Maybe Gardy should have waited another day before taking the Tigers managerial position, because a new job just came on the market. The Nationals announced this morning that they will not be bringing back Dusty Baker to manage in 2018. It’s a bit shocking, considering Baker had managed the team to back-to-back division titles and was popular in the clubhouse.
Now, the Twins aren’t looking for a new manager, but they are looking for a new pitching coach—and, apparently, the entire Nats coaching staff, not just Baker, was sent walking. That includes their pitching coach, Mike Maddux, who the Twins should totally snatch up.
The connection here is obvious: Maddux was the pitching coach for the Texas Rangers from 2009 to 2015, while Thad Levine was their assistant GM. The two surely already have some sort of working relationship, if not some admiration for one another. In fact, ESPN 1500’s Derek Wetmore already pondered last week if Maddux would be a potential option, but concluded that, “[t]he Nats and Indians are both playoff teams with high-quality pitching staffs, so there’s some doubt as to whether any coach would accept a lateral move.” Obviously... that’s no longer a problem.
The other question here, of course, is whether the Twins should go after Maddux, and I think the answer is yes. He was able to improve the Rangers pitching staff dramatically, taking them from a 5.37 ERA in 2008 to 4.38 ERA in 2009—almost a full run difference. The Rangers staff wasn’t full of aces or anything either; we’re talking like Kevin Millwood, Tommy Hunter, Scott Feldman, and Vicente Padilla. Oh, and another fun connection: Maddux coached current Twins bullpen coach, Eddie Guardado, for two years in Texas.
The Nationals went hard after Maddux in 2015, hiring him as the pitching coach before they even had a manager. Baker apparently gave Maddux a lot of autonomy in the pitching department, and he succeed: over the two years as pitching coach, the Nats posted 43.0 fWAR in pitching—the third highest in baseball.
Obviously, having a staff with guys like Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg helps, but it appears that, at least, they liked Maddux. “He’s everything you want from that position,” Max Scherzer told the Washington Post in 2016. “He’s a great set of eyes and ears for what I do.” Maddux instituted a practice of having starting pitchers on the bench track pitches, outcomes, and batter reactions using a pencil and clipboard, simply because writing stuff down helped them remember things better—and the pitchers liked it. “It keeps you in the game the entire time,” Gio Gonzalez explained. “Something we all agree on. It’s not individual anymore. It’s pretty cool just seeing everyone go about it.”
So if the Nationals have indeed given Maddux the pink slip, the Twins should absolutely go after him for their open pitching coach position. He has proven experience helping mediocre pitchers improve, already has relationships with the front office and other coaches, and players seem to like him.
If Thad Levine hasn’t already picked up his phone, I’ll be pissed—but I bet he already has.