Craig Counsell Is Losing the Fan Base, and He'll Have to Work Hard to Get it Back

Fans were absolutely elated prior to the 2024 season when the notification flashed that the Chicago Cubs were hiring manager Craig Counsell. The longtime Milwaukee Brewers skipper had out-managed and manipulated the Cubs so many times over the years, but finally, the front office had poached him out of Milwaukee, and he would now be responsible for leading Chicago back to the postseason for the first time since 2020.

Counsell was given a five-year deal worth $40 million, making him the highest paid manager in the history of Major League Baseball. It was a steep price for a non-player, but once again, Cubs fans had seen the way Counsell's teams in Milwaukee were able to consistently top the league and play some of the most fundamental baseball across the sport. Everyone hoped that Counsell would bring his genius mindset and excellent managerial skills with him, but so far, it's not really showing up on the field.

The Cubs won just 83 games in Counsell's first season and missed the playoffs entirely. It was a bit of a down year, and injuries had derailed the season a bit, so there was no need to place much blame, if any at all, on Counsell. Fast forward to August 2025, and the tide has shifted completely, and it seems that Counsell's managerial skills are being questioned almost every single day.

The questioning truly began earlier this month, when Counsell completely mismanaged the late stages of the series finale against the Toronto Blue Jays. His bizarre decisions in that game really set the alarms off, and that has only continued through the last few weeks. It picked up once again on Thursday, when it felt like Counsell truly punted the series finale of what could have been argued as a must-win game for the Cubs.

The decision to sit both Owen Caissie and Matt Shaw on Thursday was preposterous to say the least. Caissie, coming fresh off a stretch of three straight impressive performances, and Shaw, the best hitter in the lineup since the All-Star break, were left watching from the bench for seven innings as Chicago was able to push across just one run. Caissie did get a pinch-hit appearance, and Shaw came in to replace him on defense, but that was far too late for anyone to forget about the awful lineup decisions.

The recent decisions have stirred up some online comparisons to former manager David Ross, and while those are blatant examples of recency bias, it is an ominous sign that the front office remains seemingly oblivious to the day-to-day operations of the team. Let's remember that Ross was 262-284 (.480) in his tenure, and Counsell entered the Angels series with a 156-134 (.538) record as Cubs manager. The Cubs could lose their next 30 games and Counsell would still have a better winning percentage than Ross, granted the longtime backstop was not given a ton to work with after the 2021 deadline.

There's obviously no one seriously arguing that Counsell is a worse manager than Ross -- who probably wasn't quite as bad as some of his under-the-microscope decisions made him seem at the time -- but it is stupefying that he's seemingly lost some of the magic touch that he had with the Brewers. Yes, it's true that his winning percentage in Milwaukee (.531) is technically lower than his winning rate with the Cubs, but that's due to two truly horrendous campaigns at the start of his tenure in 2015-16 as the Brewers were slogging through a rebuild of their own (he took over mid-way through the 2015 season for Ron Roenicke). From 2017-23, the Brew Crew won four division titles with Counsell at the helm, and never finished lower than second in the NL Central (not including the Covid-shortened 2020 season). His record in those campaigns was 573-460, good for a .555 winning percentage. 

Now, the Brewers look like they're about defend their NL Central crown with Pat Murphy leading the charge, who seems destined to win a second consecutive NL Manager of the Year award. Was it ever really Counsell's magic, or just the Brewers' organization as a whole? Is Milwaukee just that much better than they look on paper? Is their front office -- even following the departure of David Stearns in 2022 -- the best in the league by a comfortable margin? It's hard to answer any of these queries with definitive confidence, but it's troubling that Counsell hasn't really quelled any concerns as he comes into the stretch run of his second year managing the Cubs.

This conversation could turn around in a hurry, of course, if Counsell leads the Cubs to a World Series. Everyone will forget about the mismanagement of games in mid-August if the team is hoisting a trophy after the final game of the season. If not, though, the offseason discourse about Counsell's "fall off" from his time in Milwaukee to now will only grow louder.