Amidst the 13-game losing skid the Los Angeles Angels are on right now, their manager, Joe Maddon has been fired.
Phil Nevin is taking over for the rest of the year.
Maddon was hired by the Angels at the end of the 2019 season after he had been let go by the Chicago Cubs.
One MLB insider points out that back then, the Angels missed out on somebody important.
Billy Eppler, who is now GM of the New York Mets and recently just hired Buck Showalter to manage that team, had Showalter on his radar back in 2019.
Perhaps an interesting ‘what if?’
One of the finalists for the Angels job in 2019 that went to Joe Maddon, hired by then-GM Billy Eppler?
Buck Showalter, who Eppler hired this winter with the Mets.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) June 7, 2022
Swing And A Miss
Before we continue, we should make one thing clear.
The hiring of Maddon was not a bad hire, at least on paper.
But when you consider what Showalter has been able to do this season with the Mets, you can’t help but feel like the Angels missed out.
Granted, the Angels have been lacking in the pitching department for a while, so perhaps you could blame owner Arte Moreno for that.
But Showalter would have been a great fit for the Angels, and the fact that Eppler passed up on him then, only to later hire him to manage the Mets, has to sting somewhat for Angels fans.
Showalter is an old-school guy and could have easily lit a fire under this team amidst such a bad losing skid.
He has that intense kind of personality while managing that would really benefit a struggling team when they need to get it going again.
Alas, Showalter is managing the Mets and the Angels are stuck after having fired Maddon.
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