Craig Counsell's decision to leave the Milwaukee Brewers to manage a division rival in the Chicago Cubs was about wanting "a new professional challenge" and staying close to home, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an article published Tuesday.

Counsell, whose contract with the Brewers expired last month, signed a record-setting five-year, $40 million deal with the Cubs, sources told ESPN's Jeff Passan.

"I think as I was going through this process, it became clear that I needed and wanted a new professional challenge," Counsell told the Journal Sentinel. "At the same time, look, I'm grateful to be part of [Milwaukee's] community. And that's going to continue, hopefully, because it has nothing to do with baseball, that part of it. I'm looking forward to being part of a new community and hopefully impact our community well, too.

"But as I went through it, it just became clear that I needed a new challenge."

The hire, which included the firing of incumbent manager David Ross, stunned the baseball world as Counsell was synonymous with the Brewers after spending the past 17 years with the organization as a player, executive and manager.

A Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, native, Counsell said Chicago's proximity to home made the Cubs "a great situation [family-wise]."

The new deal more than doubled Counsell's previous salary of $3.5 million and broke the previous record for a manager's average annual pay.

"Look, I just wanted the market to decide," Counsell said when asked how important it was for him to reset the market for managers' salaries. "That's it."

Counsell also dismissed the notion that his relationship with Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and members of the front office had become strained in recent years.

"I think highly of Matt Arnold. I think highly of David Stearns. I think highly of Mark. Mark was incredibly graceful on our last phone call together. I don't have any hard feelings. They had to make a decision and I had to make a decision. That's it."