With the start of spring training just over a week away, new manager Kurt Suzuki is squarely in the spotlight. He’s going to be running his first camp as a rookie manager, and former GM Jim Bowden made some interesting points about this in his piece in The Athletic.
His first is that Suzuki is a rookie manager who recently retired from his playing career after 15 years as a big league catcher, so he’ll be managing guys he played against as well as some former teammates. But there’s a lot more to it than that.
Start with the sheer number of bodies Suzuki will have to manage. The Los Angeles Angels have been signing free agent retreads at an amazing pace this offseason, and many have significant injury histories.
The coaching staff will also come into play here in a major way. There’s been a lot of talk about new pitching coach Mike Maddux, who left the Texas Rangers during the offseason after manager Bruce Bochy was fired. Maddux is a respected pitching coach who helped the Rangers staff win a World Series in 2023, but to say he’s going to have his hands full with this group is beyond an understatement.
New hitting coach Brady Anderson will also be in the spotlight. He had a long career as a player with the Baltimore Orioles, and Anderson successfully shifted to a front office role with the Orioles a decade ago.
But he’s never done this job before, and Angels hitters were a hot mess last year. There’s plenty of talent in the lineup as well as some formidable power hitters, but the Angels also struck out at an epic rate last year, and it will be Anderson’t job to fix that.
In addition, the Angels are going into spring training with some serious holes in the lineup and on the pitching staff. No one really knows who’s going to play left field with Tyler Ward being traded to the Orioles, and center field is also a mystery given that the Angels want to move last year’s center fielder, Jo Adell, to a corner outfielder position based on his bad defense. Add in the lack of a closer, and there's a lot to figure out.
Finally, there’s the general disaster that the Angels have become as an organization. Their offseason started with a serious loss in the ugly Tyler Skaggs civil suit trial, and GM Perry Minasian embarrasses both himself and the organization every time he gets near a microphone. Most new managers get plenty of front office help when they take over, but Suzuki will have to overcome the incompetence of those above him to succeed this season.