A Role As A Bench Coach Could Be In Suzuki’s Future

The Los Angeles Angels finally fired manager Kurt Suzuki on Wednesday, although it was a slow-motion affair that took almost a month. That’s a typical Angels move, but it’s clear that the new ownership group led by Stan Kroenke wants to get its leadership in place to start making baseball moves before the lockout. 

We still don’t know how many they’ll actually be able to make given how petty this particular labor squabble is going to be, but the Angels did offer Suzuki a role as a special assistant, which wasn’t surprising. 

What was surprising was that Suzuki might not take it, according to a report from Darragh McDonald of MLBTradeRumors.com. The perception that’s been out there about Suzuki is that he’s a dyed-in-the-wool company man who’s been happy to do the bidding of soon-to-be former owner Arte Moreno, but Suzuki can’t be happy about having to play the fall guy for a 100-loss season in which he clearly lost the team down the stretch. 

Suzuki mentioned the possibility of catching on with another club, which makes a lot of sense given what we saw early in the season. Suzuki looked like a perfectly competent manager early on as the Angels threatened to play .500 baseball, although he clearly struggled with the in-game decisions and the coherent explanations that were supposed to follow. 

But the manager expressed happiness with the job he was doing late in the year, which earned him the respect of interim GM John Mozeliak in August and September. It seems fairly clear that he prefers being on the field and all that comes with that, which isnt’ hard to understand given the mess that was the Angels front office under Moreno. 

Going forward, we’re seeing a role as a bench coach in Suzuki’s future. It obviously won’t be with the Angels, and he won’t get another chance at a manager’s job right away until he does some resume building on the field. 

We don’t know where yet, but expect Suzuki to surface somewhere in the next few weeks. A role as a bullpen coach would be a demotion, and Suzuki probably doesn’t have the chops yet to work as a pitching coach. 

But becoming a bench coach makes all the sense in the world. It would help Suzuki to work in a real organization where things are done differently, and it would give him the time and the experience to step into a manager’s job when he’s ready.