Former Angels Legend Won't Be Joining Ron Washington's Staff

Well, this is a turn of events.

During the Los Angeles Angels search for their new manager, the team interviewed all sorts of people across the league. It was reported that former Angels fan favorite Torii Hunter interviewed for the open job, but after Ron Washington was hired, he would be taking over as the new first base coach for the team. 

But on an episode of the show Foul Territory, former MLB catcher A. J. Pierzynski broke the news that Hunter was not accepting the first base job. He stepped off camera for a few minutes to speak with Hunter and came back to explain the situation.

From earlier today, apparently Torii Hunter is not going to be an Angels coach. https://t.co/ALi8Ji3Jh2

— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) November 10, 2023

Hunter has no experience managing at either the major or minor league level, so his inclusion in their open position was interesting. But the team likely wanted to see what he could bring to the table, and he was willing to talk to them about the top job.

Former players get jobs all the time, as they know the game extremely well. Hunter was also one of the most liked players during his time with the Angels, so the fans would have been completely on board for this if he had been hired.

He has no interest in leaving his personal life to take over anything other than the manager role, and I don’t blame Hunter either. It’s likely that he never had an interest in managing, but wanted to at least check out the offer.

The Angels have been making all sorts of sweeping changes to their coaching staff, and Washington is going to have a tough task ahead of him. He could very well succeed, but it won’t be easy for the veteran manager.

The Halos can at least move forward in their offseason now that they have a manager, but this is when the real work starts. They have a ton of holes across their roster, and the team has many questions that they need to answer.