Joe Maddon out as Rays manager: A fit for Boston?

October 24th, 2014
by Dakota Antelman

Joe Maddon announced Friday that he would be exercising the “opt-out” clause of his contract. That means that for the first time in nine years, he is a free agent manager.

Maddon walks away from Tampa with a large trophy shelf of manager of the year victories, playoff appearances and local recognition from the Rays fan base. He was without a doubt the greatest manager in a Rays history and he walks away with two “manager of the year” awards under his belt.

"As I said last week, Joe and I enjoyed a tremendous relationship working together in Tampa Bay and I wish him nothing but the best wherever his next stop will be," Rays vice president of baseball operations, Andrew Freidmen said after the deal.

As a free agent, Maddon has already become one of the most sought after names on the market this offseason. As a result of that, the list of possible landing spots for him is long. In fact, it basically lists every team in the MLB.

But which team is number one? Where would Maddon most like to go? Which team would most like to sign him?

In theory, there is not a team in baseball who would not want to sign him. Maddon has a reputation of developing young talent into all-star, hall of fame caliber excellence as well as a long track record of manipulating batting lineups and pitching rotations to get the best out of established players. In a perfect world teams like the Chicago Cubs or Houston Astros who have lineups made mostly of rookies or second or third year players would look at Maddon and see all that he could do to mold them into the playoff contenders they have pretty much never been.

But in actuality, those teams, by virtue of their perpetual failure simply do not have the money to sign Maddon. In fact even the Rays who have made the postseason in three of the last five seasons could not reach a deal despite their desperate attempts and utter willingness to pay huge money to bring back their king.

"We tried diligently and aggressively to sign Joe to a third contract extension prior to his decision. As of yesterday afternoon, Joe enabled himself to explore opportunities throughout major league baseball. He will not be managing the Rays in 2015,” Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said.

While the details of those proposed extensions that the Rays handed to Maddon are not currently known, they could reasonably involve numbers in excess of three to four million dollars a season. As a reference point his last contract went for three years at a total payment of six million dollars.

Maddon wants a big contract; that much is clear. He wants to be paid like the Joe Giradis and Mike Sicocias of baseball. In all truth, it would be only logical that the “best” manager would get the biggest salary.

Thinking along those lines, the teams that would have the optimal balance of need for Maddon’s services and ability to pay for them, are limited to big markets like New York, LA and Boston.

New York and LA however are already paying hall of fame managers big contracts and would likely not want to go through the awkward period of firing those managers and watching as their players transition to the Maddon rule.  

Therefore, we are left with Boston. While at first the idea of replacing incumbent manager John Farrell seems misguided and risky, his place behind the wheel of the Red Sox may not be as unquestioned as previously perceived.

It is true that Farrell led the Sox on a stunning turnaround season that culminated with a World Series win just as it is true that it was Farrell who unearthed the incendiary talent of Koji Uehara at the closer position. But lest we forget that it was Farrell who, after winning the World Series, led his team into a face plant of a season the very next year.

Farrell is, like so many members of the 2013 Red Sox, a clubhouse character guy. He took a team ravenged by infighting and made them great. He did wonderful things for Boston but in their title defense this season, Farrell blatantly mismanaged several aspects of the game.

The trio of Xander Bogaerts, Will Middlebrooks and Stephan Drew were juggled through the third base and shortstop positions relentlessly. As a result, Middlebooks lost much of his power while Bogarts began to make glaring fielding errors .

Farrell, a former pitching coach, has no difficulty managing pitchers. Hitters however are not Farrell’s strong suit and he apparently forgot the need for maintaining a hitter’s confidence in 2014.

Now those are not reasons to fire Farrell immediately. He remains a very good manager with the ability to foster young pitching talent.

Maddon however remains a very good manager with the ability to work the best performances out of pitchers and develop the talent of young hitters.

Tell me how that would not be appealing to Red Sox fans.