(670 The Score) We don't know much about the speech Cubs manager David Ross gave to his players Monday morning in Mesa, Ariz., but the early reviews are strong.
"I wanted to run through a wall," third baseman Kris Bryant told reporters afterward, and we presume he meant doing so out of sheer motivation to win rather than to escape the building like Chief Bromden at the end of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
"I don't even know how to describe it," Bryant continued. "It was one of the best speeches I've heard from anybody in this organization."
Even if you are among those skeptical of the value of such things in the big business of professional sports, prone to point out that this type of verbal boosterism is particularly pointless in a game one can't simply play harder and generally focused more on deed than word, all that matters is how important this day was to the Cubs themselves and to their president of baseball operations.
Theo Epstein made this very speech part of the interview for the finalists to replace Joe Maddon, requiring Ross and Joe Espada to deliver it in the clubhouse at Wrigley Field. The entire front office staff sat in as representations of the assembled players back in October and reportedly responded to Ross's camp-opening oratory with a standing ovation.
"We felt like there would be more pressure if we had all the lockers filled," Epstein told The Athletic.
We have no idea if Monday's version for the actual players was the same exact one that brought the suits to their feet, especially because the Cubs' offseason was so remarkably unremarkable. After the vow to make big changes cooled into lingering expectations of a trade or trades, nothing has happened. That Bryant was there to give his opinion of his manager's first official words seemed itself an unlikely bet, and his still-uncertain future raises questions about how such a speech may age.
It's still very possible that Bryant is traded at any hour, shortly after one just-right phone call that turns him into a package of big league-ready talent and prospects, lowers the payroll under the luxury tax threshold and paves the way for a lucrative extension offer to shortstop Javier Baez. If it happens, it's a clear blow to the short-term efforts of the 2020 Cubs to win, potentially undermining Ross's inspirational message.
Or perhaps Ross openly accounted for such a scenario, inoculating against that conclusion in a way that prepared and further reassured his team. It would be quite the rhetorical needle to have threaded so successfully, but perhaps that kind of honesty is just what the Cubs wanted to hear.
Epstein believes that this stuff matters at this level, whether we agree or not. Ross only got one chance to talk to his entire team in a private and official capacity for the first time, setting the tone for a new and marginally stricter workplace that's designed for more individual accountability amid team-oriented preparation.
Considering that Ross has to know he might soon not have Bryant and is also looking at an older pitching staff, questionable defense and a bullpen still under construction, he must have been judicious enough with his words to be able to retain players' trust in what could be some unsettled times.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's Bernstein & McKnight Show in midday. You can follow him on Twitter @Dan_Bernstein.
