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Maddon Adjusts His Style As Stakes Continue To Rise

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 10, 2008

SEATTLE - Mr. Sunshine has an edge to him after all - even if he doesn't relish putting it on display.

Joe Maddon, the manager who could mine the positives from just about any depth during his first two seasons, the guy who at times perplexed observers by, say, heaping praise on the way Dioner Navarro took a secondary lead off second base in the wake of another unsightly loss, has shown a different side this season.

He lit into his team in a brief postgame meeting following a win in Kansas City last month, making Akinori Iwamura's failure to run hard on a ball into a lesson for the group. And he felt compelled to go back to the well again last week, benching B.J. Upton on Wednesday after he declined to run out a grounder the previous evening.

Running hard is Maddon's one inviolable rule, and no one in the clubhouse can claim ignorance because "I've talked about this on the first day of spring training three years in a row," he said.

Nonetheless, Maddon's willingness to take a stand on that issue and be more openly critical of shortcomings like his team's difficulties driving home runners in scoring position represent something of a shift for the manager.

Surely the fact that the stakes are much higher now than they ever have been in Tampa Bay has something to do with it. But there's another side to it, as well.

"The last couple years, doing what I did the other day wouldn't have mattered," Maddon said Friday. "We have a group of guys now that are good enough to get something done. Over the last couple years, to get visibly angry, to me, would have served no purpose whatsoever. ...

"This group now, I'm more willing to go outside of what I would normally do, because I think it can make a difference with this group, whereas I don't think there was much of a difference to be made with the last two groups, quite frankly."

In other words, it wouldn't have mattered how angry he got at, for instance, the journeymen relievers who dragged the bullpen to unseen depths last season, because there was little chance such a display would have any effect on their performance.

A well-placed salvo with this team, however, seems to have some value. The mix of veterans who have been to the postseason and young players eager to throw off the misery of their Devil Rays past has made for a substantially more captive audience.

"It's good to see out of him," James Shields said. "I think a lot of the players reacted really well to it, and I think it's that time of year for us to really bear down and play the game the right way."

Upton echoed those sentiments.

"It just kind of looks bad to people when you don't play the game the right way," he said. "Maddon said in Kansas City it was the last time, and unfortunately I was the guy he had to make the example out of, but it won't happen again."

Maddon emphasized that he would prefer not to have to air anyone out in public, because he doesn't believe it's the appropriate way to handle most situations. But once it gets to a point where one person's actions could lead to others flouting the rules, other measures are sometimes necessary.

He felt that was the case when it came to Upton, and said such a circumstance is "probably going to happen again at some point." When it does, he'll address it - publicly or privately - even though in an ideal world it wouldn't be necessary.

"I've always wanted to be treated like a man," Maddon said. "Thus, I've wanted to treat all of our people like men."

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