In an unavoidable decision, the Angels fired hitting coach Mickey Hatcher—ESPN Story.
I called it on April 30th in the following clip from this posting.
(Arte Moreno’s) not a quick trigger owner, but if (the Angels are) not hitting by mid-May, Hatcher’s gone. This could expose a rift between manager Mike Scioscia and the front office. Scioscia’s influence has been compromised with the hiring of Jerry Dipoto and if one of his handpicked coaches and friends is fired, a true chasm will be evident. Firings will be shots across the bow of Scioscia and, armed with a contract through 2018 (that he can opt-out of after 2015), if he’s unhappy with the changes he’ll let his feelings be known.
There will be talk that Scioscia’s sway over the organization is on the wane. Hatcher has been a coach on Scioscia’s staff since 2000. Twelve years is a long time. Maybe it’s too long.
Outsider speculation is just that. It’s hard to imaging Scioscia wanting to fire his hitting coach and friend, but there could also be an element of realization and pragmatism that something needed to be done. We don’t know whether Scioscia had a heavy hand in the decried decisions the Angels made in the past such as doling lucrative and wasted contracts on Gary Matthews Jr. and Justin Speier and making disastrous trades for Scott Kazmir and Vernon Wells. Scioscia had significant say-so in the team construction and this current group—on offense at least—is not the type of team that Scioscia generally preferred to have. For better or worse, he’s a National League-style manager who learned his trade under Tom Lasorda. What that means is that he liked having starting pitchers who gave him innings, a deep and diverse bullpen with a hard-throwing closer, a few boppers in the middle of the lineup, speed and defense.
Perhaps the failed decisions listed above were what caused the change in course in the front office from the manager having major input and the mandate to say no, to his opinion being taken under advisement with upper management doing what it wants whether the manager is onboard or not.
That’s pretty much how it is throughout baseball no matter who the manager is.
Following the drastic and uncharacteristic acquisition on Albert Pujols, there’s a lack of definition to this current Angels group.
No manager would say no to Pujols and eventually the rest of baseball is going to pay for what Pujols is going through at the moment. He’s not finished. He’s going to hit. But was it a decision that Scioscia would’ve made? Or would have preferred to spend that money elsewhere on a better bullpen? Another starting pitcher? An infielder who can do it all? Given the template of the Angels and what they needed, Jose Reyes was a better fit for the team than Pujols was, but with the new cable network deal on the way and Moreno’s desire to be the focus of Southern California, he wanted the big fish and got him.
The firing of Hatcher is cosmetic. To suggest that anyone aside from Pujols receives credit or blame for what he does on the field is silly. We can’t judge with any certainty how much a hitting coach influences a player when he steps up to the plate. The media will try to anoint certain coaches a mythical, guru status when, in reality, it’s the hitters themselves who do the dirty work. Many times a hitter simply needs someone with whom he connects regardless of the information he’s receiving. If the coach says good morning to him in the right way or gets in the player’s face when necessary, it will be seen as the “turning point”.
Was it a turning point? Or did the hitter just happen to meet the perfect person to make him feel better mentally to go up to the plate in the state he—as the individual—needed to succeed? That state could be anger, it could be peace or it could be anything. We don’t know.
Did Charlie Lau make George Brett or was Brett going to shine through with or without Lau?
Did Lou Piniella’s adjustments with Don Mattingly convincing Mattingly to try and pull the inside pitches over the short right field wall at Yankee Stadium create Donnie Baseball or would he have done it once he grew comfortable in the big leagues?
Hitting coaches like Rudy Jaramillo have been lauded and hired amid great fanfare and not helped at all in the bottom line.
The hitting coach is a convenient scapegoat to wake up the team, to put forth the pretense of “doing something” and to send a message to the manager.
In the case of the Angels, it’s probably all three.
It might not help, but given the talent on the roster, they certainly can’t be much more of a disappointment than they’ve already been.
//
PAULLEBOWITZ.COM 
Howie Kendrick knows how to hit. Vernon Wells used to know how to hit, but isn’t very good at it anymore. Aybar and Hunter are both good hitters.
Albert Pujols knows how to hit better than almost anyone on the planet.
The two youngest guys on the team (Trout & Trumbo) are the only ones that actually are hitting.
So, to me, it makes little sense to fire the hitting coach unless the players have turned on him. He can’t make in-game decisions like the manager. There’s no mid-at-bat conferences at the plate like pitching coaches have on the mound.
The only thing a hitting coach can do is suggest a hitting philosophy and maybe tinker with a player’s swing from time to time.
It isn’t Hatcher’s fault that Pujols isn’t hitting. Pujols has been hitting better than anyone for a decade. In most cases I think the hitting coach receives too much of the credit and too much of the blame.
A big league hitting coach with established players gives suggestions and only when the player comes to him. It’s a move to make a move and nothing more. It should keep the vultures off the trail for a week or two. After that, if they’re still hitting and playing poorly, they’re going to have to think about trying something else. What that is, I don’t know.