By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

In a few days, Joe Maddon is going to be fired as manager of the Chicago Cubs. That is the same Joe Maddon who won the 2016 World Series to end a century-long drought and, even more impressively (believe it or not), took Tampa Bay to the 2008 World Series. Tampa flippin’ Bay.

In the previous four seasons, the least number of wins the Cubs had under Maddon was 92. They won’t win 92 this year and that’ll be it for Joe in the third base dugout at Wrigley Field.

Look, managers get fired all the time. Whether or not it’s justifiable or not makes no difference. But there are a couple of things going on here that don’t make this a run-of-the-mill canning.

First of all, can we talk about the job that General Manager Theo Epstein, who is thought to have invented baseball, has been doing? Talk about living off your rep … take a look at the hand Epstein has dealt Maddon. There’s a left fielder who can’t play dead defensively. He’s got center fielders who can’t hit. An infielder with off-the-field issues. And Epstein is responsible for two awful contracts — signing Craig Kimbrel for three years when he wasn’t worth signing for three minutes and the acquisition of Jason Heyward to a long-term contract a few years ago. I love Heyward; he is one of my favorite players in all of baseball. I love his approach to the game and his hustle. But there is a time-honored baseball axiom about players like Heyward: “he’s just good enough to get you beat.” You keep thinking that he will become the player you think he is, but never does. The Cubs are paying him $21 million this year to hit .253. Only four more years left on that contract!

But the bigger crime is what is going to happen next. Maddon will get the pink slip and his $6 million contract will go with him. And then Cubs will do what everybody else in baseball does — grab somebody out of the TV booth and pay them $500,000. (Here’s looking at you David Ross!) Baseball managers are now grossly underpaid because the analytics geeks have made owners believe that anybody with a spreadsheet and who knows the difference between fWAR and bWAR can manage a major league team.