Maddon wants pitchers to adjust attacks
TEMPE, ARIZ. » One of the themes of Joe Maddon’s comments this spring is how disappointed he was in the pitch selection of a handful of his pitchers last year.
The good news is that’s one of the easiest things to fix.
“Stuff and ability is there,” Maddon said. “It’s execution, selectivity, sequencing, whatever you want to call it. But the stuff is definitely good enough.”
Throughout the spring, as Maddon has talked about each of his pitchers, he’s come back to this theme, notably with Andrew Heaney, Griffin Canning and Ty Buttrey.
Maddon said their performance can go to a higher level simply by changing the way they attack hitters.
Part of the problem last year, Maddon said, was that the analytic details the pitchers were given were too complex to be useful. He said they simplified it about a month into the season, and they’ve continued to do so in their planning for this year.
“I’ve seen how it’s been broken down,” Maddon said. “It’s more streamlined, more direct, and more dugout-friendly.”
Maddon also pointed out that last year’s results might have been much better if they’d had more than just one month of baseball left once they realized it needed to change. The Angels had a 5.41 ERA in the first 32 games and a 4.74 ERA in the last 28.
“There just wasn’t enough time,” he said. “I didn’t like it at the beginning. I wanted to make it different, and it started to become different.”
Beyond the issue of the information given to the pitchers, Maddon said he’d like the pitchers to feel more freedom to depart from that information if they feel better about throwing something else.
He said he wants the pitchers “to do the math and not just use a calculator . ... I don’t want you to be the passenger all the time. I want you to drive the car.”
Maddon said he believes that was a particular issue last year when the game was on the line, and pitchers may have been doing some
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Today: Giants at Angels, spring training, 12:10 p.m., FSW
things without conviction.
Consider this statistic: Last season in low-leverage situations, the Angels allowed the fourth-lowest OPS in the majors. In high-leverage situations, they were 18th.
With the bases empty, the opponents’ OPS ranked 18th, but with runners in scoring position it was 24th. With two outs and runners in scoring position, it was 30th.
In short, when the Angels most needed to make the right pitch and execute it correctly, they failed.
That is where Maddon wants to see improvement, more so than getting any more velocity or movement or spin.
“The stuff is definitely good enough,” Maddon said. “It’s going to be a matter of confident execution of what we’re trying to do, and with that these guys can be very successful. I like our group a lot. I know everybody says the same things this time of year. I get it. But I’m watching these guys very closely, and I like it.”
Maddon said it’s all part of the plan to continue to add defensive versatility to a player who has already made such a positive impression with the “mental and physical spot that he’s in.”
Maddon said he had had outfield coach Bruce Hines work with Rengifo daily on his defense, bunting and whatever else they feel could add to his game.
“If he nails this stuff down, this guy becomes really valuable,” Maddon said of Rengifo. “Then you can start drawing comparisons to Chone Figgins or Tony Phillips or Mark McLemore or Ben Zobrist ... it’s all within his abilities. When you’re a switch-hitter who can play shortstop and do all these other things, that’s a pretty valuable player in today’s game.”