Joe Maddon is out in Anaheim.
It was a little startling to hear the news, but admittedly, I didn’t fully know what was going on over there between San Diego and Los Angeles. I knew the Angels had been a ton of fun early in the year. I knew they’d lost twelve straight entering yesterday. I didn’t realize Maddon was on a lame duck contract, and it’s interesting that Maddon was hired prior to 2020 while general manager Perry Minasian came in a year later. Each has spoken highly of the other, but it does seem that they probably clashed.
I don’t have much to say beyond that about the firing itself, or rather, what I could say doesn’t seem particularly interesting. As we said about Joe Girardi last week, firing a manager is a way to shake up a clubhouse, and it’s also a way to buy yourself some time by throwing the media and fans a shiny object. You could argue that hiring the worst manager possible heading into a rebuilding year isn’t a terrible idea. Remember Bobby Valentine’s stint with the Red Sox? That team won the World Series the next season. The Angels are among baseball’s least efficient organizations measured by the ratio between dollars spent and playoff appearances. The fact they were so reliant on Taylor Ward, a 28-year-old who entered the season with 0.1 career fWAR and no remaining hype as a prospect, says a lot.
What feels more worthy of discussion today is what this means for Joe Maddon, and what we should think of Joe Maddon, and how good of a manager Joe Maddon is and was.
Joe Maddon burst onto the scene in 2008, managing that motherlode of developed prospects in Tampa Bay all the way to the American League pennant. That was the mohawk team. That was the irreverent team. That was the team that introduced us all to Joe Maddon.
Over his time in St. Petersburg, Maddon won two AL East titles and, after his first two years, never finished in last place despite navigating that division at a time when even the Blue Jays and Orioles were competitive. The Rays were not fully what they are now—so far ahead on the numbers that they continue to catch everyone by surprise—but they gave Maddon talent, and it was hard to fault him for what he did with it. The Rays went 2-4 in postseason series. They won 90 or more games five times in a six-year stretch.
When the winning-record streak broke in 2014, Maddon left the Rays organization. Immediately, he was plucked by the Cubs, who’d been thrilled with Rick Renteria that season but understandably jumped at a guy with a track record of both working with analytics (Maddon had famously interviewed with Theo Epstein in Boston after the Grady Little firing, and I believe the story goes that he brought the same thick binder of analytics he brought with him to meet Andrew Friedman in Florida two years later) and getting a lot out of young talent.
The hire, for all intents and purposes, worked. The Cubs won 97 games in Maddon’s first year, toppled the Cardinals in the Division Series, then won the 2016 World Series as prospect after prospect debuted, found his footing, and thrived under the famously loose manager. In 2017, the team started brutally cold but rallied in the second half, eventually running out of gas against the mighty Dodgers in the NLCS. In 2018, the team won 95 games but was caught at the finish line by the Brewers as the offense, as Epstein put it, “broke.” A late-season swoon in 2019 later, and Maddon was moving on, eventually landing in Anaheim.
There’s a narrative being built around the firing—and it’s supported by Maddon’s own comments about the analytics having gone too far—that he’s too old-school to manage in the modern game. That seems wrong. What’s more accurate, judging by his track record, is that Maddon excels at managing young, talented teams and struggles at managing older crews more susceptible to complacency. Under him, the Rays probably overachieved. Under him at the beginning, the Cubs probably overachieved. Under him at the end, the Cubs probably underachieved. Under him, the Angels probably underachieved.
It’s dangerous to put too much stock in wins and losses with managers, as that ties them too strongly to the personnel bestowed upon them. Without a wins-above-replacement equivalent, we’re stuck guessing, but the simple, clear explanation of Maddon’s abilities is what we just laid out, with nothing to really cause us to second guess it. If you have a massive crop of talent coming into the league and you want to get the most out of those players, Maddon’s probably an effective option, a guy who can take the pressure off. If you have a more professional, more established locker room, Maddon’s shtick probably won’t work as well. I don’t know how teams in the debuting-slate-of-prospects mold (the Orioles, the Diamondbacks, the Pirates soon, the Mariners) feel about their managers, but if you were one of those teams, Maddon might be a great fit. If the White Sox fire Tony La Russa, I’m not sure Maddon would slot in as nicely. One interesting team to watch? The Dodgers have a lot of talent coming up soon and a sometimes-fraught relationship with Dave Roberts. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Chris Taylor will all be veterans on next year’s team, but Maddon was effective with Jon Lester, John Lackey, and Ben Zobrist once upon a time with a young crop beneath them.
If this is the end for Joe Maddon’s managerial career, it won’t be a shock. The man is 68 years old. Will he make the Hall of Fame? I don’t know. The last managers to be inducted were Bobby Cox, La Russa, and Joe Torre, all brought in back in 2014. That’s a pretty high bar to clear, in terms of the perceptions of all those coaches. You’d probably need more of a Hall of Fame scholar to parse it out. But I do suspect that Maddon is not remembered for his time in Anaheim, which will be a strange piece of trivia, or even for the ending in Chicago. He’ll be remembered for 2016. He’ll be remembered for 2008. He might be arrogant, sometimes too-smart-by-half. He might not be the full-on sage he was once made out to be. But in a specific set of circumstances, he was and may still be one hell of a manager.
More on the Angels
After the firing yesterday, the Angels dropped their 13th straight, and Mike Trout left the game with a groin injury. Just great stuff right now in Anaheim.
Without going too deep down this rabbit hole, it’s worth remembering how sunk the Angels were without Trout for so much of last year, and it’s worth acknowledging that Anthony Rendon is also hurt, and it’s worth recognizing that the Noah Syndergaard prove-it deal hasn’t yet been a slam dunk, and it’s worth asking whether it makes a lot of sense to pay those three players and Justin Upton (who was designated for assignment in April) nearly two thirds of the team’s payroll. It’s a lot of eggs in very few baskets.
NL East News
Pete Alonso was hit on the hand last night with a pitch, and while x-rays came back negative, that’ll be something to monitor over the days ahead. For Washington, Stephen Strasburg will make his first start since June 1st of last year tomorrow, returning from a surgery which addressed thoracic outlet syndrome.
Aaron Rodgers: Packer for Life?
Aaron Rodgers said yesterday that he’d retire as a Packer, with the smile-accompanied couching of an, “unless they trade me.”
It’s funny to “analyze” this, because the comments themselves are straightforward: Aaron Rodgers said he plans on retiring as a Packer. Still, there’s the desire to analyze, because that’s what we’re used to doing with Aaron Rodgers right now. The bottom line? Anything can happen, but Rodgers is not communicating any sort of discontent with Green Bay as an organization, which is a good thing for the Packers; Also, the Packers hold the ability to move him along if they reach a point where they’d prefer Jordan Love (or some hypothetical other quarterback). It would be special if Aaron Rodgers spent his whole career with the Packers, and this does point towards that being a little more likely than the already-fairly-likely it appeared to be before the comments, but there’s nothing seismic here.
Are the Lightning Inevitable?
The Lightning looked unstoppable last night against the Rangers, and we see this go both ways in hockey. Sometimes, the dominant-looking team really is incapable of losing. Sometimes, they just got a great game out of their goalie.
Something to remember with the Rangers is that all playoffs, they’ve surprised. They’ve gone down, they’ve come back, they’ve looked bad, they’ve looked good again, they’ve now been ahead and given up the advantage. The feeling around the Lightning is that they have the higher ceiling, and that they’re playing up around that ceiling right now, but what’s a couple games? This team seems more vulnerable than last year’s, right?
On the side of our betting, Gelo’s had a rough few days in single-game bets, which is a shame after it really surged last week. We’re also on the bad side of zero in our futures portfolio eROI, but we do have a plan, for whatever that’s worth. As always with such efforts, we need some help. Going to try to go through scenarios tonight or tomorrow morning and outline the hedging approach over these last six to ten games.
What’s the Script?
Game 3 of the NBA Finals is tonight, and in a fun twist, there isn’t an obvious way for it to go. On the one side, it’s believable that the Warriors have figured out the Celtics’ offense, but if figuring out the Celtics offense means forcing it to shoot threes and the Celtics—playing at home, which could add shooting comfort—get a great night out of Al Horford or Derrick White or someone else, does that make it all hinge on threes? What adjustments has each side made since Sunday? How healthy is healthy for everybody?
I’m very admittedly not a huge NBA guy, but this specific game makes me wish I was more of one. I’m feeling a little like the guy outside the bar window while everyone’s in there laughing. Enjoy it, ye who know the Association better than myself (and actually like basketball—yes, I’m shading you, Reddit bois).
The Cubs Are Worse Than the Orioles
The Cubs have evidently been neck and neck with the Orioles all season, but after last night, they trail Baltimore by half a game, which is a jarring thing to write. That’s where things are at now.
Keegan Thompson had a rough one, allowing three home runs in three innings of work while striking out just one. Those sort of outings happen for most pitchers, but it was probably a good pumping of the breaks for the Thompson hype train. He’s having a great year, and his sample size is getting up there (he’s only five innings behind last year’s total), but he was below replacement-level in 2021 and his FIP’s just 4.44 this year (though the xERA is 3.22). With every Cubs youngster except Seiya Suzuki and, until recently, Nick Madrigal, the likeliest assumption is that it will not work out. A number of them will, but that’s for the same reason that it’s likelier you’ll draw a face card in ten tries from a full deck than it is that any one card is a face card. (All of that said, there were seven home runs hit between the two teams, so it may have partially been a home run sort of evening.)
In roster news: Jonathan Villar unexpectedly did not come off the IL yesterday. Alec Mills did, though, and after David Ross said he’d be available in any role, that role was mop-up duty. Mills was, remember, the Cubs’ best starting pitcher last year. That wasn’t saying very much. In the corresponding move, Anderson Espinoza was optioned back to AAA. Meanwhile, David Bote has evidently been dealing with intermittent dizziness, and he’s going to get that checked out. Rough break with him so close to returning.
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Viewing schedule (second screen rotation in italics):
- 12:35 PM EDT: Tigers @ Pirates, Faedo vs. Keller (MLB TV)
- 2:10 PM EDT: Toronto @ Kansas City, Kikuchi vs. Singer (MLB TV)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Mariners @ Astros, Gilbert vs. Urquidy (MLB TV)
- 7:05 PM EDT: Cubs @ Orioles, Stroman vs. Lyles (MLB TV)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Dodgers @ White Sox, Gonsolinl vs. Cueto (MLB TV)
- 8:10 PM EDT: Phillies @ Brewers, Nola vs. Houser (MLB TV)
- 8:30 PM EDT: Texas vs. Oklahoma, Game 1 – Women’s College World Series Championship (ESPN)
- 9:00 PM EDT: Warriors @ Celtics, Game 3 (ABC)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Mets @ Padres, Bassitt vs. Manaea (MLB TV)
