LOS ANGELES _ The Los Angeles Angels have been to the playoffs one time in the last decade, an anti-climactic three-game stint in 2014 that saw star Mike Trout held to one hit. Despite Trout's unrelenting dominance in the time that has passed since that demoralizing series sweep, the Angels have experienced four losing seasons in the last five years.
They hope to change that now. Joe Maddon, the Pennsylvania native who was an employee of the Angels for 31 years, was hired as manager Wednesday to usher in the next era of October baseball in Anaheim. Buck Showalter, John Farrell and San Diego Padres hitting coach Johnny Washington also were interviewed for the position.
The pinnacle of Maddon's career to date is leading the Chicago Cubs to the 2016 World Series title, ending a 108-year drought. Now Maddon is coming home. He left Anaheim to become manager of the Tampa Bay Rays in 2006, three decades after beginning his professional career as a catcher in the Angels minor league system in 1975.
He moved into scouting for the Angels in 1980, spent the 14 seasons that followed as a minor league manager and coach, and was promoted to the major league coaching staff in 1994. As Angels managers were replaced, Maddon was a mainstay. He became bench coach under Mike Scioscia, a position he held when the team won its only World Series championship in 2002 and for the next three seasons.
Despite leaving the Angels 14 years ago, Maddon still owns a home in Long Beach.
Maddon's three-year deal gives him more job security than general manager Billy Eppler, who spent the first three years of his tenure with Scioscia at the helm before hiring Brad Ausmus last October to a three-year contract. That experiment was short-lived. Ausmus, 50, was fired the day after the Angels completed the first 90-loss season of the century.
In comes Maddon, 65, a man as highly regarded for his embrace of modern baseball as for his quirky and effective leadership styles. Only three times have Maddon-led teams finished with fewer than 84 wins _ his first two seasons in Tampa Bay, where the then-Devil Rays twice lost more than 95 games, and the 77-win Rays in 2014.
After the Rays lost 101 and 96 games in his first two seasons, Maddon in 2008 led them to 97 wins and the World Series, where they fell to the Philadelphia Phillies in five games. The Rays posted winning records the next five seasons and won the AL East in 2010. Maddon opted out of his contract after the Rays went 77-84 in 2014 and signed a five-year, $25-million deal with the Cubs.
Maddon transformed a team that had finished fifth in the National League Central for five consecutive years into a perennial postseason contender. With a nucleus featuring future most valuable player candidates Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez and the 2016 MVP Kris Bryant, the Cubs won the World Series for the first time since 1908 in a seven-game triumph over the Cleveland Indians two years and one day after Maddon was hired.
The Cubs failed in their defense of the NL pennant the following season, losing to the Dodgers in the NL Championship Series in five games. The Cubs did not advance beyond the wild-card game in 2018 and this year they finished 84-78, seven games out of the division lead, after being in first place as late as Aug. 22.
Cubs general manager Theo Epstein suggested that the 2019 Cubs lacked motivation and that it was not up to the front office to hold players accountable on a daily basis, seemingly implying Maddon did not push his players as he did during the first four years of his five-year contract.
Still, Maddon and Epstein parted ways amicably, toasting their joint success over wine in their St. Louis hotel during the final weekend of the 2019 season.
Now Maddon, whose .540 winning percentage (1,252-1,067) ranks 20th among those who have managed at least 2,000 games, will return to Anaheim with the same expectations placed upon him when he first arrived with two franchises in need of face-lifts. The Angels will expect Maddon to win.
