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Latest On Angels’ Managerial Search

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9:01pm: Maddon’s interview went “very well,” according to Heyman. The Angels are Maddon’s first choice, adds Heyman, who suggests owner Arte Moreno wants to hire him. As of now, signs are pointing to that happening.

8:41pm: The Angels are now fully engaged in the search for their next manager … but is the outcome already determined? Joe Maddon has been seen as the favorite since he parted ways with the Cubs.

Maddon had his interview with the Los Angeles organization today, per Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter link). There’s no news coming out of the sit-down, but it seems reasonably notable that Maddon is the first person known to have interviewed.

That’s not to say that others won’t have their chance to chat. Bob Nightengale of USA Today adds that three other candidates are expected to interview with Angels brass (link). The others will have their meetings on separate days, Jeff Fletcher of the Southern California News Group reports on Twitter.

While it seems the Halos intend to deliberate over the decision, Scott Miller of Bleacher Report cites “multiple sources” (Twitter link) that don’t quite see it that way. The consensus among Miller’s confidants is that Maddon is going to come away with the job and will likely be announced in relatively short order.

While it may seem like a match made in heaven, there are surely still some potential stumbling blocks. Working out a contract figures to be an interesting aspect. The Angels have previously given out a stupendously long deal (Mike Scioscia’s ten-year pact), while Maddon earned big money with the Cubs, but most skippers aren’t commanding those kinds of paydays in this day and age. And other organizations could yet intervene.

Jo Adell Flourishing In AFL

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A quick word of update on Angels outfielder Jo Adell, who has been turning heads in the Arizona Fall League–which isn’t to say that eyes weren’t already trained on him to begin with. After a 2019 season that saw Adell hit .289/.359/.475 with ten home runs across three levels and 341 plate appearances, the Kentucky native entered AFL play last month as MLB Pipeline’s 5th-ranked prospect in the game. As Kyle Glaser of Baseball America points out this morning, Adell is bolstering that pedigree with his most recent performance for the Mesa Solar Sox (link).

Manager Notes: Angels, Maddon, Beltran

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Former Cubs manager Joe Maddon is set to interview for the Angels’ job in the coming days, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Maddon has long been rumored as a leading candidate to succeed Brad Ausmus, and Rosenthal now reports that the feeling is mutual, naming the Halos as Maddon’s top choice. Of course, that two-way interest is at least partially motivated by the extensive history between organization and manager: Maddon spent time as an interim manager with the Angels in 1996 and 1999, and while he didn’t keep that position long-term, Maddon would spend more than thirty years with the Halos organization before departing for Tampa Bay. Maddon should have plenty of interest from other clubs with managerial vacancies, so if the Angels are indeed his ideal destination, he could have his pick of the available jobs. Surely, the Angels would be remiss if they didn’t interview other candidates, so it’s by no means a foregone conclusion, but Maddon to Los Angeles feels like a match made in heaven. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale cites the Padres as another club that has caught Maddon’s attention, and expects the two sides to arrange a meeting in the near future.

  • Former All-Star Carlos Beltran has not been shy about his desire to manage for a big-league club, but he’s waiting on the right situation to present itself, writes Nathalie Alonso of MLB.com. Beltran, who was a candidate to manage the Yankees before Aaron Boone came out ahead, joined the Bombers’ front office as a special adviser prior to the 2018 season. Beltran was recently reported to have declined an interview for the open Padres’ manager position, though there hasn’t been any explanation given. The Mets, who recently fired Mickey Callaway, have also been rumored as a potential fit for Beltran. While there’s been chatter that an allegedly frosty relationship between the ex-Met and team COO Jeff Wilpon would impede such a hire, Beltran said that he would “have to listen” if the Mets came calling. While that doesn’t indicate that he’s clamoring for the job, Beltran seems reluctant to rule out a potential reunion with his former team. As Beltran says, his focus is of course on the contending Yankees for the time being, which means that more clarity might not come to his situation until the end of October. That said, he’s certainly a name to watch as teams seek out their next skipper.

Angels 40-Man Candidate: Jose Rojas

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  • With eliminated teams beginning to consider offseason decisions, the Angels will have to decide whether to protect 26-year-old infielder Jose Rojas or expose him to the Rule 5 Draft. He posted career-best numbers at Triple-A this year, slugging 31 home runs and a .293/.362/.577 batting line. Mike DiGiovanna of Baseball America takes a look at Rojas’s case, pointing out that teams around baseball are having some difficulty tuning their evaluation of Triple-A players to the drastically altered offensive environment at the level. Since Triple-A leagues introduced the MLB-used baseball for the 2019 season, power numbers have universally spiked in Triple-A. With the reliability of raw home run numbers in question, DiGiovanna points out that teams are increasingly reliant on their scouts’ eyes in their valuation of Triple-A players.

Angels To Interview Joe Maddon

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  • Joe Maddon has widely been linked to the Angels’ job and “is set to interview with” the club, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports (subscription required).  As of Tuesday, there reportedly hadn’t yet been any contact between the Halos and the former Cubs skipper, though many expected it was only a matter of time before Maddon emerged as a candidate in Anaheim, given his longstanding history with the organization.  Maddon spent 31 seasons with the Angels as a player, minor league manager and coach, and member of the MLB coaching staff.
  • Joe Maddon has widely been linked to the Angels’ job and “is set to interview with” the club, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports (subscription required).  As of Tuesday, there reportedly hadn’t yet been any contact between the Halos and the former Cubs skipper, though many expected it was only a matter of time before Maddon emerged as a candidate in Anaheim, given his longstanding history with the organization.  Maddon spent 31 seasons with the Angels as a player, minor league manager and coach, and member of the MLB coaching staff.
  • Brad Ausmus, the Angels’ former manager, is expected to interview with the Padres, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link).  A hiring would represent something of a homecoming for Ausmus, who began his 18-year playing career with 303 games for San Diego.  Ausmus is still owed two years’ worth of salary after being — rather surprisingly — fired by the Angels after the season, though it’s also understandable that he would pursue other opportunities for a quick return to managing.

Latest On Angels’ Managerial Vacancy

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Owner Arte Moreno, frustrated with the Angels’ fourth consecutive losing season, was the one who ultimately pushed for a managerial change, reports Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. And although the timing of Brad Ausmus’ dismissal as Angels manager aligned rather conveniently with the news that Joe Maddon was out as Cubs manager, general manager Billy Eppler said in a conference call yesterday that Ausmus’ status was being debated even before the availability of other veteran candidates (i.e. Joe Maddon) was known.

Perhaps most interestingly, Fletcher adds that while there’s been heavy speculation about the Angels and Maddon, there had been no contact between the two sides as of Tuesday. Maddon wasn’t fired and is technically under contract with the Cubs through the end of October, although the Cubs organization clearly wouldn’t stand in the way of him talking with other teams at this point.

A lack of contact between the two sides certainly doesn’t mean that there won’t be any at all. To the contrary, it’d be a genuine surprise if Maddon didn’t emerge as a viable contender for the job. At the same time, the fact that the two sides haven’t even talked suggests that Maddon to the Angels perhaps isn’t set in stone. To that end, MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger lists Angels special assistant Eric Chavez, Astros bench coach Joe Espada and former Yankees manager Joe Girardi as possible candidates. Girardi, who publicly voiced a desire to return to the dugout just this morning, knows Eppler quite well from the pair’s days with the Yankees. Eppler, though, made clear yesterday that he needs to sit down with Moreno and team president John Carpino to formulate a list of interview candidates.

Furthermore, Eppler was emphatic in taking accountability for the Angels’ poor season. “I want to make it clear Brad is not solely responsible for the result of our season,” said the GM in yesterday’s call. “The majority of our short-term acquisitions that we made this past offseason did not produce to their forecast. And those failures lie with me.”

Indeed, the trio of Matt Harvey, Trevor Cahill and Cody Allen proved unproductive, although Eppler did make some shrewd pickups over the past year. Right-hander Hansel Robles has proven to be one of the more successful waiver claims in recent memory, and Eppler nabbed another waiver gem just prior to Opening Day when he claimed Brian Goodwin off release waivers from the Royals organization. Those additions might’ve provided some bright spots this season, but the team’s starting pitching situation remains bleak and will surely be an area of focus for the Angels as the offseason approaches.

Manager-Needy Angels Plan To Interview "A Number Of Candidates"

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Joe Maddon is reportedly a leading candidate to take over as the Angels’ next manager, but he’s not the lone possibility to replace Brad Ausmus. General manager Billy Eppler stated Tuesday that the Angels “plan on sitting down with a number of candidates” to discuss the job, per Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times. Maddon’s a highly accomplished manager who earlier spent three decades with the Angels organization in several different roles, which seems to make him a slam-dunk choice for the position. However, it’s worth noting that Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported last week that the Angels might be hesitant to meet Maddon’s asking price. Maddon made $6MM this year with the Cubs, who moved on from him after they fell way short of expectations in 2019.

Angels Fire Pitching Coach Doug White, Bench Coach Josh Paul

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3:20pm: The Angels announced that both White and bench coach Josh Paul have been informed that they will not be returning for the 2020 season.

3:16pm: Maria Torres of the L.A. Times tweets that “numerous” pitchers had trouble adjusting to White’s ideas, including younger arms like Jaime Barria and Jose Suarez.

3:00pm: The Angels have fired pitching coach Doug White, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN (via Twitter). His dimissal comes one day after the team announced that Brad Ausmus would not return as manager in 2020. Like Ausmus, White’s tenure with the Angels will last just one season.

Prior to joining the Angels, White served as the bullpen coach for the Astros, though he only served one season in that role as well. He’d previously spent time as a minor league pitching coach and minor league pitching coordinator in the Houston system in addition to a half-decade’s worth of experience as a minor league coach with the Cardinals.

White was one of several members of the Astros’ 2018 field staff to be hired by other organizations, as other organizations looked to build out their coaching staffs with key members of one of the game’s most progressive and successful teams.

The match between White and the Halos seemingly didn’t bear fruit, though, as the team’s ERA, FIP, xFIP, walk rate and ground-ball rate all went in the wrong direction from 2018. Laying all of that blame on White isn’t fair, of course, as numerous external factors impacted the Angels’ results on the mound (injuries and, most notably, the death of Tyler Skaggs among them). But coaches must more than ever be on the same page with a manager, front office and analytics staff, and those relationships are often every bit as important as the team’s on-field results.

In the case of White, he was hired 10 days after Ausmus, so perhaps with the club simply believes that the incoming manager — widely speculated to be Joe Maddon — should have the opportunity to hand-pick his own pitching coach to ensure that the staff’s vision aligns as closely as possible.

Angels Fire Brad Ausmus

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1:55pm: Today’s news conference was canceled, but Eppler will speak to the media on a conference call tomorrow, per Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. Bollinger adds that Eppler himself will be retained.

1:10pm: The Angels have formally announced that Ausmus will not manage the team in 2020.

12:52pm: The Angels have decided to fire Brad Ausmus less than a year after naming him manager, ESPN’s Buster Olney reports (via Twitter). The report comes just one day after MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reported that the Angels were “contemplating” Ausmus’ job status. The Angels have a press conference scheduled for this afternoon.

Brad Ausmus | Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Given the sudden nature of the move and the fact that the Cubs parted ways with Joe Maddon over the weekend, speculation will surely abound that Maddon is now the Angels’ top target. The 65-year-old Maddon spent more than a decade as a coach on the Angels’ Major League staff and even served as interim manager for the Halos in two different seasons, totaling 51 games at the helm.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweets that “a number of sources” believe Maddon will land with the Angels, although he adds that it is not yet set in stone. Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times also suggests that clearing way for Maddon would be one of the only reasons the Angels would make the move at this time (Twitter link).

It’s a brutal blow for Ausmus, whose tenure in the dugout will last only one season despite signing a three-year contract just 49 weeks ago. The former All-Star catcher and three-time Gold Glove winner previously spent four seasons managing the Tigers and spent a year between managerial stints as a special assistant to Angels general manager Billy Eppler. At the time, it seemed possible that Ausmus was being groomed as an heir-apparent to manager Mike Scioscia, and whether that was actually the case, matters played out in exactly that fashion. Now, if Maddon lands with the Angels as many anticipate, Ausmus will meet the same fate as Rick Renteria — a first-year manager who is ousted with multiple years remaining on his contract because of Maddon’s sudden availability.

The Angels certainly didn’t produce the results they hoped in 2019, finishing out the season with a 72-90 record. But Ausmus was at the helm for one of what was surely one of the most tumultuous and difficult seasons in franchise history, guiding the team through the tragic loss of perhaps the heart of its clubhouse: left-hander Tyler Skaggs. Indeed, Eppler said in a statement announcing the move that Ausmus “navigated this franchise through one of its most difficult seasons with class and professionalism.”

The Angels were also plagued by additional injuries up and down the roster (again), as Mike Trout, Andrelton Simmons, Justin Upton, Andrew Heaney, Shohei Ohtani, Tommy La Stella and others were absent for significant stretches of time. That’s not to say that Ausmus had no hand in the team’s lackluster performance, but it’s difficult to see how any manager could’ve found success with the hand he was dealt.

If there’s a silver lining for Ausmus, perhaps it’s that there appears to be a perhaps record level of managerial openings for him to explore around the league — assuming he wants to continue managing. The Padres (Andy Green) and Pirates (Clint Hurdle) have already fired their managers, and the Cubs, of course, aren’t bringing back Maddon. The Royals (Ned Yost) and Giants (Bruce Bochy) have both seen their longtime skippers retire, and it’s also possible that the Mets (Mickey Callaway) and/or the Phillies (Gabe Kapler) elect to move on from their current managers. Ausmus presumably wouldn’t be a candidate for all of those clubs, but he’ll surely garner some interviews if he seeks out another opportunity.

Angels ‘Contemplating’ Job Status Of Brad Ausmus

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11:32 pm: According to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, the Angels have a press conference scheduled for 12 pm PST tomorrow afternoon, which, if one is to read between the lines, could be something of an inflection point vis a vis Ausmus’ future with the club. Bollinger’s counterpart at The Orange County Register, Jeff Fletcher, notes that this press conference was scheduled five days ago, and had been expected to be a forum for Ausmus and Eppler to discuss the season and offseason (Twitter links).

10:25 pm: Per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, the Angels are ’contemplating’ the job status of one Brad Ausmus (link), with sources indicating that a decision is expected to be made on the manager’s fate within the next 24 hours.

Last we had heard in regard to Ausmus’ security with the org, Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times was relaying that the former catcher’s job was safe for 2020. Just today, the manager seemed nonplussed when presented with rumors about his potential firing that originated from Buster Olney of ESPN and Ken Rosenthal of Fox–two reporters working in presumably less proximity to the clubhouse than Torres. It’s hard to characterize this intersection of rumors as anything more than murky, but Feinsand’s depiction of a 24-hour window at least sets the stage for some kind of impending resolution to the situation.

Hired just this last offseason, Ausmus ultimately guided the 2019 Angels to a dreadful 72-90 record in his first year in Anaheim. Still, the former Tigers skipper could be forgiven for his current team’s struggles. For one, the impact of the July 1 passing of pitching Tyler Skaggs simply cannot be quantified. Skaggs was expected to be a crucial part of the team’s rotational mix, after a 2018 season in which he posted 1.3 WAR across 24 starts as a 26-year-old; aside from the on-field ramifications of Skaggs’ untimely departure, it’s hard to imagine how team morale must have been affected by the tragic death of such a close colleague and friend. The Angels were a game below .500 entering the All-Star break, but limped to a 27-44 record in the second half.

Elsewhere on the club’s roster, GM Billy Eppler tasked Ausmus with a bullpen that submitted a collective 5.10 ERA this year–good for 25th among major league teams. It’s also fair to say that the word “rotation” was very apt when describing the club’s starting situation. Los Angeles’ Opening Day rotation consisted of Skaggs, Felix Pena, Chris Stratton, Matt Harvey, and Trevor Cahill, but none of those players would be starting games by season’s end, in large part due to ineffectiveness. Starting pitchers under Ausmus posted a 5.58 ERA this year, a mark better than only Colorado and Baltimore. Offensively, the club missed outfielder Justin Upton for much of the year, while big-money slugger Albert Pujols once again provided negligible on-field value to the Angels lineup.

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