Agent: Joe Maddon Prepared Not To Manage In 2015
(CBS) --The agent for former Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon joined Bruce Levine and Wayne Randazzo on "Inside the Clubhouse" on Saturday morning and said his client is prepared to sit out the 2015 season.
"Joe is prepared not to manage," Alan Nero said. "If you remember when we got Lou Piniella out of his job, ironically with Tampa, he spent a year with Fox network, and he had a good year before he went on to ironically become the Cubs manager."
Tampa announced Friday that Maddon opted out of his contract with the team. Nero said there has been "quite a bit of interest" in Maddon, even though the only teams currently with managerial openings are Tampa and the Minnesota Twins.
"I actually had conversations with about 15 GMs yesterday, some of them just wondering if Joe would take a high-level front office position," Nero said.
If a managerial position were to open up in Chicago, Nero indicated Maddon might be interested. Led by the front office executives Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer, the Cubs are considered one of the front-runners to land Maddon.
"Theo and (owner) Tom (Ricketts) are people of high integrity, and they are going to go about their business the way you guess they would considering their commitment to their people," Nero said. "So yeah, obviously it is a possibility, whether it's this year or next year or beyond, it's certainly a possibility."
Listen to the full interview with Nero below.