The legendary older brother of a legendary Hall of Fame pitcher is adding to his transcript of MLB teams where he has been the pitching coach. Mike Maddux is leaving the Texas Rangers and will go further west to be the new pitching coach for the Los Angeles Angels, who have been in a managerial flux for several years now but have had a revolving door of pitching coaches that has lasted even longer. Maddux, 64, is the older brother of Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux, who spent most of his decorated career pitching for the Atlanta Braves. Mike has been a pitching coach on four different teams since 2003, with him being the pitching coach of the Milwaukee Brewers for six seasons, the Texas Rangers for a combined 10 seasons over two stints, the Washington Nationals for two seasons and the St. Louis Cardinals for five seasons. Where the older Maddux has gone, success has usually followed, but that will be a bit harder to happen with an Angels team going through a franchise-level scandal with the Tyler Skaggs wrongful death case hanging over its head at the moment.

Maddux is the first big addition to new manager Kurt Suzuki’s coaching staff and he replaces Barry Enright, who served as pitching coach over the past two seasons as part of Ron Washington’s coaching staff. Maddux will become the sixth pitching coach for the Halos since 2016, the year after Mike Butcher was fired after being a stabilizing force for nine seasons in that role. Charles Nagy was the pitching coach in the final three seasons of Mike Scioscia’s reign as Angels manager, then was replaced by Doug White, who only served as pitching coach for one season in being tied in with Brad Ausmus, who also lasted just one season as manager of the team. Mickey Callaway was the pitching coach in the shortened 2020 season and then was fired after some domestic abuse allegations were dished out against him in the offseason before 2021. Matt Wise was the pitching coach in Anaheim for the next three seasons as he jumped around between coaching staffs led by Joe Maddon and Phil Nevin. Enright was the most recent hire and only lasted two seasons as he oversaw a youthful pitching staff that also featured some valuable veterans such as Tyler Anderson, Kyle Hendricks and Yusei Kikuchi. Now, entering 2026, the Angels have hired Mike Maddux to be their sixth pitching coach in the last 11 seasons and whether he sticks around for a long period of time or not will be up to the front office. But Maddux has plenty of experience and he would be a wise guy to keep around if the Halos’ pitching numbers drastically improve to levels not seen in many years.

The Angels ranked 28th in overall staff ERA in 2025 at a mark of 4.89, which is not sustainable for long-term success. The WHIP and strikeout-to-walk ratio numbers aren’t much better and having a grizzled veteran coach like Maddux lead the way can hopefully turn things around in the pitching department. With plenty of young prospects such as Caden Dana, George Klassen, Sam Aldegheri, Mitch Farris and recent first-round draft pick Tyler Bremner in the minor league system, the Angels have plenty of future potential for their rotation and there’s no better guy for the job of developing solid pitchers at the big league level than Mike Maddux. Hopefully this hire will turn out to be one of the better ones in recent franchise history, because the AL West is littered with teams that are not easy to face from the pitching perspective.

The Houston Astros might have been eliminated from making the playoffs, but that was due to health issues in their batting order and a lack of depth to sustain them. With monstrous bats such as Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve, Isaac Paredes, and Jeremy Peña, Houston’s offense has continued to be a pain in the side for plenty of teams over the past several seasons, including the Angels. The Seattle Mariners have likely AL MVP Cal Raleigh, who just hit 60 home runs in the regular season while being a catcher for most of his appearances and they also have Julio Rodriguez, Randy Arozarena, Eugenio Suárez, Jorge Polanco and a bunch of other scary bats to deal with. The vagabond Athletics had an offensive boost with young batters such as likely AL Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz, shortstop Jacob Wilson, catcher Shea Langeliers and left fielder Tyler Soderstrom, among others. So, the A’s batting order is no walk in the park. Finally, the Rangers, whom Maddux just served as the pitching coach, have a load of batting depth as shown with multiple youngsters getting chances to swing for the fences as injuries plagued their biggest stars down the stretch. Still the main offensive headliners for Texas are Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Adolis García. So, Maddux will have a lot cut out for him in his new role as Angels pitching coach.

Maddux has coached plenty of great pitchers over the years, such as C.C Sabathia in Milwaukee, C.J Wilson in Texas, Max Scherzer in Washington and Texas and a bunch of good active starters who have pitched in St. Louis during Mike’s time there. And every team that Maddux has coached on has gone to the postseason at least once and a few of them even went to the World Series(the Rangers being that team). So, Angels fans might have reason to hope that this hire can lead to brighter days ahead for their struggling team that has not made it to the playoffs since 2014 and has an active streak of 10 consecutive seasons with an overall record of under .500. There might be more hires to come for Suzuki’s coaching staff, but the first-time manager has an outstanding pitching coach to help him during his one-year contract season in 2026.