using the closer for the 5th time in 6 days.  Well turns out Ross' sin was not too much load management but not doing enough load management.  Look forward to a manager who will rarely let relievers go days 3 in a row.  And oh the howling the first time the team is down 2 in the 8th and Craig goes to like Almonte instead of Merryweather.

Fans HATE when a guy has a big game and isn't in the lineup the next day.  Look forward to a manager who eschews the hot hand completely and is meticulous about getting matchup advantages!

I'm enjoying the Counsell experience so far though.  I liked Ross but there were probably like 2-3 things a day where I'd disagree with him.  Few of them big enough for me to do any more than raise an eyebrow, but still pretty regular disagreement.  Through 4 games I think the only thing I've disagreed with Craig about was Morel starting in the field at 3B behind Wicks on Sunday?