After being fired as the Angels manager in June, Joe Maddon would like to return to baseball, but “right now I need to get tired of what I’m doing in order to want to do something else,” Maddon told Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. The veteran skipper is enjoying a rare “summer vacation” of sorts, and would only be interested in a managerial or advisory job with a team that had a “strong balance between the old and the new” approaches to the game, and not too tilted in favor of analytics.
It seems clear that Maddon didn’t feel this balance existed in Anaheim. In general, Maddon felt the Angels’ “infrastructure needs to be improved….It’s the non-sexy stuff that has to get better. It’s not just bright, shiny objects — they have that. They need to do the infrastructure better in order to get to where we had been in the past.” Maddon also implied that the front office tried to have too much of an influence on baseball decisions, thus trying to turn the manager into a “middle man” rather than an actual leader in the clubhouse.
“It’s at the point where some GM should really just put a uniform on and go down to the dugout, or their main analytical membrane, he should go down to the dugout….And what happens is when the performance isn’t what they think it should be, it’s never about the acquisitional process,” Maddon said. “It’s always about the inability of coaches and managers to get the best out of a player. And that’s where this tremendous disconnect is formed.”
More from around the baseball world…
- The Cardinals placed Yadier Molina on the restricted list today, and called up catcher Ivan Herrera from Triple-A to take Molina’s place on the active roster. Molina is away for “business reasons” in Puerto Rico, Cards president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other reporters, and the longtime catcher is expected to return to the Cardinals on Monday. Goold notes that the pro basketball team Molina owns is playing in the finals of the Baloncesto Superior Nacional championship, Puerto Rico’s top league. While seemingly an unusual reason to take time off during the season, Molina’s absence probably amounts to one game at most, as the catcher played on Friday and wouldn’t have played in both weekend games against the Diamondbacks.
- X-rays were negative on Teoscar Hernandez’s left foot after the Blue Jays outfielder fouled a ball off his foot in the eighth inning of today’s 5-2 win over the Yankees. Hernandez was replaced in right field for the bottom half of the eighth inning. While it appears as though Hernandez has avoided any serious injury, it seems likely that he’ll miss Sunday’s game, thus leaving the Jays even more shorthanded in the outfield. George Springer has been limited to DH duty since returning from the injured list, and Springer has also missed the last two games due to a sore right knee after a wayward foul ball of his own on Thursday. While Toronto has outfield depth on the bench, the lineup would be hurt if both Hernandez and Springer each have to miss more time.
- Drew Gilbert’s first pro season is already over due to a dislocation in his right elbow, the Astros announced. (Hat tip to Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle.) Gilbert hasn’t played since August 13, when he suffered a forearm contusion after a collision with the outfield wall in a game for the Astros’ A-ball affiliate. However, according to the team, a further medical exam revealed that Gilbert “had sustained a dislocated right elbow that spontaneously went back into place before he was examined.” The 21-year-old Gilbert was the 28th overall pick of the 2022 draft, and MLB Pipeline already ranks the University of Tennessee product as the second-best prospect in the Astros’ farm system.
Maddon time has passed.
“Behold the pale rider, off to meet the sunset of his dreams.”
Is that ageism that you’re spewing, Jorge??! Are you a bigot??
Is that you Joe? Unimaginative screenname
Cause dumpster diving Theo is an award winner in itself?
It’s interesting how the same people who direct unwarranted attacks against others for non-existent “racism” are totally cool with hate-fueled bias based purely on age, height, weight, occupation, etc.
As for Maddon, he’s not saying anything that many high-profile analytics guys such as Theo Epstein have been saying for more than a decade. Teams have been come overly-reliant on analytics, it’s hurting the game, and many analytics-heavy executives (such as Jon Daniels) have failed miserably.
quester.com/theo-epsteins-pivot-big-data-and-soul/
During his time with the Cubs, Epstein began to realize that analytics were only one part of the equation. He saw that organizations were utilizing analytics to the point where the soul was being sucked out of baseball teams. Anyone that has ever played on a competitive team knows that team comradery and leadership is a key component to the success of a team. As a result, Epstein pivoted against his competition’s trend (solely chasing analytics) and focused on understanding the psychology of successful players to build a championship caliber team.
audacy.com/weei/sports/red-sox/theo-epstein-gms-sh…
More than anything, he thinks the players’ athleticism is being drowned out by a sea of spray charts and launch angles. “Almost everyone agrees we can benefit from more action,” he said. “I think putting the game back in the players’ hands so that players are in the middle of the action. They’re making decisions, using their instincts, dictating everything that happens on the field. Analytics are great, but having a little bit of a firewall so that they don’t creep too much onto the field.”
I don’t know about that part about Jon Daniels. I was listening to the GM’s on the SXM MLB channel Friday, and they said that JD’s failure was that he was late to the analytics party, and was still way behind trying to play catchup. I don’t know.
I agree wholeheartedly that managers need the freedom to trust what they see with their eyes instead of making every decision based on some numbers on a spreadsheet.
etex – With all due respect you couldn’t be more wrong about Daniels, he was part of the Stat Frat.
forbes.com/sites/briangoff/2020/09/02/john-daniels…
Daniels took over as the Texas Rangers GM in October of 2005 at just 28. Like Theo Epstein in Boston, he was in the wave of young baseball executives applying and adapting the Moneyball-esque analytical and valuation methods.
Maddon is right. I’ve been watching for years people making baseball more difficult than it really is. It’s like they are transforming the game. Until I see teams winning 140 games a year I will continue to say the net gain of all this managing the game with analytics is zero.
Exactly. It’s like they’ve forgotten it’s a game, a kids game at that. Analytics has sucked the joy out of the sport.
tribe – I’ve attended games where they showed the Launch Angle and Exit Velocity on the jumbotron after homeruns. Everyone around me was questioning why they were shown because NONE of them were interested.
Maybe it’s because the analytics geeks typically don’t attend games, they just like playing with the numbers from their home.
And this is coming from someone who loves working with numbers, it’s what I do for a living. But even I acknowledge too many meaningless stats shoved in people’s faces is a major turnoff. Most people enjoy seeing the distance in feet for homerun balls, or seeing the MPH on a pitch. But most of the new analytics are going way overboard.
It’s good knowing I’m not the only one who thinks like that. I’m all for technology and upgrades and all that stuff but baseball doesn’t need to be beat to death with all these numbers. It’s no fun and who really cares?
I work for a corporation where the snot-nosed punks with MBAs sitting in cubicles looking at spreadsheets all day long make all of our major decisions. They don’t know anything about our core business, and they’re arrogant enough to believe they don’t need to.
American businesses are in a bad place right now, and I guess baseball is no exception. The people in charge don’t know anything, and they don’t give those on the front lines credit for knowing anything. We’re experiencing the exact opposite of all of the employee involvement initiatives of 30 years ago.
It’s ridiculous to watch. Common sense out the window. That’s what baseball used to be. Common sense. People just knew what was going on,who they could count on to bat leadoff or cleanup. Gosh I miss those keep it simple days.
naugatuck – Bill James once said “I made baseball as much fun as doing your taxes.”
He wasn’t wrong.
naugatuck – I’ve been very vocal about many analytical changes that even Bill James disagrees with. You’re 100% right, no common sense. The biggest problem is teams letting formulas and algorithms do their thinking for them.
Case in point, it’s absolutely idiotic for a big strong slow slugger like Judge to be batting 2nd. Why on Earth would you have the game’s greatest homerun hitter batting second, knowing full well he will NEVER have more than one runner on base for his first AB and he will have below-average RBI opportunities with the #8 and #9 hitters batting directly before the leadoff hitter.
The analytics folks, with their typical tunnel vision, will say “Judge will get more PA’s in the 2-hole instead of the 3-hole or 4-hole.”
What they fail to realize is that Bill James himself has already proven the number of additional PA’s is negligible and Judge would drive in far more runs batting 3rd thru 5th. It’s common sense, yet the stat geeks still don’t get it.
And don’t even get me started on the automatic pulling of starting pitchers after going through a lineup twice, Snell was the poster child for that idiocy in the 2020 World Series.
Fever pitch you said it all right there. Couldn’t agree more.
@Fever: But aren’t home runs (records shattered almost every year) by tatted bodybuilders, strikeouts (records shattered almost every year) by staffs of mostly 100 mph monsters, and grounders (by guys who don’t actually understand hitting) into the shift what this magical sport is and always has been about??!
@Fever: Very well said! Why do you suppose the analytics guys don’t get it??
Perhaps it’s because they’re not actually stats geeks (not legitimately knowledgeable) but rather some level of token hire. Or executives’ nephews.
Haha, Yadi is so checked out.
Still had a couple hits yesterday though.
A vacation in the middle of a playoff run. That’s a new one.
Fine with me. Knizer has a .350 OBP in bottom of the lineup the last couple of months. No complaints on his catching. Hope Cards spend/trade for a big upgrade catcher as probably again not bidding for a death dealer SP. A spend for Willson Contreras I hope.
Wilson Conteras, I doubt it. Once Yadi retires they will use a platoon of Ivan Herrera and Andrew Kizner
I think they’ll sign a vet, but agree, not Contreras or any clear No. 1 catcher.
Yadi just didn’t want to have to deal Hudson. I don’t blame him.
No kidding. I’d love to see Hudson and some other roster clutter shipped off this winter.
Every team could always use a pitching upgrade, but I don’t even care anymore. I’m just tired of watching that guy stand on the mound between pitches.
I thought they would have chosen Pallante over Hudson. I guess they figure they wouldn’t want Hudson going in for high leverage situations, and hope he just eats 5-6 innings as a starter, win or lose.
Walks have been an issue his entire career but I’m willing to give him a Tommy John year on this one.
Angels should hire a true Team President with a Baseball acumen. Not Arte’s frat brother Mr. Carpino. Someone that up against Arte. I think Perry has the team going in the right direction. We have 4 good LH SP’s and Ohtani. in the Lineup we Have Ohtani,Trout, Rendon, Walsh. As far as Regifo it’s too early too tell if he’s really this good or on a hot streak. We got a couple solid prospects at the deadline. (Maybe our future starting catcher)We need a good solid LF and SS and the BP needs tweaking
You mention Jarred Walsh like he is positive asset. He has been horrible this year, borderline unplayable
BP needs tweaking or twerking? Ew.
This guy gets it. Carpino is his Eichmann. Everything has gone wrong since Carpino was promoted and worse yet, during every firing, Carpino has NEVER taken responsibility or bee the least apologetic for the inferior product hes created.
hes the cancer. Arte stinks, but its insane Carpino is still there.
We need a better coaching staff, a big investment in scounting and development. WArd is a star, Walsh has been unplayable.
I remember right after the Angels let Eppler go, Carpino came out and stayed « We have to take a long hard look at our organization and find out if someone is cannibalizing our organization’ I guess Carpino never looked in the mirror.
Walsh stinks, dude.
Ownership needs to let manager and coaches make all in game moves.
Cardinals are trying to be what the Mets are with Baty
What does this mean? Hope the current players get hurt so they can be replaced by prospects?
Infsale on the example to explain theories, routes and coordinations to understand situations, concepts and litigations.
Infsale???
Infrastructure. It’s this damn iPad!
Hope Gilbert flipped off the wall ⚾️
I take it Joe’s meaning of “infrastructure” is player development. I remember he wanted Jo Adell in the minors when they kept bringing him up. When I hear Guardian or Cardinal fans rave about a prospect it’s can’t wait to see him in 2024. W angel fans it’s “how soon can he be brought up to the majors?” And then like Joe said the coaches are getting the blame like they are now “fire the hitting coach”. Last year pitching was the blame. This year it’s the “hitting” or the “bottom third” nevermind the fielding and base running are still atrocious.
I always joke about Merlot Joe, leading the Angels to their 78 wins. Well, we are all seeing what the Angels are without Maddon… they’ll be lucky to win 68 games. Clearly, there are issues within the organization that go well beyond the coaches.
Maddon said what fans have been saying for years…that the front office is too involved on the field during the game. The manager should be making in game decisions. I don’t blame Minasian. Moreno is the only common thread over the last several years.
Maddon calling the shots, dictating what jobs merit his attention by meeting his exacting standards, and which ones are beneath him. He hee. Hee hee.
I personally think analytics have gotten out of hand. Do they have their place, yes, but they shouldn’t be the sole dictator of everything. The input/feelings/hunches of managers and coaches should be there.
Me too. All these stats identified by acronym make my head spin. Keep it simple for this simpleton. Give me OBS, a generic fielding % and a feel for a players injury history and I’m good to go.
All said, Maddon to Baltimore. He is a mentor to Hyde. Hyde has more than put in his time as on field manager. He changes in to kakis and polo shirt and crosses Ewtah (sp?) Street in to the warehouse. Joe goes to on field manager.
Translation – It’s the Angels owner.
Maddon after a breakup: “it’s not me. It’s you”
Dumpster – Maddon has had great success with two other franchises, one of which was very low budget.
Carpino and Moreno have not had success.
So yeah based on each of their track records it’s Carpino/Moreno, not Maddon.
And tampa has continued to have success with low budgets every year long after Joe was gone. Based on what Joe’s done since then I think he isn’t really in a position to be calling anyone out
Maddon was also a coach on the only Angels World Series Championship team with Scioscia as the Manager.
Getting rid of Mike Scioscia and Maddon, obviously, did not solve any problems.
It made the problems worse.
How about hiring a POB and GM that are cracker jack baseball guys
and leave them alone to do their jobs building the roster?!
And, then hire a Manager who is allowed to managed without
interference by the Front Office?!
Moreno needs to step back and concentrate on billboards and advertising…where he made his fortune.
He certainly does not have a “green thumb” running a baseball team.
From what Maddon describes, the Angels sound like a dysfunctional, lazy corporation that would rather assign all the blame to a particular pay grade, and not take any responsibility for the fact that it all starts with ownership in the first place. There, I said it. An Angels fan of over 30 years, and I’m saying right now that the Angels are a corporation selling you Trout and Ohtani more than they are a Major League franchise. Of course, the typical suit-and-tie executive would point that out drawing 3 million-plus 17 years straight, and streamlined income from a massive cable deal, to justify the mediocre performance on the field over the last decade. As long as we’re making money, right? Well, that should be the first priority of any owner. MLB is making passive income. But there are still franchises that make the proper effort to win. The Angels are making money at the expense of that.
Great points, Ryan – “selling you Trout & Ohtani.”
The problem most people don’t understand, is Arte doesn’t really make crap from ticket sales. The city gets all the money from fans paying for parking. Arte gets roughly 35 to 40% from the actual ticket sales. But, has to pay the stadium and parking lot employees out of that. Also has to pay the city, for the Police use of controlling traffic and having a presence in the parking lot before, during and after games. That is why he was trying to get a new stadium deal. Yes the Angels get 250 million per season for the TV deal. Granted that was top third in TV deals when he signed that 11 years ago. Now that’s bottom third, in the majors. There is 5 more years left on that tv deal, before it’s done with.
Moreno would have gotten his stadium deal if someone hadn’t have bribed the mayor and got caught.
Instead of passing out big giant contracts to allegedly healthy sluggers, perhaps Moreno should invest in the farm system and some quality major league pitchers.. Moreno is wary of pitchers after C.J. Wilson? OK, That’s one pitcher versus Wells, Hamilton, Upton, Rendon, and Pujols, and I know I’m forgetting a couple.. Why trade Iglesias if the club expects to compete in the next three years?
Disney wants the property that Angels sits on. The former mayor of Anaheim did a back room deal with Disney on the property. No media outlet will talk about it, because everyone is afraid of that rat. When the Anaheim City had the meeting about Arte buying the stadium, it was approved. Then Disney filed an injunction against the city, saying that they had already had a contract to buy that property. Again no one goes against the rat, because the control and own everyone. As far as pitching is concerned, he has tried bringing in guys. Some have went for bigger pay days. Some have taken less, for a better chance to win. The Angels offered 8 years 300 million. Any other time, the Angels would have been the highest bidder. Every other year or pitcher, that would have been more than enough.
And yet Scioscia was blamed for running off DiPoto for allegedly not being willing to use analytics. Now, the Angels use too much analytics?
DiPoto ran himself out of Anaheim. Now granted he learned from his constant bad trades he made with the Angels. And he also seems to have learned, the scouting department actually needs to know something about baseball. Instead of just being math geniuses. Five years of drafts with the Angels, the four best players he drafted. Ward, Fletcher, Walsh and garbage time CJ Cron. None of which is anything to get over all excited about. Went and payed way too much money, for a Cuban SS, that never made it passed Double A.
Well said, Joe Maddon. Unfortunately, the know-it-all, far removed bureaucrat types have crept into baseball. No measure of analytics can replace rapport. Impactful teachers understand this unchanging point.
Give it a rest. He’s becoming a sour old man and he thinks he knows more than everyone else meanwhile he’s collecting pogey from the govt. Like how is it the guy without a job is the one we should listen to?
Cold – you know nothing. Give that “a rest.” Have a good day.
“It’s at the point where some GM should really just put a uniform on and go down to the dugout, or their main analytical membrane, he should go down to the dugout….And what happens is when the performance isn’t what they think it should be, it’s never about the acquisitional process”
I love this. Preach, brutha, preach!
The suits are often very agile when it comes to dodging blame, and very adept at finding scapegoats lower down in the pecking order. And do you think they’ll take Maddon’s dare and stay in their lane? I doubt it.
Molina missing a game because he owns a basketball team. Wonder if Gehrig would have done that,lol. S O F T.
I mean, Gehrig?? THAT’S who you’re comparing him to?
Molina has made billionaire owner, Bill Dewallet, many millions of dollars over the years so he does what he wants to do. Although the Cardinals are fine without him, he is very selfish to not be with the Cardinals, especially since it’s his last year.
He’s 4th all time in games caught. If he wants to take games off, I think he’s earned it.
And how can you compare a 1st baseman with a catcher in terms of longevity? Excellent logic…
Gehrig.
Classic Maddon. Never his fault.
Well, he DID invent the game.
I love what he is saying about the “non sexy stuff” here. When you see teams that constantly develop players and get the best out of their existing ones it’s because they are doing all the right things behind the scenes.
You can’t just have a few shiny things in your lineup and expect success, organizations need to put in the work to build an entire system to prop up their players.
Add Klentak to the list of analytics failures.
Some people love to hate Joe Maddon, even when he happens to be right. There should be a proper mix of analytics and managers and coaches being allowed to do their jobs. What is wrong with this? After all, this is what successful teams do every single day.
Cub fans, he was the manager when the over 100-year old “curse” was finally broken. How many managers did the Cubs go through–including the year when they rotated the job among the coaches–before they finally won the World Series? Maddon deserves some credit, not all of it, but certainly some of it.
What is wrong with the Angels was not Maddon. It is Moreno, plain and simple. If he can’t hire decent baseball people and get out of the way, he needs to sell, or be made to sell.
Angel fans should remember what happened a little over 10 years ago when Dodger fans finally had it with McCourt. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, stopped showing up at games. MLB took note and made McCourt sell the team and the stadium.
Moreno has constructed a top-heavy team dependant on three guys, two of which seldom play nowadays. If Ohtani stays, it will remain this way for years. If he leaves, and the Angels get nothing for him, then what? Moreno fails to realize that Southern California loves baseball, and Angel fans will still show up if they have at least have hope for the future, if not today.
Moreno’s usual plans have been proven not to work for several years now. The very definition of insanity is doing the wrong thing repeatedly, thinking that if you do it over and over again, it will eventually work.
The Angels have the 27th ranked farm system. That is the place to start if Moreno truly wants this team to ever truly compete with the AL West teams, let alone his delusional “bitter rivalry” he has with the Dodgers. Someone also needs to tell him that pitchers are “a necessary evil” in the game of baseball since he seems to hate pitchers in general.
Since Maddon was fired, have the Angels improved in any area, or have they, in fact, regressed?
Your recollection of McCourts years as Dodgers owner is a bit off, It wasn’t simply some fan uprising and the MLB took note. McCourt 100% financed the $430m purchase then drove the team to bankruptcy which made the MLB take note.
Moreno on the other hand owns the Angels 100%, not financed. Moreno probably manages the team’s annual finances better than league average, but where he fails is the team front office and on-field performance.
He’s aggressive signing 2-3 stars but then pumps the brakes when payroll approaches $175-185m every damn year when (based on the whole 26 man roster) he should probably continue to be aggressive up to $235-240m for a 3-5 year window. This would give the 2-3 stars a supporting cast capable of winning now AND allow for prospects to be acquired & develop in the minors.
Agree that Arte needs to exceed his $190M budget for the next few years while Perry builds up the minor league system. This will allow the Angels to overcome their lack of depth until the pipeline of young talent can start arriving. If Arte doesn’t exceed his $190M budget in ’23, and the Angels have their usual rash of injuries, Shohei will leave.
More “leadership” from Yadi.
I dont think Molina wants to be there this year. He spent his time in Puerto Rico during his IL stint now he wants the weekend off to watch basketball.
The analytics should have told Perry his roster was well short of being a playoff roster, especially when they were 8 games into that losing streak…and subsequent 10 week collapse This wasn’t Maddon’s fault or any managers fault.
Purely a knee jerk reaction by Minasian he should be held responsible for. Just trying to save his butt. Not a guy you’d wanna be in the life raft with…
It pushed the team off a cliff and compounded the dysfunction exponentially.
Good luck signing any free agents or keeping ours! What a mess.
Maddon makes some very good points.
He performed well in Tampa and Chicago when the Front Office
just provided quality players and let him do his job.
The Angels Ownership/Front Office has been dysfunctional since
Arte Moreno purchased the ballclub.
Mike Scioscia clashed with the Front Office also.
Maddon clashed with the Front Office.
At some point, the Front Office needs to draft, sign and trade for better players
and then get out of the way and let the Manager manage.
Managing a baseball team should not be like a video game where you just plug
in statistical outcomes and let the computers decide all the moves.
The FO wants someone they can tell what to do and they will hop to it. Enter Phil Nevin. Arte didn’t have the knowledge to run a team. He let young GMs with analytics in their eyes chase out the baseball people who understand it is more than a spreadsheet of players’ tendencies.