Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, June 07, 2022
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.
|
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. Walt Davis Posted: June 07, 2022 at 04:35 PM (#6080439)Me neither, and I don't think I agree with it. But I'll see what the Angels fans think.
And yet...they just aren't that good.
The American League, even with six playoff spots, is looking increasingly like three division winners and then the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-place teams from the AL East as the wild cards. For the Angels, they probably have to win their division to make the playoffs - and that's not happening.
Eventually, regardless of the reasons for this failure despite these two centerpiece stars, you fire the manager.
The six-man rotation IS working, but the bullpen has nosedived during this stretch. Tepera and Loup have been bad, and Iglesias has been particularly horrible, with two blown saves and four losses in his last seven games. I DO think it's Maddon's fault for having six starters (5.5 of whom have been solid) and still somehow overusing his bullpen.
I think the team's a lot better than 27-29, but given what's happened, it's hard to see them making a serious playoff run now.
As to Maddon's HOF case - unless he gets another shot I don't see it. 754-705 with 1 WS title and 1 WS loss (8 playoff appearances, 4 as a wild card). Cito Gaston is never talked about for the HOF but has 2 WS titles and a 894-837 record (5 playoff appearances, all pre-wild card)
Ohtani will do it in his spare time.
Neither managerial change will fix the two teams' underlying problems although they may cause their players to be a little more relaxed in the short term.
mmmmm- "real baseball people"?-that kinda surpises me, although it was apparently well-known that he and GM Perry Minasian didn't get along
I always figured he was temperamentally suited to the situation in Tampa Bay where he was able to deflect attention and pressure from the younger players to let them grow into things, with a front office was happy to try and develop oddball counter-intuitive strategies (with less pressure because the Yankees and Red Sox were expected to win), but that once he got to Chicago and Anaheim, he had players who didn't necessarily want his Spirit Week stunts and who were in a position to push back on how they were used, plus higher-ups who expected to be #1.
Same folks. Good site. FYI.
I can’t believe they fired Maddon. This will change nothing. And I hate Phil Nevin running things. He’s a poor man’s Terry Collins.
Yuk.
[EDIT] Coke to Hombre
I don't think this is all that unique though - in that time-span the Yankees also have drafted only two players who have gotten to 5 career WAR (admittedly one of them is Aaron Judge) (and not counting Jon Gray, who they drafted in the 10th round but couldn't sign).
It’s really quite remarkable how bad the farm system has been the last few years. Artie’s active “management” of the teams hasn’t done them any favors either (signing Gary Mathews Jr, Pujols, Hamilton, etc, trading for Vernon wells and Kazmir, etc)
In the later years in Chicago there was an undercurrent of this as well. The Cubs front office said in one postseason press conference that launch angle is not a fad. I think the latest turn of analytics into Statcast and the rise of a new level of Big Data left Maddon a bit cold. As front offices have bought into it with both feet, Maddon is on the outs more.
I can't comment on Anaheim, but the Cub players never had any problem with him. Relations worsened with the front office (as seen in the first part of this post). Also, he rather strangely wasn't bulletproof with the fans after '16. In fact, pretty much every pitching move he made in Games Six and Seven of the World Series were questioned in real time - and many backfired immediately. People still liked him as a manager overall, but felt the Cubs had to overcome him in those games to win. Then the Cubs spent a few years regressing instead of improving or maintaing, and the fans threw their lot in with Theo & Jed.
He also had considerable help from the other dugout.
Anyway, good riddance. On top of his success annoying me as a Red Sox fan, he seemed like one of the guys most likely to use the passive voice around hit-by-pitch situations, saying that "something was going to happen".
Cardinals have six who have accumulated at least 5 WAR with them, plus another four with 5+ combined WAR with multiple teams.
The Mets have 5 on their team right now - deGrom, Nimmo, McNeil, Alonso and Lugo. I think the rest of the list is Harvey and Conforto.
Limiting things to the draft is kinda weird. I'd credit any team for any player who exceeds rookie limits with them. Smart enough to trade a vet when you're out of contention and get a good prospect (e.g., Gleyber)? Good on you. Signed an undrafted free agent (e.g., Severino)? Well done. Turned some longtime minor leaguer into something useful (e.g., Chad Green)? I wonder what that team recognized and/or adjusted with that player.
The Angels would still have only Calhoun and Fletcher. SIGH.
I didn't have a dog in that hunt, and obviously Francona and Maddon have been very successful overall, but the grandstanding maneuvering by both of them was nothing like I've ever seen before or since. it was a like bizarro poker game where each manager tried to come up with the most clever way to lose the Series.
then it came down to the very last card - and Francona flipped over a 4 OPS+ regular season/hitless postseason Michael Martinez to make the last out. Maddon did all he could, but he was stuck with the trophy and immortality in Wrigleyville. well played, Mr. Francona, well played.
Absolutely. I was just taking an angle on developing new talent. The point, ultimately—and I don't say this as if I'm educating anyone—is that the good teams find and develop talent in all sorts of ways and us focusing on only one area (e.g., the draft) isn't apt to indicate much about any particular organization.
Cubs have four, all in the first round: Happ, Schwarber, Bryant, and Baez. Couple more guys on the current roster over 3 and heading in the right direction with Hoerner and Thompson. Then there's Bote, still around and also over 3, although he's been heading in the wrong direction the last couple years and is hurt now.
Going by NaOH's standard ("exceeded rookie limits"), you'd add Rizzo, Hendricks, and Addison Russell.
Good luck, Phil!
I'm not sure they developed Trout at all. He showed up in the minors and performed way over his head at the age of 17. He was in the majors at 19. At 20 he was the best player in the game and he has been ever since. He has refined skills that major league teams don't even purport to teach at the major league level ever since.
Are they good or bad at development? Hell, I don't know. But Mike Trout was going to be a superstar no matter who drafted him.
I DO think it's Maddon's fault for having six starters (5.5 of whom have been solid) and still somehow overusing his bullpen.
That's a funny thing. You'd think a move from the 4 to 4.5 to 5-man rotation would increase IP/start as it decreased starts ... but it never did or not for very long at least. So 2022 Angels average 5.1 IP/GS with Lorenzen (a workhorse at 6.0) the only one over 5.3. The ML average is 5.1. Now if the 6-man rotation helps keep Ohtani's arm and bat fresh then it's probably still worth it; otherwise it's just shifting some innings for every starter to Chase Silseth which seems not a great idea at least in the short term (he's just 22 though).
I become more intrigued by the idea of the 4-man, 4-5 IP/start idea all the time. Give Cole his usual 180-200 IP spread across 40 starts and keep those #5/6 starters off the field as much as possible -- teams are gonna use 25 different relievers anyway.
Back to Maddon, as I posted in the other thread ... 10 games back in just 60 games in 2020, 18 back last year, already 8.5 back this year. Something's definitely not working. Sure looks more personnel-related that managerial but ya gotta start somewhere. The Upton comparison is kinda apt -- Maddon's a very expensive manager but he's not producing.
Eh, the guy that ran Halos Heaven wrote a terrible column about Josh Hamilton's addiction and got canned, but a lot of the readers left with him to his new site. It's been a ghost town since. That and the Padres site are pretty empty, but the rest of the baseball sites are pretty active from what I can tell (full disclosure, I run the Royals site)
Kevin Cash is a better manager than Maddon.
That guy (Halofan) was an occasional primate. For some reason, many of our Angel fans defended him, but he has a history of awfulness. Some of it was on display at BTF.
Rookie status relies on AB rather than PA, for some unknown reason. Rizzo had 153 PA but he walked a ton, so he only had 128 AB (130 AB is the limit). Presumably enough of his service days came in September, when they don't count against rookie status.
Mike Trout had 135 PA but only 124 AB in his "pre-rookie" year.
That wasn't the only time he acted terribly. And he was almost always a troll when he posted here.
That isn't factoring in their insane skill on the IFA front (Alejandro Kirk - signed September 2016 for next to nothing), Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (signed Nov 2016 to a $20+ mil deal that runs out after next season), among others.
Yes, it is nice being a Jays fan right now. Vlad was signed in 2015 btw. The Jays did all this while never losing 100 games, their worse was 95 losses in 2019 (still not last in their division). In fact the Jays have lost 90+ only twice this century.
I agree that Trout was going to be awesome no matter who drafted him, but I give the Angels credit because...they drafted him, and a bunch of teams skipped over him. He was the 25th pick of the 1st round; of the 24 players elected ahead of him, 10 have 0 career WAR or less (some have negative WAR from a cup of coffee in the bigs). Some of those 10, of course, never even made the major leagues. It is such a crapshoot, but if you pick Mike Trout, you get credit for it, period.
I also give the Angels credit for not getting too cute with figuring out how to pay him to stay with the Angels. Take it from this Red Sox fan who saw Mookie get traded away because they determined they couldn't possibly sign him to an extension...it isn't a gimme. Wayne Gretzky eventually left Edmonton. Lebron left Cleveland (and came back, and left again, but whatever). Brady left the Patriots. It is not a gimme that these generational stars are going to stay with your team forever, so to the extent that they were able to come up with a deal that kept him there - they get credit for that, too.
But they lose some credit for not being able to help keep him healthy, and they obviously lose credit for being unable to put a quality team around him. They are in the LA market, have plenty of money, have Mike Trout, have Ohtani...how are they not able to put together a sustained quality team around these assets? And it is actually hurting the sport, because the best player *Trout) and most marketable player (Ohtani) are somehow still toiling in relative anonymity, because the team always sucks.
The moralizing was clearly phony, as the underlying reason for the author's criticism of Hamilton was because he was a poor acquisition for his favorite baseball team.
He kinda did.
2010
40+ WAR: Donaldson, Sale, Stanton, Freeman
30+: Heyward, Cain, Strasburg, Santana (didn't know he'd been that good)
20+: Arrieta, Austin Jackson (!), Kimbrel
15+: A Chapman, Minor, K Jansen, S Castro, Lucroy, Leake, Dyson, Ramos
2011
40+: Trout, Goldschmidt, Altuve
30+: Rizzo, K Seager, Kluber, B Crawford, S Perez, Lynn
20+: JDM, DJL, Belt, Carpenter, T Frazier, Kipnis (remember him?), Duffy, Teheran, Blackmon
15+: Hosmer, Miley, Lawrie (not Lowrie), Eovaldi, Cozart (remember him?)
2012
40+: Machado, Harper
30+: Andrelton, S Marte
20+: Segura, Darvish, B Dozier, Quintana, Pollock, Cespedes, Bauer, Grandal, Keuchel
15+: Didi, Eaton, Y Gomes, Iwakuma, Corbin, Calhoun
2013
40+: Arenado
30+: Yelich, Rendon, Cole, Kiermaier, Bogaerts, Semien
20+: S Gray, Wheeler, Schoop, Wong, Ozuna, Ryu
15+: Puig, JBJ, Roark, Gausman, Pillar
2014 (a pretty shallow year)
40+: Betts, DeGrom
30+: Springer
20+: Abreu, Realmuto, Baez, Hendricks
15+: Inciarte, Stroman, Tanaka, Pham, C Taylor, E Hernandez, Suarez, Ray, D Peralta
2015
30+: Correa, Lindor
20+: Bryant, T Turner, Nola, C Seager
15+: K Marte, Buxton, Kepler, Conforto, Noah, Muncy, Gallo
2016
20+: Judge, Story, Bregman, Contreras
15+: Olson, T Anderson, Merrifield, Marquez
10+: Haniger, Benintndi, Clevinger, Nimmo, Y Gurriel, Manaea, Snell, Moncada, Fulmer, Taillon, Wendle, A Frazier, Berrios, Margot, Giolito, Swanson, Mancini, Musgrove
I'll stop there. Quick point is to point out that if your team has developed a Schoop, Wong, Austin Jackson, Benintendi, Mancini then that's a significant development success. Somebody like Kyle Schwarber over his 7 "seasons" prior to 2022 had about 4 full seasons of PAs and 9 WAR -- it's a long, hard road to be a genuine impact player.
The Angels haven't had a .500 season since 2015.
Again, it's not quite right to limit it to the draft. The Cubs also have Jorge Soler, Willson Contreras, Welington Castillo, Hector Rondon.
It's kinda fascinating, but not surprising, that Todd Frazier and Jason Kipnis debuted the same year as Trout, did quite well, but their careers are already over. Chalie Blackmon will be joining them soon enough.
Call it 34 starters plus the 3 big closers of this era (all in 2011 ... interesting).
It would be interesting to see a team breakdown if somebody wants to take that one. The DBacks seem to have done pretty well -- Goldschmidt, Pollock, Eaton, Peralta, Corbin, K Marte, Inciarte, drafted Swanson, traded for young Didi and Robbie Ray. Hasn't done them a lot of good and Peralta and Marte are the only two still around.
I didn't limit it to the draft, which is why I made sure to mention Rizzo, Hendricks, and Russell.
Castillo and Contreras were both acquired pre-2010, so I excluded them, because the initial criteria put forth was "drafted" 2010 and after.
Soler doesn't meet the criteria - only 1.1 WAR with the Cubs (and only 4.3 total).
Same with Rondon - only 4 WAR with the Cubs and 4.9 overall.
If you drop the threshold to 5+ you get such luminaries as Robinson Chirinos, Martin Perez, Rougned Odor, Delino DeShields, Jurickson Profar, Nomar Mazara, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Adolis Garcia. (They did not develop Garcia either but they gave him a shot in the majors.) Some of those guys had good years (Perez is back and having one now for them), but as a collection it's pretty much "minimum necessary to maintain a major-league team on the field" which squares with their W-L record for the last 5 years or so.
Meanwhile several awesome, very young stars have debuted since 2016 – none of them with Texas.
I guess things can only get better
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main