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The story
The Los Angeles Angels announced on the 21st (Oct. 22 Japan time) that they will not renew manager Kurt Suzuki’s (43) contract for next season, effectively firing him. The team hasn’t reached the postseason since winning the division in 2014, and this year posted a franchise-worst 100 losses — reportedly the furthest any of MLB’s 30 teams currently is from playoff contention. Suzuki, who is from Hawaii and has Japanese grandparents, retired as a player in 2022, became an assistant GM in 2023, and took over as manager in 2025. The thread mixes criticism of a franchise culture where “changing managers won’t fix anything” with speculation about who comes next, and the discussion spills over into the struggles of Shohei Ohtani and Yusei Kikuchi.
The Angels announced on the 21st (Oct. 22 Japan time) that they have fired manager Kurt Suzuki (43) and will not offer him a contract for next season.
The Angels have missed the postseason for 12 straight years since winning the division and advancing to the Division Series in 2014, and this season they suffered a franchise-worst 100 regular-season losses. Of all 30 current MLB teams, they have gone the longest without reaching the playoffs, and the slump shows no sign of ending.
Suzuki, who is from Hawaii and has Japanese grandparents, retired as a player with the Angels in 2022. He became the team’s assistant GM in 2023 and was named manager in 2025. But he was unable to turn around the struggling Angels and was dismissed after just one season. No successor has been named yet. Pitcher Yusei Kikuchi (35) was also on the roster this season, but he missed time with left shoulder inflammation, finishing with 14 appearances, a 1-7 record, and a 4.92 ERA.
Source: hochi.news / Original article here
What people said
Bobby Valentine tried managing the Japanese way and the Red Sox fell apart. People said it looked like he must've been on drugs.
Yeah, I thought the same thing. Teams like this just can't get strong.
He missed time this year, but durability and toughness are supposed to be his selling points — he usually makes around 30 starts a year. Last year, his first with the Angels, he started 33 games. And now he's already 35.
Adell's with the Guardians, not the Brewers.
The White Sox lost like 120 games just two years ago. If you actually commit to it, you can bounce back fast.
If 'committing' just means spending money, it's not that simple. The White Sox are basically stacked with prospects. For the Angels, it only starts once they stockpile a ton of prospects and get lucky with several of them panning out — that's exactly how the Astros did it too.
In soccer it changes things massively, actually.
Don't go stirring up the people who blamed the manager at the WBC and Premier 12 just to avoid facing how low the level of the Japanese players actually was.
Japan's national team never changes, period. Doesn't matter if the manager's foreign or Japanese.
The manager hasn't actually changed in forever lol. And before that, the team was dead weak until they fired the foreign manager and turned things around.
Ohtani picked them precisely because they were a weak, nothing team to begin with.
Maybe the guy pocketing all that salary for nothing — Kikuchi — should just pay for it himself.
You're the soccer fanboy (derogatory slang for soccer-obsessed posters) who said the Angels would get stronger once Ohtani left. Own up to it.
If they don't cut him loose around next year, the Dodgers have no upside left.
Trout: .242 AVG, 22 HR, .803 OPS
For reference:
Seiya Suzuki: .270 AVG, 26 HR, .841 OPS
Mookie Betts: .257 AVG, 23 HR, .780 OPS
Nothing flashy, but not completely done either — kind of a middling stat line.
Back when Ohtani was with the Angels, people were saying stuff like 'the Angels are struggling because Ohtani's hogging the DH spot and messing up the rotation.'
The only way to shake off the 'troublemaker' label is to pull off both personal brilliance and a team championship at the same time. That's exactly why Ichiro gets resented too.
They tried to land Gerrit Cole once and got flatly rejected. So they took the budget they had set aside for Cole and signed Anthony Rendon with it instead.
Sounds just like the Dodgers — winning like crazy while Ohtani was out, then getting weaker the moment he came back.
Paying 640 billion yen for them must have the owner grinding his teeth — rebuilding is going to cost even more on top of that.
Not really — this just bumps the value up again. As an investment it won't skyrocket, but it'll keep climbing steadily.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The Angels haven’t reached the postseason since their 2014 Division Series run, and this season’s 100 losses mark a franchise worst — working out to six different managers over the past nine years. Suzuki, who is from Hawaii and has Japanese grandparents, retired in 2022, served as assistant GM, and took over as manager in 2025, but he couldn’t turn the team around. The thread combines criticism of an organizational structure where “a team that can’t win won’t win no matter who’s managing” with speculation about the next hire, and the discussion also spilled over into Shohei Ohtani’s departure and his time with the Dodgers — often cited as a symbol of the Angels’ decline — though it’s easy to overlook that this firing itself has nothing directly to do with the period when Ohtani was on the roster.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisoku Sokuho+) thread ‘[U.S.] Struggling Angels Abruptly Fire Manager Again — Suzuki Out After Just One Year, 6th Manager in 9 Years in Bizarre Pattern, First-Ever 100-Loss Regular Season.’
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