The headlines, “Say It Ain’t So, Joe” and “Out At Home,” were as predictable as the news was blindsiding. Joe Maddon, the only manager of the Tampa Bay Rays who mattered, was leaving. Just like that. He and his wife are already heading across the country in his mobile home.
While the recent departure of Andrew Friedman, the super-savvy executive vice president of baseball operations, was a key factor and opt-out clause initiator, in the end it was Maddon’s call that the timing was right for his purposes.
His official explanation sounded generic.
“We went back and forth a couple of times; it didn’t want to work out,” said Maddon of negotiations. “I just thought this was a great opportunity for me and my family to explore right now, and so we did.”
But if there’s anything Joe Maddon is not, it is generic. No other managerial model could have had the budget-defying success he did in this market.
Maddon, an uncommon winner with a payroll-challenged franchise, is now in an MLB catbird seat. A better contract elsewhere–a certain Windy City, perhaps–assuredly beckons.
But there is more to ponder than life without the Joe Gnome inspiration.
There is also the sobering possibility that Maddon, 60, just didn’t see a bright enough light at the end of the small-market, stadium-quandary tunnel. That what he saw were his remaining prime years spent largely in a market that was, for him, better to live in than work in. That it was now or never to make the move to a franchise that could concentrate solely on winning–without attendance issues, stadium scenarios or relocation possibilities constantly hovering like a Damoclean fungo bat. In short, he couldn’t wait for what might not happen.
If that were the case, it would be like Maddon to be too classy to mention it on the way out. Why fan the image-issue flames?
And so, Matt Silverman, who was promoted into Friedman’s position, is 0-for-1 on Rays’ re-signings. Just so happens it was the signature re-signing for this franchise.