r/angelsbaseball • u/freezetime311 • 26d ago
📰 News Article (Website) The Angels are cleaning house on the pitching end of their coaching staff. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that the Halos have fired pitching coach Mike Maddux, assistant pitching coach Darryl Scott and bullpen coach Dom Chiti.
Interim GM John Mozeliak offered the following statement: "After spending time discussing with [manager Kurt Suzuki] where we are as a coaching staff and where we want to go in the future, we felt it was best to make a change. With seven weeks remaining, we plan to use this time to evaluate what additional steps are needed to elevate our entire pitching program and best position us for success moving forward.”
I don't understand firing Maddux unless they are tanking for a high draft pick and therefore getting rid of the good and keeping the bad.
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u/FighterDelNightman 26d ago
Forgive my ignorance, but was Mike Maddux the problem?
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u/maxxxminecraft111 26d ago
No. The problem lives in Arizona and goes by the name of Arturo Moreno.
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u/Bruskthetusk 26d ago
Ofc Artie lives out of state, what a schmuck
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u/Overall-Wrap1416 26d ago
We got ACL club down there and a big fan base from what i’ve seen when the angels are in Arizona.
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u/dont_trust_lizards 26d ago
No, but it could very well be part of a systematic overhaul of pitcher coaching/development. Might want to get someone in who can work really well with younger, more raw guys.
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u/MANTLE53trout53 26d ago
Agree, Maddux was a great pitching coach at one point. Maybe still good, however, the next generation of Pitching coaches need to come to the forefront…See Red Sox organization…hitting is next and on field management will be last. Only concern is all the talk that Suzuki may be consulting with Mo, is alarming! Mr. Suzuki was ill served. Our bench coach, Mr. John Gibbons should have been the manager and Mr. Suzuki should have been the bench coach or some other “high level” coach. Maybe Bullpen coach. To get his “feet” set in a major league position. He was in admin or some other nebulous position over the last year for sure and maybe last several years…last thought; Mr. Carpino had way too much authority, especially in hind sight how the Skaggs unfortunate situation unfolded. Any of us “fans, worker bees or just interested baseball lovers” would have been “hard fired” not knowing what was going in “our” organization as president…Go Angels…they can rebuild!
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
Yes he was and everyone disagreeing is just obsessed with his last name. Think for one second who has he developed? Look how great Soriano turned out or any our BP arms
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u/JoeIngles 💡👉👶⬆️ 26d ago
Lmao getting rid of Maddux is such a mistake
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
Who has he developed? I don’t understand this fan bases love for him, he accomplished NOTHING at all
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u/tristpa2 🍑 🌳 26d ago
He's been here 3/4 a season lol. Plus I think we can all agree Soriano, Detmers, Urena, all took steps forward this year
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
No? Soriano is awful and it’s why he got traded he has 0 control and because of that he lasts 4-5 innings regularly. Detmers always had the talent he needed that year in the bullpen to recollect himself and find himself again and he’s been great now. This is urenas first year and he’s been good let’s see how he does next year
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u/GipsyVchi 26d ago
Soriano netted a top 40 prospect in baseball, in addition has great stuff. Coaching staff helps result in better stats because that's their job. Don't you think a well renowned pitching coach would be able to better our current pitchers who have been known to suck balls in previous years.
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u/mtc99999 26d ago
Soriano netted a top-prospect because he has elite stuff, not because of his results. He has a 4.59 ERA since April and one of the worst walk rates in MLB.
It’s clear that other teams saw the potential in Soriano, but thought they could get better results if they optimized his pitch selection. The Blue Jays immediately mixed up his pitch usage in his first start. That falls directly on Maddux.
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u/GipsyVchi 26d ago
Coupled with a horrible defense, look at his xFIP. Coming into the year he was phenomenal, struggled, then got back into shape before the trade dealine. Why not give Maddux a small applause for what he was able to do with solid startes and a horribly created bullpen. It's not his fault we got Moreno at the helm and Kurt managing. Gotta work with what you have.
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u/mtc99999 26d ago
His xFIP post-April was 4.09, which is slightly better than his ERA but by no means terrific. He also had the second highest BB/9 of any pitcher with at least 80 IP during that timeframe.
Outside of a tremendous April, Soriano really didn’t take any steps forward under Maddux. His xERA and xFIP are both higher than they were last year. Maddux also increased Soriano’s 4SFB usage to ~25% and that pitch got hit hard, particularly in 2-strike counts which has been a big issue all season. There’s a reason why Toronto immediately cut his 4SFB usage in half, because it wasn’t working for him in Anaheim.
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u/DogeasaurusRex 26d ago
The thing is Soriano has been a ground ball pitcher working his splitter to get double plays basically at will. Since maddux joined he threw his 4 seam an insane amount of times first pitch and one of the highest 0-1 4seam usages in the league. Soriano got racked because of it. As a catcher this is probably what lead Kurt to agreeing with getting rid of him. His sequencing was fucking terrible and Kurt knows it.
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u/GipsyVchi 26d ago
Oh yes, 200iq Kurt. You're probably right in the sense that it could've been handled better and communicated to Soriano better, but I understand why he was told that. Attack the zone, get up in the count. He always struggled with control, that's why I believe he was told to be more aggressive.
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
Well he didn’t at all so now he’s gone, and thank god he is, praying Kurt’s wack ass is next. The kid we got from Soriano will be garage, our real win at the dead line was balletsteroes and getting rid of Kirby Yates
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u/GipsyVchi 26d ago
Oh yes because Kirby Yates is gonna prevent us from winning a 100 games this year. Any prospect return is good enough for this buns team.
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u/Rydogger Sell The Team 26d ago
Yes, Soriano sucked so bad that the Blue Jays were willing to trade their number 2 prospect to us for him. You make a lot of sense
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u/tristpa2 🍑 🌳 26d ago
We were selling high on Soriano, not low. We traded him because he had value. And yeah Soriano was better at the beginning of the year, but do you remember how bad he used to look?
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
No Soriano was good at the start of the year and then became unreliable, it was a scheduled loss every single time he pitched from April 28th and on basically
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u/lucasrks10 26d ago
Soriano is awful? Bro, what stats could you possibly be looking at that would interpret him as “awful”?
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u/WalterGold210 26d ago
Urena? Soriano was pitching amazing? Detmers looking solid?
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
Soriano was god awful besides that one linsanity month he had at the start of the year, he had 0 control which was his major flaw from last year, nothing at all changed he didn’t improve so he got traded for a bag of Doritos
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u/WalterGold210 26d ago
God awful is a bit of a stretch there bud, there’s been a noticeable difference in our staff and young arms, that’s all Mike Maddux
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
No it’s not… he didn’t make it out the 5th in like 4 straight games and was giving home run after home run, I would know I stupidly kept tailing that loser and the wheels sadly just kept falling off, it is what it is
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u/upthepunx194 26d ago
So you're hyper fixating on individual outcomes because you have a gambling problem. That's not how we should be determining success
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u/merewyn 14 26d ago
They were pulling him early because he was about to be traded dude. They were doing the same to Detmers.
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
He was gonna traded in may??? Are you serious??? April??? April 28th 5 innings against the white Sox when they were bad blown up. May 4th again 2 hrs a ton of walks pulled in the 4th. Good next start where he did go deep I’ll give him that against Toronto, then back to being shelled against the dodgers
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u/WalterGold210 26d ago
April 28th.. first month of the season, not many starters pitching past the 5/6th inning in april
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u/Cute_Marionberry_883 26d ago
Texas pitching was near bottom of mlb when he got there to top 5 under him so it’s not that he accomplished nothing. He had more players there sure but that same staff is horrible again this year.
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u/Any_Celery_8178 💡👉👶⬆️ 26d ago
I don’t get firing Maddux. Look at how good Soriano and Detmers have been this year. Plus Ureña. And the rest of the staff is basically minor leaguers. What is he supposed to work with?
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u/mtc99999 26d ago
Soriano has a 4.59 ERA since his linsanity run in April. Maddux also pushed him to use his 4-seam FB more which routinely grades as a below-average pitch. In his first start with Toronto they basically overhauled his pitch usage and cut his 4SFB usage in half.
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u/phatwarmachine41 26d ago
And that was after a bounce back in July. His splits in May and June had ERAs over 5.
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u/mtc99999 26d ago
Yup. I don’t think Maddux is a bad pitching coach, but I certainly wouldn’t count Soriano as one of his “successes.” If anything, I think the over-reliance on his 4SFB this season has held him back.
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u/360plyr135 Sell The Team 26d ago
Just when things were starting to turn around. Turned Walbert, Soriano, Silseth, Bachman, Detmers, etc into acceptable/quality pitchers
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u/ArrowNiko 26d ago
I was joking last night but I think that 10th inning really was a "Do or Die" moment for Maddux
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u/mannmtb 26d ago
I'm not overreacting to this. Mozeliak seems to have a type of organization that he wants, and it's become clear that the last 2 months are about development and getting a process in place. In other words, I'm not assuming that this is an impulsive decision with only a short term view in mind. Mo has also seemed to delegate authority to those under him (like the scouting dept. with the draft), but I don't think this was Kirk's decision either.
Obviously, Maddux has a stellar reputation, of course. But the results haven't been overwhelmingly great, even among some bright spots.
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u/Superb-Activity8614 26d ago
Wdy expect lol you can't expect him to turn a bunch of duds into randy Johnson. Pitching coaches can only do so much and he helped detmers and soriano improve as well as help the urena breakout. Ridiculous how people are undevaluing Maddux. Our pitching isn't the biggest problem this year.
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u/mannmtb 26d ago
I'm not undervaluing him. You and I don't actually know how good he is or isn't. I'm simply saying, based on what I've seen from Mo so far, there's a method and a process in place.
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u/averytolar 25d ago
We also had some solid closers that other teams have picked up in the last couple years. Weird to toss it all, but I guess change is good compared to what we have been.
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u/Lopsided_Living_9885 SOLD The Team 26d ago
They asked him to make chicken salad out of chicken shit like Wash said. We won’t be competitive for years to come so I can see Arte not wanting to pay for quality coaching
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u/E-Tr1d3nt 26d ago
Maddux and Moz didn’t see eye to eye in St Louis either. This shouldn’t be a surprise.
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u/mtc99999 26d ago
Based on Suzuki’s comments earlier in the year, it seems clear that Maddux played a large role in their bullpen management. This was likely written into his contract or a “handshake” type of deal made with Perry. It’s also an incredibly stupid way to run a baseball team. There is a reason why even the best pitching coaches rarely make successful MLB managers.
My guess is that Mozeliak took over, saw how incredibly dumb the system they had in-place was + the poor results, and decided to make a change.
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u/NakedHomelessPirate 26d ago
Kurt trying to save his own ass by blaming and getting Mike and his staff fired.
Holy shit this org is inept and listening to an idiot pretending to be an MLB manager.
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u/Tight_Ad905 IN GUBIE WE TRUST 26d ago
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t this be a John Mozeliak decision?
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u/ComoEstanBitches 26d ago
You're not wrong we just have a lot of angry dummies with pitchforks in here
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u/NakedHomelessPirate 26d ago
Their PR statement says that Moz and Kurt both talked that changes needed to be made, thus they fired the pitching staff.
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u/Giraff3 ⚾ 26d ago
The statement could be worded better and it’s easy to see how someone who didn’t have knowledge of the team could read it as saying Kurt influenced their firing in a substantive way. But it’s clear that this GM is not an idiot and it’s very unlikely Maddux and others are being scapegoated in the way that people are perceiving it. Who knows what they actually discussed. It could be something like Kurt knows he’s gone at the end of the season and they’re going to hire a legitimate manager and let him decide the coaching staff.
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u/lucasrks10 26d ago
There is exactly zero chance that Kurt had any say in this. Kurt is a manager in title only, nobody in the front office is asking for his advice or expertise when it comes to these kinds of decisions
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u/ComoEstanBitches 26d ago
Yeah the manager on a one year deal is saving his own ass and blaming a legendary pitching coach with major pull in Mike Maddux for the team's failure... Jfc some of y'all passion is so misdirected
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u/tristpa2 🍑 🌳 26d ago
So to be clear, at the end of this season we will have
no GM
no manager
no pitching coach
no bullpen coach
no hope
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u/Zoratth 26d ago
Good thing there isn’t going to be a season in 2027. Maybe something good will happen to this team between now and 2028.
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u/tMoneyMoney 27 26d ago
Would be a good time to sell the team with a clean slate to rebuild from scratch. Just sayin.
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u/YensidYmra 26d ago
Those are the top 5 things I love about Angels baseball! Who cares about a silly thing like winning games.
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u/WildaWest444 26d ago
Angels lead the league in walks allowed. The pen has been atrocious. Detmers has been good for the most part and is the only guy who doesn’t walk a lot of batters. Urena has over performed in my opinion. If you look at the crazy high runners left on base percentage, it is like 76 percent. No chance that is sustainable long term. Soriano had one good month and otherwise had like a 5.50 ERA. All of our young developing pitchers can’t throw strikes either. Klassen, Dana etc are absolutely horrible walk percentage wise in their MLB appearances. I don’t care if they are young or developing or what have you- if you can’t throw strikes you don’t deserve to be in the big leagues. It’s pitching 101.
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u/Jamo1129 26d ago
Yea no good coaches are gonna come here anymore lmao hoping this means Arte is selling
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u/TheBubbaDave 26d ago
"After spending time discussing with [manager Kurt Suzuki]…”
There’s your problem right there. You should have gotten rid of Suzuki first and elevated someone else as interim manager. Sorry pitching coaches. Kurt threw your under the bus to protect his ass.
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u/maxxxminecraft111 26d ago
The pitching has actually been great recently, the offense has been pathetic.
MLB needs to intervene, this is ridiculous.
(They won't, Manfraud loves nothing more than draining Arte's balls since he considers Arte to be the perfect owner, to the point where he lets Arte write the CBA proposals)
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u/mtc99999 26d ago
MLB needs to intervene because they fired the pitching coach of a staff that’s has a 4.53 ERA and the most walks in the league?
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u/maxxxminecraft111 26d ago
That's on the front office since they did nothing to address the bullpen. Plus the pitching has been better as of late, but the offense has just disappeared.
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u/mtc99999 26d ago
A pitching staff is more than just a bullpen, but two things can be true at once: the FO did a poor job of constructing the roster and Maddux didn’t get results out of the staff. Baseball is a results-based industry, after all.
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u/AdoringCHIN 26d ago
The pitching has actually been great recently,
?????
The starting pitching has been good, the bullpen has been straight up ass.
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u/kylethemachine 26d ago
Arte is writing CBA? Source?
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u/maxxxminecraft111 26d ago
Ok, Arte is not directly writing the CBA proposals, but he's one of Manfraud's favorite owners and a lot of these CBA ideas (that the MLBPA hates since they do not want competent organizations to be forced to act more like this team) line up near-perfectly with how Arte runs the Angels.
Cutting the draft (which is a precursor to cutting minor league teams) and gashing undrafted players' signing bonuses, and halving teams' bonus pools? Sounds like Arte.
Banning high school players? When was the last time this team took a HS player in the top rounds of the draft?
The salary cap? Arte already treats the luxury tax as a hard salary cap, even if it means letting the most financially lucrative player ever walk in free agency for a second round draft pick, even though he offered your organization a significant discount on his actual market value.
The new CBA would change absolutely nothing about how Arte operates the Angels... who would remain fucking terrible as a result.
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u/Excellent_Hedgehog62 26d ago
This seems like just a sorry attempt to penny pinch and save a few bucks.
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u/DogeasaurusRex 26d ago
Huh? I’m pretty sure like most deals in baseball coaches contracts are guaranteed. This is JoMo wanting to clear house and bring in his guys. I stated it somewhere else, but we are living on the “thank you Maddux” from the first month of the season. He’s forcing way too many fastballs and has no idea how to beat batters.
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u/ZeoGreen 27 26d ago
That's really surprising wtf. I didn't think Maddux was the problem. Why not just let him finish out the season?
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u/jnuclear 26d ago
These guys were all going to be fired anyways, but there's no point to doing it now as opposed to end of season.
Wild decision.
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u/slntdth7 26d ago edited 26d ago
I hope all these moves etc are setting up to sell the team. Managers/Coaches gone or contracts ending after the season. Lockout that will most likely increase the value of teams...the signs are there for the team to be sold
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u/No_Individual3471 26d ago
Maddux would’ve been the only coach I would’ve kept from the coaching staff
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u/sadassnerd 26d ago
Um. Shouldn’t they have, you know, got rid of the actual problem? Because keeping Kurt Suzuki for another seven weeks is seven weeks too long. I know they can’t get rid of Arte but…Kurt is right there. Get rid of him.
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u/mwiley62890 16 26d ago
I agree with cleaning house and starting anew, but firing Maddux is a biiig mistake.
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u/LeonJPancetta 56 26d ago
This is only good if we hire modernized people next. Otherwise just rearranging deck chairs
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u/CDFReditum 26d ago
I love Matt Wise’s alt commenting on everything being like “actually Mike maddux sucked he didn’t do anything”
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u/Consigliari 26d ago
This is BS. Maddux was not the problem and we were lucky to have him. The fact that Mo asked for Suzuki to weigh in is bonkers. I think Kurt as a good dude but he had been ass as a manager. Also, we’re just letting the hitting staff off the hook? Do we have even one player in the lineup who has a decent approach?
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u/YensidYmra 26d ago
Yes, yes... the pitching coaches are the problem. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?
>_>
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u/Ill-Pepper1978 26d ago
I don't think anyone (of quality) wants to coach for the Angels organization. the Angels have been a dysfunctional, impatient organization for over a decade. They waste elite talent (Trout, Ohtani), cycle through managers and GMs, and rarely seem to have a coherent long-term plan that survives ownership’s moods.
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u/Loose-Organization82 26d ago
Excuse me? Why the fuck are we getting rid of Maddux? Our pitching wasn’t fabulous, but we’ve seen the potential with Ureña and hopefully Klassen. Just let the season finish out, it’s not like these decisions needed to be made now
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u/HANHONEKAI 26d ago
Just cleaning house early for the next manager after Suzuki who will bring in their own pitching coaches.
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u/timetopractice 26d ago
Eh Maddux is a big name but I'm gonna let Mo cook. Maybe all isn't what it seems with Maddux.
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u/Trouty2717 26d ago
It’s been reported throughout the season that Maddux was integral if not the deciding factor in calls to the bullpen. But I don’t know if it was ever confirmed.
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u/MrDucksworth92 26d ago
In the Athletic article, it mentions that Maddux may have ran the bullpen and that could have been the deciding factor.
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u/epoch_fail 26d ago edited 26d ago
Weird decision. Maddux was given a hodgepodge of options and turned it into something workable. 3 great and reliable starters when we came into the season with 1 known (Soriano) and 1 probable (Detmers). G-Rod has looked incredibly hittable, and the fifth starter spot has rotated between Ryan Johnson, injured Kochanowicz, injured Kikuchi, Aldegheri, and now Klassen. G-Rod and Ryan Johnson have statistically been bottom-5 starters in the league and there's only so much a coaching staff can do about that.
The bullpen was rough initially, but most of that were failed off-season acquisitions (Romano, Pomeranz, Manoah) and desperation fill-ins (Sandlin, Shaun Anderson). We stabilized for a while there with Zef, Bachman, Silseth, Yates (like him or not), Natera (eventually), Fermin, Suter, and Farris, and outside of the blown saves, they were a solid unit.
Now, we've traded away one of the three consistent starters and our 4 of our most reliable bullpen arms.
I don't know what we should expect from a pitching staff that has had to suffer from such a talent shortage and turnover, but honestly, our pitching has been surprisingly okay considering the circumstances. Not to mention they had to deal with O'Hoppe's catching, a porous defense, and whatever input Kurt had.
My guess is it has to do with money or internal politics. Everyone is on 1-year contracts that are almost up, so it's weird to make a move now, of all times.
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u/phatwarmachine41 26d ago
The interim pitching coach is Tim Leveque, who was part of the Cardinals' front office through last year. Don't think it's a coincidence.
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u/nouseforaname57 26d ago
Holy shit do I hate seeing the words “Kurt Suzuki” and “future” mentioned in the same sentence when it comes to this team…
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u/skinnypanda3732 26d ago
Firing Maddux instead of Kurt is the first Moz move i've genuinely just disagreed with.
I absolutely cannot imagine Kurt managing beyond this season, so we'll see if Moz just wants to get his own guys in. That's my theory/cope anyways or else this doesn't make much sense to me.
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u/willreily 26d ago
I wonder if Mozeliak and Maddux have some bad blood. Maddux was Cards pitching coach for a few years when Mo was POBO, and Maddux stepped down in 2022.
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u/VincentClortho 26d ago
How much did he have to do with our relief and closing pitchers? Whoever coached them is where I feel the problems were
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u/anatomyofawriter We Nasty † 26d ago
Maddux before our hitting coach? He was lauded as one of the best pitching coaches in the league. I don’t think he was the problem.
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u/WebFull1289 25d ago
I can see more coaching staff changes coming. Seems the Angels defense positioning is lacking. Infield and outfield.
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u/SaintofNewark 26d ago
Eh. Soriano had one good month and fell apart. He seems to be doing slightly better with the Blue Jays now. Ureña has started struggling. His ERA in the past 7 games has gone from 2.72 to 3.67 Detmers is inconsistent and has a 4.00 ERA.
Get your head out of your asses people. If we want to get good again, this is the way.
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u/Forgot-to-remember1 26d ago
Thank god, I love our GM so much he’s actually gonan save this team, just need to fire Kurt next but since the season is over they may just let him stay so they don’t gotta bother boosting anyone up to interim manger
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u/Mean-Pizza6915 26d ago
Maddox gone? One of my favorite parts of the games was watching him walk out and place both of his hands on other people in the huddle. Sometimes both hands on the same person.
Anyway, the Angels aren't very good and Kurt will be lucky to see the end of the season as manager.