Inside the MLB Culture Wars That Led to Joe Maddon’s Firing

The divide between old and new, manager and front office, data and art, Maddon and Minasian, reached a boiling point on May 9. The Angels had just scored five runs in the seventh inning against the Rays to turn a 6–3 lead into an 11–3 blowout. Ohtani hit a grand slam. The dugout was lively. Suddenly, head athletic trainer Mike Frostad walked up to Maddon at his usual perch on the top step of the dugout and said, “Perry just called down. He said get Trout out of the game.”

Earlier in the day Trout had complained about a bit of soreness in his groin. But later he told Maddon that the soreness dissipated, and he was fine.

To Maddon, Minasian broke a sacred code. The GM had called the dugout during a game to dictate strategy to the manager—a proven, veteran manager at that. To Minasian, he simply was deploying the power given to this generation of executives. Nothing was sacred. Nothing was out of bounds.

The next day Maddon blew up at Minasian in Maddon’s office. “Listen, don’t you ever f———call down to the dugout again!” Maddon said.

Twenty-six days later, he was gone. When Minasian fired him, Maddon offered him advice. He suggested that Minasian not bring Tamin on road trips. He did not tell Minasian to leave the coaches’ room to the coaches. “I was going to text him the next day to bring it up, but I chose not to,” Maddon says. “It was over.”

Joe Maddon sounds off on analytics in baseball: It’s not the info, it’s the imposition [$]

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Maddon: “I want analytical people on my staff. But I don’t want them in the dugout. I don’t want them in the clubhouse. I want them to do their job, give the work to the coaches, let the coaches then teach the players. I don’t need presenters in the dugout, I don’t need presenters in the clubhouse. … It’s getting to the point where their impact or authority is exceeding that of a coach. And that’s what I think is wrong.

“So I’m not arguing against analytics and information. I’m arguing against the methods and the imposition with coaches. Because at the point it is right now … every day we’d get ready for the game and Harry and Alex would come in and they would start talking about how I should use the bullpen that night. Like I haven’t done that for the last 40 years. When you do that, when these people do that, the game becomes cloudy. You’re in the dugout, you know what you’d like to do. But these people have come downstairs prior to the game, and they load you with stuff that’s not necessarily helpful.”

On how the manager’s authority has faded
Not so long ago, managers were among the best-known characters in the game, but they were also among the most powerful people in the game. The biggest decisions, day in and day out, were their decisions. The games were run the way they wanted them run. But those days are fading. And is the sport in a better place? We now know what Joe Maddon thinks!

Maddon: “You don’t have the same kind of authority or autonomy that you’ve had in the past. I mean, back in the day, these guys would never walk into Gene Mauch’s office, or into Billy Martin’s office, or into Earl Weaver’s office, and try to tell you how to utilize your players and then how to manage the game as it was in progress. That would never have occurred. So that’s what I’m talking about. There’s this interference and this method that’s being perpetrated.

“Because these groups — the baseball ops group — to me, their primary objective should be acquisition of players. It’s getting good players in your room. When you get good players in your room, any kind of analytics looks good.”

Fired Angels manager Joe Maddon having a blast, and blasting how some teams are run

“It’s like, once that happened, I dissolved my affiliation with them,” Maddon said. “There’s no emotion anymore. There’s no anything. It’s like to me they don’t even exist, organizationally.

“I still text with a lot of the players, I text with a lot of the staff. One of them called me (Friday). So we’re staying in touch.”

He said the Angels having a worse record since his firing — 25-38 through Friday — doesn’t impact his perspective.

“It doesn’t make me feel better, it doesn’t make me feel worse,” Maddon said. “Organizationally, I’m kind of numb to the whole thing. Because when you wish them badly, I’m wishing really good friends badly — and I can’t do that.”

Angels dismiss Maddon amid 12-game losing streak

The Angels relieved Joe Maddon of his duties as manager, the team announced on Tuesday. Phil Nevin, who had been the third-base coach, was named interim manager.

The move comes amid a 12-game losing streak that has dropped the Angels to under .500 at 27-29.

The next MLB manager on the hot seat — and the ones getting warmer — after Joe Girardi firing

The hottest seat
1. Joe Maddon, Angels. Through May 24, the Angels were 27-17 and Fangraphs gave them a 77 percent chance of making the playoffs. The 12-game losing streak they took into Tuesday night’s game against the Red Sox dropped L.A. to a 30.3.

The Angels are the AL version of the Phillies. They also have a franchise record payroll in 2022 and a long postseason drought (Philadelphia has the second longest in MLB, L.A. is tied for third longest). Like the Phillies when hiring Girardi, they also bypassed Showalter. Billy Eppler favored Showalter after the 2019 campaign. But by then he was a lame-duck GM with the Angels and owner Arte Moreno wanted Maddon. Imagine how different history would be if …

Now, how badly does Moreno want to protect Maddon? The sides didn’t even negotiate an extension last offseason. Eppler’s successor, Perry Minasian, hired Ray Montgomery as Maddon’s bench coach and — many in the industry believe — Maddon’s heir.

In the best of times, Maddon’s laidback style plays as calming. In the worst of times, it plays as checked out. Do Minasian, who didn’t hire Maddon, and — more importantly — Moreno believe Maddon’s style will resuscitate the talented Angels? Or like the Phillies, do the Angels decide there is too much invested in this season not to try to defibrillate with a new voice and go with the bench coach, like the Phils did with Rob Thomson replacing Girardi? It really just seems a question of when — during this season or after.