Los Angeles Angels: Joe Maddon won’t solve their problems

After firing Brad Ausmus after one season as manager, the Los Angeles Angels have found their new manager in World Series-winning coach, Joe Maddon.

The Los Angeles Angels made an official announcement naming Joe Maddon the manager for the 2020 season. Maddon has longtime ties to the Angels organization.

Starting out as a 19-year-old catcher in 1975, Maddon spent 31 years with the Angels as a minor league manager, scout, roving minor league hitting instructor and coach for the major league team.

As Mike Scioscia‘s bench coach, Maddon was there for the Angels’ ultimate moment when they won their only World Series in 2002.

Maddon managed the Tampa Rays and Chicago Cubs for the last 14 seasons, winning an American League pennant in 2008 with the Rays and breaking a 106-year drought by winning the 2016 World Series with the Cubs.

On top of those two great moments, Maddon took the Rays to the playoffs on three other occasions and the Cubs also on three other occasions.

As great of a story as Joe Maddon’s homecoming is for the Angels, the team he left is not the team he is inheriting. Since 2012, the Angels have had a once in a generation player in Mike Trout patrolling center field and since then Trout has only played in three playoff games — losing them all.

The Angles have finished below .500 over the last four seasons and have finished 20-plus games out of first place every year. The Angels’ 2019 season was disastrous as they finished with 72 wins, their lowest win total since 1999 when they had 70.

The season mas marred by the tragic death of starting pitcher Tyler Skaggs of an opioid overdose during a team road trip. The investigation of Skaggs’ death has turned into a federal probe that could upend the franchise further.

An Angels’ staffer told federal investigators that he provided, and abused, the drugs alongside Skaggs and that two other Angel officials were told about the abuse (h/t ESPN).

This is the state of the franchise that Maddon will inherit, even all his managerial successes and experience won’t be able to turn things around. He inherits a pitching staff that posted a 5.36 ERA, the worst posting since 1996, and a lineup that was bottom 10 in the AL in most categories that are in need of a makeover.

In his last two stops, Maddon had young talent in the pipeline and veteran winners ready to take the next step and become winning teams. The Angels are nowhere near that. Depending on what list you look at, the Angels’ prospect rankings are either middling or near the bottom of organizational rankings.

Maddon will give the Los Angeles Angels the look of a winner and might give the team an injection of a winning attitude but he can’t solve the problems plaguing the franchise right now.