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Cubs Fire Rick Renteria, Will Introduce Joe Maddon On Monday

(CBS) The Cubs have fired manager Rick Renteria, they announced Friday afternoon, and will introduce Joe Maddon as their new manager on Monday afternoon.

A 2 p.m. press conference for Maddon will be held at The Cubby Bear, which is on the corner of Addison and Clark.

General manager Theo Epstein made the announcement in a statement, expressing sympathy for Renteria but saying he has an obligation to be loyal to the organization.

In his lone season as manager, Renteria did a solid job, leading a young team that also traded away two of its top pitchers midseason on the way to a 73-89 record. Youngsters Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo also saw growth under Renteria.

Renteria was working on a three-year contract with the Cubs, who will honor the remainder of it.

Renteria was offered another position with the Cubs but declined it, according to reports.

In explaining the chase of Maddon, Epstein said he "may be as well suited as anyone in the industry to manage the challenges that lie ahead of us."

The 60-year-old Maddon was named the American League Manager of the Year in 2008 and 2011.

Maddon had a .517 winning percentage in his nine years in Tampa Bay. He was eligible to opt out of his contract because former Rays general manager Andrew Friedman left to take a job overseeing baseball operations for the Dodgers.

Here's Epstein's statement in full:

"Today we made the difficult decision to replace Rick Renteria as manager of the Chicago Cubs. On behalf of Tom Ricketts and Jed Hoyer, I thank Rick for his dedication and commitment, and for making the Cubs a better organization.

"Rick's sterling reputation should only be enhanced by his season as Cubs manager. We challenged Rick to create an environment in which our young players could develop and thrive at the big league level, and he succeeded. Working with the youngest team in the league and an imperfect roster, Rick had the club playing hard and improving throughout the season. His passion, character, optimism and work ethic showed up every single day.

"Rick deserved to come back for another season as Cubs manager, and we said as much when we announced that he would be returning in 2015. We met with Rick two weeks ago for a long end-of-season evaluation and discussed plans for next season. We praised Rick to the media and to our season-ticket holders.  These actions were made in good faith.

"Last Thursday, we learned that Joe Maddon – who may be as well suited as anyone in the industry to manage the challenges that lie ahead of us – had become a free agent. We confirmed the news with Major League Baseball, and it became public knowledge the next day. We saw it as a unique opportunity and faced a clear dilemma: be loyal to Rick or be loyal to the organization. In this business of trying to win a world championship for the first time in 107 years, the organization has priority over any one individual. We decided to pursue Joe.

"While there was no clear playbook for how to handle this type of situation, we knew we had to be transparent with Rick before engaging with Joe. Jed flew to San Diego last Friday and told Rick in person of our intention to talk to Joe about the managerial job. Subsequently, Jed and I provided updates to Rick via telephone and today informed him that we will indeed make a change.

"We offered Rick a choice of other positions with the Cubs, but he is of course free to leave the organization and pursue opportunities elsewhere. Armed with the experience of a successful season and all the qualities that made him our choice a year ago, Rick will no doubt make an excellent major league manager when given his next chance.

"Rick often said he was the beneficiary of the hard work of others who came before him. Now, in the young players he helped, we reap the benefits of his hard work as we move forward. He deserved better and we wish him nothing but the best.

"We have clung to two important ideals during our three years in Chicago. The first is to always be loyal to our mission of building the Cubs into a championship organization that can sustain success. The second is to be transparent with our fans. As painful as the last week was at times, we believe we stayed true to these two ideals in handling a sensitive situation. To our fans: we hope you understand, and we appreciate your continued support of the Cubs."

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