As Mike Trout gets older, the pressure on the Angels increases. The Angels have wasted the career of perhaps the best player of all time, and there is a breaking point in the future, but they will get bigger on the horizon. Either Trout will age out of his residency numbers, or there will be a break between player and team.
When you lose 12 games in a row after one of the few promising starts the Angels have had in the past 10 years, the pressure becomes unbearable. The Angels canned Maddon yesterday.
It doesn't mean Maddon didn't get his walking papers. Maddon used to be a creative, forward- thinking manager, but now he wants his team to be on autopilot while he still thinks of himself as a creative manager. A manager who wants to make it clear that he has a big throbbing brain without actually doing anything to benefit his team went to the press about moving Trout to left field before going to Trout himself or walking Seager with the bases loaded. Maddon is calling attention to himself because he wants the attention and not because he wants to win.
Maddon was the perfect guy for his first two years in Chicago, where the relaxed atmosphere he created around a team that was trying to break the longest dry spell in sports, surrounded by everyone in the city having their brains march right out of their ears, made him the perfect guy. Maddon was still playing the song "Joe Cool" when the Cubs needed something more. It only got worse from there.
Not everything is in a manager's hands. Maddon isn't to blame for Trout going 1-for-28 during the losing streak. Ward and Rendon are not hurt on Maddon. It isn't on Maddon that Ohtani has been a walk or strikeout recently. The wOBA of the man is.195. All went wrong.
There is something about how the Angels have to build their team because of Ohtani. The Angels are the only team with a six-man rotation and have to use an extra fifth starter. The rotation has been gasoline during the streak, with Ohtani, Chase Silseth, and Patrick Sandoval carryingERAs over 8.00 over the last two weeks. Everyone is stuck in the fifth. Eight different guys out of the pen have had to throw three or more times during this streak, and when you get eight deep into the pen you are likely to find guys who were carrying a bindle the day before.
Maddon didn't use his pen very creatively as he only has one multiple-inning guy out there. The Angels have to roll with six starting pitchers, which means one lessReliever than most, so they probably need more. When MLB enforces the roster limits on pitchers that they were supposed to but don't because of the shortened spring training, that will only make things worse.
The Angels don't know how many times Michael Lorenzen or Noah Syndergaard will pitch this season because of their histories, and Ohtani has never pitched more than 130 in a season. With every pitcher getting an extra day of rest they would be more likely to reach the sixth or seventh. The Angels have had a run of confusion and sadness over the past two weeks, but are still 10th in MLB in the number of starts from their pitchers.
Even if Lorenzen and Syndergaard have been good, they don't get a lot of starts. The leading pitchers have 11. In an expanded setup, those missinginnings from pitchers doing well are still important. The Angels have an extra start thanks to the way they have to set up around Ohtani.
The Angels are where they are because of other things. A combination of injuries, incomprehensible slumps from players, and a lack of a plan for years are to blame. You would like to get your stop out there when you are on a streak like this. If the Angels don't have a good pitcher, they have to wait an extra day to see him, and if the slide continues, it's another six games before they can try again. The Angels can't figure out what a team with a six-man rotation and a limited pen looks like until they figure out what the rules are. Interim manager Phil Nevin will be in charge.
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