After a highly successful run with the Atlanta Braves, Mazzone left for Baltimore after the 2005 season. He received a hefty raise and got to work with his best friend, Sam Perlozzo. But if he had it to do over, Mazzone would accept whatever Atlanta offered and assume his customary place in the dugout next to Braves manager Bobby Cox.
"At the time it was a great move, but now I regret it. You see the difference in organizations and how things are run and, believe me, the Atlanta Braves are about as good as it gets," Mazzone said.
"I got a chance to go back to my home state. My dad’s 86 and my mother’s 81, and they got to see me more in two years than they had in the last 16. Then I have three boys that live up in western Maryland. So we were able to get a lot closer. That part of it was good. But now, as I sit here on my back porch, I second-guess it."
He’s out of the game and desperate to get back in. He has no expectations of matching his salary with the Orioles, and won’t subject a would-be employer to dealing with an agent. If you want Leo Mazzone to be your pitching coach, just dial him up and make an offer.
"I’ve let it be known to general managers in the big leagues that money is not an issue. I don’t want them thinking it is," he said. "I’m ready to bounce whenever somebody calls. I’ll have my bags packed in 10 minutes."
5 months ago
SC
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Awesome
Someone else downing the organization of old.
Good thing is that part of the organization is no more. We are in MacPhail Country now, and we are much better off. I think Rick Kranitz gets along better with the younger players better and, apparently, he has figured out Daniel Cabrera. Who knew if you just told him to pump gas for 100 pitches that it would work out so well?
by PWubbs on May 10, 2008 6:19 PM EDT 0 recs
Mazzone: Overpaid, overrated hack
Every front office in baseball got a gander at how inept he was at handling the young O’s staff, and the fact that he kept trotting out his old washed up friends like Danys Baez and that guy with the 1970s porno moustache whose name has thankfully been expunged from my gray matter.
Hell, I could have been the pitching coach of the Braves when he was there, if I’d lucked into a staff of Glavine, Maddux and Smoltz.
The sum total of my coaching: “Tom, here’s the ball. There’s the mound. Go get em.”
by Lothar on May 10, 2008 6:49 PM EDT 0 recs
y'know
He WAS the first Major League pitching coach that Glavine and Smoltz ever had, and the same goes for Steve Avery and Kevin Millwood, too. Greg Maddux was already good. He also did a great job with a mountain’s worth of bullpen arms. Because he failed with the pathetic Orioles does not suddenly make him a hack.
by SC on
May 10, 2008 6:57 PM EDT
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Thanks Leo
I remember when he called out the team’s loser attitude, and then when he openly questioned the talent on the team and that coming up from the minors. I doubt it won him any friends, but I figure at least he left on his terms. His words pretty much stated what we all knew, but the O’s brass couldn’t state for over a decade. Instead we got double speak about competing from the revolving front office. I’ll always look at Mazzone as an insider who helped open the door, just a bit, and expose the fetid crap that was the inner workings of the Orioles.
by drj on May 10, 2008 6:51 PM EDT 0 recs
Help me out here
What, exactly DIDN’T the Orioles do that Mazzone wanted? He knew what he was getting into. He knew we didn’t have Smoltz and Gravine and Avery coming up from the farm system. If he didn’t know, he wasn’t paying attention.
He had free reign over that staff for 2 years. Leo was God, thus spake Leo. And now he’s whining?
Hey Leo, consider this – maybe it was YOU.
Just sayin’.
"Terrible what passes for a ninja these days..." -Pops Racer
by duck on May 10, 2008 7:02 PM EDT 0 recs
consider this, though
Maybe there were lots of things. Maybe they made lots of promises. Maybe Sam made them with the proxy of the front office. Maybe Mazzone didn’t actually get things he was promised.
There are a lot of things that we don’t know about that might influence him to speak the way he does. Also, let’s be real, he’s hardly the first guy to take a dump on that joke of a revolving door front office we had before Andy MacPhail was hired.
by SC on
May 10, 2008 7:39 PM EDT
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I dunno duck
What was Mazzone promised? I recall that when the O’s fired Mazzone, they (I believe it was MacPhail) made a comment about not committing to Mazzone’s methods throughout the organization. That leads me to believe there were some promises about instituting a methodology. It’s tough to know just how much of a nuthouse you’re walking into when your only view is from the outside. I’ve done it. I took a job and walked after three months because it wasn’t nothing like what I was led to believe.
by drj on
May 10, 2008 8:23 PM EDT
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Jerk
He was a terrible coach, let’s face it. The years of success in Atlanta went to his head. He was inflexible (every pitcher must be like Palmer and pitch low and outside). To be a coach you have to listen, I don’t think Mazzone listened to his staff. He was stubborn and ineffective. Why do you think nobody else has picked him up. Cabrera, Burres, and Olson are much better this year.
by Peter's Wolf on May 10, 2008 9:20 PM EDT 0 recs
I can agree with one part of this
“He was inflexible.”
Probably. But him being a “jerk” puts him into the same camp as how many other players/coaches/etc. that have dumped on the Baltimore regime that Mazzone served under, and those before it? Are they all jerks? Or is there something to it? The Orioles have been a joke.
by SC on
May 11, 2008 3:09 AM EDT
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