Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella announced Tuesday that he will retire at the end of the season. He has spent 40 years in the majors, 18 as a player and 22 as a manager.
This is the last year on Piniella's contract that he signed in October 2006 with the Cubs. So far, he is 307-271 as the Cubs' skipper, capturing two NL Central titles in 2007 and 2008. Chicago has performed dismally since then and they are currently struggling this year under a new owner, the Ricketts family. The Cubs are also in the midst of going 102 years without a World Series title, and looking at it now, they are going to be waiting longer. They are currently fourth in the NL Central, with a 42-52 record.
"I'm proud of our accomplishments during my time here and this will be the perfect way to end my career," Pinella said. "But, let me make one thing perfectly clear: our work is far from over. I want to keep the momentum going more than anything else and win as many games as we can to get back in this pennant race."
Entering Tuesday's game against the Houston Astros, Piniella is 1,826-1,691 as a manager and he trails only Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre in victories among active managers. He will also retire as the 14th winningest manager in MLB history.
Piniella won AL Rookie of the Year honors in 1969, playing for the Royals - he batted .282 with 11 home runs and 68 RBI. In 1973, he was dealt to the New York Yankees and ended his career there in 1984.
He had only been retired two years before George Steinbrenner hired him as the Yankees skipper in 1986. He lasted three seasons in the big apple and also played the role of General Manager for New York for a brief amount of time.
Piniella was hired by Seattle before the 1993 season and won the AL Manager of the Year in 1995, when the Mariners posted a 79-66 record. In 2001, he won the award again after the Mariners won 116 out of a possible 162 games. They safely won the AL West crown that year, but they dropped the first two games in a series against the Yankees. At a press conference, Piniella showed his distraught and said that they would win two out three games at Yankee Stadium, but that was not the case and New York went on to win the series, 4-1. Seattle has not been to the playoffs since that season.
Following the 2002 season, Piniella left the Mariners to manage the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. As compensation, Tampa Bay traded outfielder Randy Winn to Seattle for infield prospect Antonio Perez. In his first few seasons, Piniella helped Tampa Bay slightly improve and they won 70 games in 2004, a franchise record at the time. They also did not finish last in the division for the first time since their inception in 1998. During the 2005 season, Piniella began butting heads with Tampa Bay's front office, accusing them of focusing too much on the future instead of trying to help the team win immediately. The Devil Rays started the season with a $30 million payroll, almost seven times less than the high-spending New York Yankees.
On September 21, 2001, Piniella stepped down as Tampa Bay's manager, even though he had one more year remaining on his contract. Both sides agreed to Piniella receiving a $2.2 million buyout and $1.25 million in deferred salary from 2003.
Before signing a contract with Chicago in 2006, general manager Jim Hendry announced that Dusty Baker, the manager at the time, would not be retained. Piniella ended up being his first and only choice for the position. Piniella left a brief stint of announcing for the managerial job, signing a 3-year contract worth about $10 million. In the following weeks after the hiring, Hendry and the Cubs committed over $300 million to players, hoping they could end their long World Series drought.
Chicago gave Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano humongous deals, but they were never able to help the Cubs get back to the biggest stage in baseball. They won the NL Central division in back-to-back years (2007-08), but failed to reach the postseason last year and it isn't looking too good this year. Through Monday, the Cubs are 10.5 games back of the division-leading St. Louis Cardinals and are 10 games under .500.
