The Los Angeles Angels fired Joe Maddon on Tuesday amid a 12-game losing streak that offset their hot start.
Following the news, Maddon told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal that he feels “liberated.” The 68-year-old explained that he didn’t see eye to eye with the front office’s methods of implementing analytics into their decision-making.
“It’s been kind of difficult overall. I’m into analytics, but not to the point where everybody wants to shove it down your throat,” Maddon said. “Real baseball people have felt somewhat impacted by all of this. You’re unable to just go to the ballpark and have some fun and play baseball. It’s too much controlled by front offices these days.”
Maddon added that he talked to general manager Perry Minasian about understanding when and how to properly convey data to players.
“I said you just try to reduce the information you’re giving, try to be aware of who’s giving the information and really be aware of when it’s time to stay out of the way,” Maddon said. “In general the industry has gone too far in that direction and that’s part of the reason people aren’t into our game as much as they have been.”
Maddon has never been afraid of defying common convention. At one point, he seemed like an early adopter to new insights when guiding the Tampa Bays to an American League pennant in 2008. He was among the first to deploy the now common infield shift when defending against Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.
He later helped the Chicago Cubs snap a century-long title drought in 2016. Both organizations relied heavily on analytics departments to build and optimally deploy formidable rosters.
However, Maddon’s tenure in Los Angeles didn’t go smoothly. Despite managing two of the game’s premier superstars in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, the Angels went 157-172 under his watch.
The Angels named third base coach Phil Nevin the interim manager. At 27-29, they’re still just 1.5 games behind the AL’s third and final wild-card spot.