{"id":25737,"date":"2019-10-16T12:50:12","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T16:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=25737"},"modified":"2019-10-16T13:09:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T17:09:18","slug":"los-angeles-angels-hire-joe-maddon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/10\/16\/los-angeles-angels-hire-joe-maddon\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Angels Hire Joe Maddon"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Los Angeles Angels Hire <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/maddojo99.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Maddon<\/a><\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/los-angeles-angels\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Angels<\/a> have hired <strong>Joe Maddon<\/strong> to become the team&#8217;s next manager. Coming back to Los Angeles will be a homecoming of sorts for Maddon, who spent 31 years in the Angels organization in various roles, from 1975-2005. ESPN.com\u2019s Jesse Rogers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/27859727\/joe-maddon-agrees-new-manager-los-angeles-angels\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a> that Maddon is expected to receive a three-year contract in the $12-15 million range.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">OFFICIAL: The Los Angeles Angels have agreed to terms with manager Joe Maddon. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PKZHBaljl8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/PKZHBaljl8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Angels\/status\/1184492367560228871?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 16, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Angels GM Billy Eppler released the following statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are thrilled that Joe is coming back home and bringing an exciting brand of baseball to our fans. Every stop he has made throughout his managerial career he has built a culture that is focused on winning while also allowing his players to thrive. We believe Joe will be a great asset for our Club and look forward to him leading the team to another World Series Championship.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Getting Back to the Postseason<\/h3>\n<p>The Angels have hired Maddon for one main purpose \u2014 lead the team back to the postseason. Los Angeles has missed the postseason for five consecutive seasons and has made the playoffs just once in the past decade.<\/p>\n<p>If anyone is able to get Los Angeles back to the promised land, Maddon appears to be the guy. The veteran manager has been known to lead struggling franchises back to contention. Maddon, 65, served nine years as the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/tampa-bay-rays\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> manager, leading them to their only World Series appearance in 2008. Although his biggest feat came in 2016 when he lead the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/chicago-cubs\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chicago Cubs<\/a> to their first World Series title since 1908 \u2014 breaking a 107-year championship drought.<\/p>\n<h3>Still a Lot of Work to Do<\/h3>\n<p>The Angels have taken a step in the right direction with their hiring of Maddon. However, there is still a lot of work to do. For one thing, the team desperately needs pitching, ranking 25th in ERA in 2019. Adding another power bat to pair up with superstar <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/troutmi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Trout<\/a><\/strong> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/ohtansh01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Shohei Ohtani<\/strong><\/a> will be important as well. Also, the Angels will still be grieving the loss of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/skaggty01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyler Skaggs<\/a><\/strong>, and the team could wind up facing potential ramifications regarding his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2019\/08\/30\/autopsy-reveals-that-tyler-skaggs-died-of-accidental-overdose\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">death.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Expect Maddon to get the Angels back to relevance in the near future, but don&#8217;t expect a smooth ride from the start.<\/p>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"48jO2vNoTu5aiU3ROt7kxw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1176695704\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'48jO2vNoTu5aiU3ROt7kxw',sig:'ECdq6EsdbuQcmxSEYOE7Dj3tBLGYbbpODRdItC_wT5I=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1176695704',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles Angels Hire Joe Maddon The Los Angeles Angels have hired Joe Maddon to become the team&#8217;s next manager. Coming back to Los Angeles will be a homecoming of sorts for Maddon, who spent 31 years in the Angels organization in various roles, from 1975-2005. ESPN.com\u2019s Jesse Rogers reported that Maddon is expected to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2924,"featured_media":25743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16,35],"tags":[461,156],"class_list":["post-25737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-angels","category-news","tag-joe-maddon","tag-los-angeles-angels"],"modified_by":"Aaron Cornett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}