Manager rumor mill: American League edition

Not as much to report on the AL manager rumor mill, with just one opening left. But let's rant about it a bit, anyway.

Author:
ColleenS
Publish date:
Oct 25, 2019 10:12 AM EDT

Maddoning: Good luck with that lunatic, Angels. (@Angels)

I started working on this ... and then Joe Maddon got hired by the Angels. This crazy 24-hour news cycle, man. Well, if two teams aren't enough for you, check out the National League edition, if you missed it.

Kansas City Royals

2019 Record 59-103
4th in AL Central
Former manager Ned Yost (2010-2019, 457-502 .477)

Career highlights Won the World Series in 2015, and apparently Ned Yost is the “winningest manager” in Royals history:

The Royals are like the sad cousins of the AL Central. I’m always comforted knowing that, though neither of my teams are in the World Series right now, they’re still not the Royals. I’ve been to Kansas City’s airport and I’m good without going back ever again (seriously, I’ve been on cleaner CTA buses). I also don’t believe Ned Yost resigned — he was fired. He coasted for far too long on the goodwill from his World Series win.

Royals rumors No. 1 on their list should be hiring a manager that isn’t going to let the team be the goon squad of the last few years. My favorite moment is still when Yordano Ventura tried to fight Mike Trout, who is not only very nice but also very strong.

So who wants to manage the Royals? *touches nose*

I’d say Joe Girardi, but it turns out that he’s going to the Phillies, so who else needs a job? The Royals are poking around internally and have interviewed Mike Matheny, who you might remember from getting canned by the Cards in the middle of the 2018 season for endorsing goonish hazing behavior by his players (toward one another!) which basically negated anything good he did with the Cards. I’ve also heard that they interviewed Vance Wilson, so the Royals appear to be doing an internal promotion thing which … I don’t hate. You want someone who knows the players, the org, and all that good stuff.

Given that the Royals are
up for an ownership
change, we’ll see where this goes.

Angels

2019 Record 72-90
4th in AL West
Former manager Brad Ausmus

Career Highlights Anaheim has better weather than Detroit.

Angels news: Joe Maddon is no Mike Scioscia, guys, so have fun with that lunatic. Also, he didn’t get super managerial powers from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant like Scioscia.

Now what?

So we know the Phillies,
Cubs, and the Angels snapped up some guys. The Mets, Pirates, Padres, and Giants
are still taking their time interviewing.

Knowing how the Mets have been, I’m expecting them to give lip service to manager interviews and pick someone who Jeff Wilpon can boss around. The Padres loves a good dumpster fire, so Ron Washington is a sure bet. The Pirates and the Giants are a little harder to figure out so I’m expecting a surprise (or for Dusty Baker to go to Pittsburgh, because he hasn’t been there yet).

Some teams that should probably clean house on the bench would be the Mariners, Rockies, Tigers, Orioles, Blue Jays, and the Marlins (can someone give Don Mattingly something to work with or set the poor guy free?)

The end?

So that’s it for managers. We’ll see where the rest of the offseason takes us, in the giant LinkedIn that is major league baseball …