After a couple weeks of speculation, the Chicago Cubs announced today that manager Mike Quade will not return for the 2012 season. Quade was hired last year after an impressive stint as the team's interim manager while replacing Lou Piniella in 2010, but he failed to sustain that success with the Cubs in 2011.
Quade still has another year on his contract, but most people around the team expected that they would go in a different direction after installing the new front office team led by Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod. The Cubs were just 71-91 under Quade in 2011, and many fans grew frustrated with him as the season bore on.
The move signifies one of the first for the team under new management, and opens up an entirely new set of possibilities as they'll now be able to tab their own guy for the job. Expect the job to be heavily coveted, for many of the same reasons that the Cubs' GM gig was so appealing.
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