OC Register: Joe Maddon: ‘There’s no emotion anymore’ with Angels

[AngelsWin.com]

DETROIT — With the Angels about to head to Tampa, where Joe Maddon first established as a successful big-league manager, Maddon spoke to the Tampa Bay Times about the Angels firing him and what he’s been doing the past two months.

Maddon, who was fired June 7, said he’s already lost his emotional ties to the Angels.

“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.”

The Angels were 27-29 when Maddon was fired. They have since gone 25-39.

Maddon told the Times that the Angels have some work to do in order to get back to contention. The team is on its way to its seventh consecutive losing season, and its eighth in a row without making the playoffs.

“The infrastructure needs to be improved. There’s a lot of things that need to be improved there,” Maddon said. “These guys can’t do it alone, obviously. 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. That was my goal, to get the Angels back to where we had been in the past. That was it. Nothing but pure intentions. I was an Angel. They had every ounce of me. And now that’s done.”

Maddon also repeated his frustration with the way many front offices – not just the Angels – have put too much emphasis on analytics, at the expense of relying on the experience of the manager and coaches. He had said that in interviews with Southern California reporters on the day he was fired.

“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,” he said.

“That’s something that should be done. Because they try to work this middle man kind of a thing. And what happens is when the performance isn’t what they think it should be, it’s never about the acquisitional process. 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.”

WEATHER WATCH

The forecast for Detroit on Sunday did not look promising, so the two teams were preparing for the possibility that the series finale would have to be postponed by rain.

If they are unable to play, the Angels would most likely return to Detroit on Sept. 15, following a three-game series in Cleveland.

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Shohei Ohtani is scheduled to pitch Sunday. If the game is postponed, the Angels would simply move him to Monday for the start of the series in Tampa.

If it looks like they will play Sunday’s game, but with the chance for delays, the Angels still could opt to move Ohtani back to Monday so they don’t run the risk of losing his outing because of a long rain delay.

UP NEXT

Angels (RHP Shohei Ohtani, 10-7, 2.69) at Tigers (LHP Eduardo Rodriguez, 1-3, 4.38), 10:40 a.m. Saturday, Bally Sports West, 830 AM

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[tdawg87]

[Angelsfan1984]

So the guy who walked someone with the bases loaded said teams shouldn’t rely on analytics? Oh ok. 
 

bitter ex girlfriend vibes

[Taylor]

[Make Angels Great Again]

This outta be good.

[mmc]

He's right about us being fundamentally broken but he did absolutely nothing to change that when he was here lmao

[Angel Oracle]

[cals]

Same guys who thought the angels would rebound after firing him gonna bad mouth him again.  Bring it on, morons.  

[Angel Oracle]

[ten ocho recon scout]

13 minutes ago, mmc said:

He's right about us being fundamentally broken but he did absolutely nothing to change that when he was here lmao

Oh, I'm sorry. I guess it was someone else who shaved their head into a Mohawk then?

 

(And now it's funny to imagine when he gave this interview, that he's an old man with a few months grown out Mohawk. Like the sides have grown back but the top is still real long, and everyone who talks to him face to face can't help but stare)

(And then you imagine an old man, but with his money, going to get a drink the day he was fired. And he's at some high end restaurant having a glass of wine with a few other old guys, but he has a mohawk)

(And when he came home that night, after being fired, he just wanted to pet his dog and feel better. But his dog wouldn't let him get close, and kept barking at him, because his hair made the dog think he was a stranger)

Edited August 20, 2022 by ten ocho recon scout

[halomatt]

I love analytics in baseball.  However, I suspect he may be correct.  I've wondered if the analytics (and analysts) are telling guys to expect this pitch or that pitch in this count, and instead of relying on talent, they rely on past outcomes handed to them.  If analytics is the strongest voice in the room, and it's treated as dogma, guys like Walsh with the quick wrists might be somewhat neutered by thinking (or "expecting") too much. 

It sort of reminds me of the defensive analytics last year.  Slightly different issue but over-reliance on analytics was perhaps a factor, especially when treated as the ONLY way to position defense. 

It's all speculative, since I'm not in the room, but it might explain the lack of success and the perceived inability of the hitting coaches to help the players adjust. 

[thebloob]

Yet the analytics for defensive shifts are so effective they feel the need to ban them. 

[Second Base]

Maddon isn't wrong, but let's not pretend like he was the answer.

Managers are not important to game outcomes whatsoever. They all manage the game the same exact way, and those that don't, like Maddon, are prone to making stupid mistakes. Your average fan likely makes similar game time decisions. 

What's broken with this team goes far beyond the old man in the dugout. 

[BTH]

Hopefully he complained about the lack of infrastructure to Moreno and Carpino while he was with still the Angels and isn’t just whining about it after the fact.

He’s right. But it seems like if anyone could’ve influenced Arte on that aspect, it would’ve been Maddon right after Arte fired Ausmus to hire Maddon.

[BTH]

Also, I’m glad that he’s no longer managing this team.

Like it or not, a manager nowadays needs to be fully on board with analytics. And Maddon clearly wasn’t.

[Justin]

I don't think any manager would have done better with this group. Firing him was a Hail Mary, hoping something might change, and nothing did. 

That being said, the guy annoys me and I'm glad he's gone. He reminds me of the fat, loud slob who owns a bar and pours free drinks for the pretty girls and thinks that somehow makes him cool or sexy. Then when the girls go home with guys who aren't fat slobs, he exclaims "I don't care about those girls anyway."

But everyone knows he does. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

51 minutes ago, Justin said:

I don't think any manager would have done better with this group. Firing him was a Hail Mary, hoping something might change, and nothing did. 

I think this is the key point.

Maddon may or may not have been a great manager. I have no idea 

But this team has been poorly constructed for years. And I used to point this out all the time in the Sosh years.

Managers can lose games. Pulling or not pulling pitchers at the right time.

But it's hard for anyone who's not playing the game themselves to make the guys actually playing good or bad.

Most people from this board could have had good success "coaching" in the 2000s, with that roster. Most of us couldn't do much worse with this lineup.

"Hey, Shohei! Go out there and try to hit the ball hard! The rest of you.... uh... try! Try really hard! Try your best!"

[Inside Pitch]

1 hour ago, mmc said:

He's right about us being fundamentally broken but he did absolutely nothing to change that when he was here lmao

Part of what was broken was a front office trying to play the game as it works today and a manager wanting to play like it's 1985.

1 hour ago, halomatt said:

I love analytics in baseball.  However, I suspect he may be correct.  I've wondered if the analytics (and analysts) are telling guys to expect this pitch or that pitch in this count, and instead of relying on talent, they rely on past outcomes handed to them.  If analytics is the strongest voice in the room, and it's treated as dogma, guys like Walsh with the quick wrists might be somewhat neutered by thinking (or "expecting") too much. 

Teams have charted pitches/pitchers since day one.  Batter's have looked for pitcher tendencies forever.  The only thing analytics attempts to do is take those things and put them under the microscope, try to gain insight..  The Red Sox went how long without winning a WS only to win three after hiring Bill James.  Ditto the Cubs with the same analytically driven GM driving the action there.  Analytics isn't the problem, it's the poor usage or complete ignorance of said analytics that can bite you in the ass.

There is a lot of truth to the game becoming much more boring, more predictable because of analytics -- three outcome baseball is boring AF..  I'd never want to see them completely stop running the bases or doing nothing but station to station baseball, but I wouldn't want to see a team that lacked the tools to play that way push the issue and I sure as shit wouldnt want to see them seek out players lacking in more important areas just to try to build a team that can play that style of baseball..  When it's all said and done, I'm willing to bet people find winning much more fun than losing.

1 hour ago, halomatt said:

It sort of reminds me of the defensive analytics last year.  Slightly different issue but over-reliance on analytics was perhaps a factor, especially when treated as the ONLY way to position defense. 

You have it backwards.

This was my main beef for the better part of two years, so much so that guys like Fletcher thought I was complaining about the use of the shift instead of what I had actually said  -- that the team was seemingly ignoring the data and doing WTF ever it wanted to do.  They shifted when the data said not to, then they would where there was no need.  Then for shit's and giggles they pitched opposite to how they aligned themselves defensively -- it was pure madness. 

Fast forward a year, suddenly the team's defensive alignments typically mirror what the available data shows and amazingly the team's pitching and defense are vastly improved.  The big difference -- they stopped ignoring the data.

1 hour ago, halomatt said:

It's all speculative, since I'm not in the room, but it might explain the lack of success and the perceived inability of the hitting coaches to help the players adjust. 

I dont have any insight into the inner workings of the dugout either, but the coaching staff in play was assembled by the guy they fired.  If they shared the same view of how to play the game it would be super silly to think shit-canning Maddon was going to magically turn his coaches into seamheads.

[Inside Pitch]

1 hour ago, Trendon said:

Also, I’m glad that he’s no longer managing this team.

Like it or not, a manager nowadays needs to be fully on board with analytics. And Maddon clearly wasn’t.

I argued hours before he was fired that it would be pointless to fire him, but I too am glad he's gone.  But firing him was just sort of pointless unless he was creating issues behind the scenes and I doubt that was happening.

[Swordsman78]

2 hours ago, cals said:

Same guys who thought the angels would rebound after firing him gonna bad mouth him again.  Bring it on, morons.  

Not many thought that.  Maybe 1 or 2

[Angel Oracle]

2 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Oh, I'm sorry. I guess it was someone else who shaved their head into a Mohawk then?

 

(And now it's funny to imagine when he gave this interview, that he's an old man with a few months grown out Mohawk. Like the sides have grown back but the top is still real long, and everyone who talks to him face to face can't help but stare)

(And then you imagine an old man, but with his money, going to get a drink the day he was fired. And he's at some high end restaurant having a glass of wine with a few other old guys, but he has a mohawk)

(And when he came home that night, after being fired, he just wanted to pet his dog and feel better. But his dog wouldn't let him get close, and kept barking at him, because his hair made the dog think he was a stranger)

The only real hawk

[Stradling]

2 hours ago, cals said:

Same guys who thought the angels would rebound after firing him gonna bad mouth him again.  Bring it on, morons.  

Well he sucked here so…

[eligrba]

I think the take away is that he felt connected to the Angels more than any other team he coached or managed and thought the organization failed in what he believed was important. 
 

 

[Duren, Duren]

Analytics?

Remember the  Strat-O-Matic baseball game in the seventies when they came out with lefty/righty stats on their player cards? And other then 'advanced ratings' for fielding and running? Even by today's deep computer diving that now modest model still represents a foundation for managerial thinking and roster construction. I won a university league championship one year drafting and managing a team based on the 1977 or 1978 season players. 

It was a blast and makes you feel like everything is based on coldly processing data and going with the best odds. But it has nothing to do with real life and real people. There is a disconnect when you don't factor in emotion, motivation, hot and cold streaks, health, team chemistry and other day to day intangibles.

Hypothetically I would be curious to see a Bill James or equivalent  managing in a dugout in real time, wearing a uniform and walking up and down looking and talking to players as the game is played. Things like intuition, hunches, instinct, experience can over ride the raw numbers at specific key moments. 

A manager is in a different world than a GM during a game. And many GMs have never been players or even have been in dugouts much.  Ivory tower suites are great for observation and checking spreadsheets, but maybe a manager has a better understanding of the players on a game by game basis. 

Not that managers are all equal and don't screw things up. But they know the pulse of the players up close and personal in the heat of competition. So it is easy to see Maddon's frustration.  

[Ron Mexico]

Salty Mf see ya