Joe Maddon is ready for his next meaty baseball adventure and perhaps not as a manager

June 10, 2024

Five teams have changed managers in the 323 days since the Angels freed up Joe Maddon’s golf schedule last June. But not one of those teams directed a call, a text or an Instagram shoutout to a famed curse-busting, three-time Manager of the Year who was eminently available.

“No, nobody reached out to me,” Maddon told Doug Glanville and me on the latest Starkville edition of “The Athletic Baseball Show.” “Japan did. Japan was very interested when it all happened, and I wasn’t ready to go there yet, although I’m such a fan of the baseball culture there. But that’s it. Nobody else has reached out to me. Not at all.”

So of course Maddon wonders why that is. Maybe it’s because no ex-manager alive has been more outspoken about his issues with the way modern front offices “overpower” their clubhouses with information. Or maybe, he said, “it’s because of how it all ended with the Angels, or because of what I’m seeing right now.”

But whatever it is, the baseball world might want to take note of this: Joe Maddon is ready to work — and this just in — open to a role that might not include the word, “manager.”

“I’m observing very closely,” he said. “I’m watching the game and what’s going on. … I believe that my skill set works with any group, in any decade of the game of baseball, and I’m very happy about that. So if I get the opportunity, I’m absolutely going to be into it. But to this point, none … and I think the reason why is because I am a little bit outspoken about all this.”

A year ago, just weeks after he was let go, Maddon made another appearance on Starkville — and gave his first extensive public interview about his firing. But in truth, it was about much more than that.

It was his first long-form chance to air his issues with analytics, the way modern front offices use (and over-use) them and the ways he felt the Angels interfered in his clubhouse, in his office and in how he did his job. He didn’t mince words.

He set off a raging baseball brushfire with that interview — and with the expanded, powerful delivery of those thoughts in his book, “The Book of Joe,” with Tom Verducci, that was published last fall. So Maddon is well aware that the reaction to those fiery opinions went well beyond all the “thank yous” he says he got from his friends in the game.

There was also a fierce reaction in many front offices. And it went like this: That guy will never work in baseball again.

But now here is Maddon’s reaction to the reaction: If that’s how you feel, we probably shouldn’t be working together anyway.

“I’m going to tell you what I think,” he said, “not what I’ve heard from anybody. This is what I think, right? I’m very confident in the way I’ve done things. So I would not want to work with anybody that I cannot coexist with in a manner that (they share the same beliefs).

“Believe me. I am all about collaboration. I’m all about that. I think I’m one of the best collaborators you’ve ever been around. But I’m also going to give you my opinion.”

So Maddon’s next employer will certainly know what it’s getting:

A sharp, creative baseball mind. A clubhouse culture-builder. A magnetic face and voice of whatever franchise would be open to employing him. But also a man with strong beliefs about his job, his relationship with his bosses and the way those two things interact.

Is That Guy employable, at age 69? Why wouldn’t he be?

After all, in the 323 days he has spent working on his putting, Dusty Baker won a World Series — at 73. Bruce Bochy got hired by Texas — at 67. Buck Showalter won 101 games with the Mets — at 66. Brian Snitker won his fifth straight division title in Atlanta — at 66.

Does that feel like a sign that to manage in 2023, you don’t have to be a 38-year-old hotshot coming straight from somebody’s broadcast booth, or a friend of the general manager who’s willing to manage by the front-office printout placed on their desk every afternoon? If it is, why wouldn’t there be a team out there willing to let Maddon try to replicate what worked so successfully with Chicago and Tampa Bay?

Well, if that team is out there, Maddon has been thinking for 10 months about how he would like to do things in his next job. Hear him out.

“I’d like to go into it where everybody knows where everybody’s coming from specifically,” he said. “Meaning, I guess, that I’m not going to concede or relinquish control over the pregame, and how we’re going to build this thing, regarding work, workouts, who’s instructing who, what kind of information is given.

“I want information. I’ve told you this. But I also want baseball coaches presenting information to my players. I don’t want people from all over coming in and infiltrating and creating confusion by having too many people being part of this recipe, because that, to me, is not right. So primarily, it would be, like, everybody understanding everybody’s roles.”

Don’t misunderstand what that means, Maddon said. He does not “want to just be off on an island. … I want everybody helping one another.”

“But,” he continued, “at the end of the day, ‘You’re in charge of the hitters. This dude is in charge of the pitchers. This guy’s got defense. So if you have anything to say about any of those things, you go to the department head and let him bring it to the player.’ And I want that done earlier in the day. I want less people in the clubhouse. I want the clubhouse to be the players’ domain.

“And yes, I want all kinds of input. (But) I want nobody in my office an hour before the game. I don’t want that. I don’t think that’s appropriate … because I’ve got to get my stuff together. Now if, in fact, you don’t want the manager to get his stuff together, and you want to tell the manager what his stuff is, that’s a different story. But I can’t work under those circumstances.

“I want your input. I want collaboration. I want all the intel you want to give me. I want all that. And I promise you, I’m going to ask you a lot of questions. I am. And I’m going to utilize analytics to derive answers, both strategically and physically. You could derive them from both. But I’m not just going to blindly follow you or agree with you because you happen to be my boss.”

OK then. He made that clear enough.

Undoubtedly, there are front offices that will hear those words and say: Sorry. That’s not how it works anymore. But let’s remember this is a man who once forged winning partnerships with ahead-of-the-curve front-office execs like Andrew Friedman and Theo Epstein. So how could it no longer be possible for that to happen again?

But I also had one more question I hadn’t heard Maddon answer in these last 11 months: Would he ever be open to doing some other job in baseball? Would he be open to a job where he could help some other manager and some other front office build a culture, and a winning formula, like the ones he once built?

“Yeah, of course,” he replied. “I think that I could be some kind of an assistant to a good GM that wanted to kind of balance things out a little bit. I can provide those kinds of conversations, thoughts, those kind of things. I think I’d be good at, through observation and feel, determining what is going on here and try to give somebody my take on it.

“And, honestly, I know I can be helpful with that, or insightful with that, because I do see things and I do know things. And that, to me, would be very entertaining, and interesting, too.

“But listen: I just can’t work for somebody and just show up. I’m not the ambassador type, right? There’s got to be some meat here to deal with. It’s just, I can’t do the fluff stuff. I just can’t do it.

“So if somebody had something that really had a meaty component to it, I’m in. And I will definitely dive in there, both feet firmly. And I will provide some thought and insight to this whole thing. But I’m not just out there to shake hands and sing the seventh-inning stretch.”

But what if that isn’t in the cards? Then, “I’m good,” Maddon said.

He is happy and enjoying a life he hasn’t had a chance to lead for more than 40 years. He loves playing golf … reconnecting with his old hometown of Hazleton, Pa., … popping onto “MLB Now” on MLB Network to talk new-age baseball with his friend Brian Kenny … having fun on his “Book of Joe” podcast with Verducci and assorted guests. He can find joy in all of that, Maddon assured us.

“But I am a baseball guy,” he said. “I can’t hide that. And I love it. And I love all this stuff. I love the dugout. I love the competition. I love trying to solve problems and issues like that. I love to be part of that. And I love to be able to collaborate, and I love to hear other people’s opinions.

“So that’s what I am, and I can’t run away from that. I think by July, it’ll be one year since I was let go. And by that time, I might really want to do something more constructive, as opposed to just trying to break 80 (on the golf course) all the time.”

Is That Thing coming? Will any of the next five teams that change managers decide to dial his number? Is there some president of baseball operations who will hear or read these words and see a meaningful role for a man with a head full of strong ideas?

We can’t tell you that. But he has given us — and the people who run baseball — something to think about. And let’s just say it wouldn’t be the first time.

Joe Maddon’s thoughts didn’t stop with his own future. So to hear more on Shohei Ohtani’s future, on how managing has changed since his first encounters with the likes of Gene Mauch, on the real secret behind the Astros and Rays, on the new rules and the change that matters most and so much more, check out the full Starkville episode of “The Athletic Baseball Show.”

(Top photo: Derik Hamilton / Associated Press)

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