Former Cubs manager Joe Maddon has questions about the Shohei Ohtani situation

As the shine wore off Joe Maddon with the Chicago Cubs in the years that followed his ending a 108-year championship drought, things eventually came to a head after the team missed the postseason in 2019 and he and the team parted ways.

It wasn't long, though, before he found himself back on the top step of the dugout, with the team he spent decades with to start his coaching career, the Angels, bringing him aboard ahead of the 2020 campaign. The hope was the player-friendly manager would be able to recreate the Wrigleyville magic with a team that had wasted not only prime years of Mike Trout but the early seasons of Shohei Ohtani's big league career.

Maddon managed in Anaheim from 2020 to 2022 before unceremoniously being shown the door mid-season. But for two-plus years, he had a front row seat to the relationship between Ohtani and his longtime translator Ippei Mizuhara - a dynamic that's now under the microscope in the wake of multi-million dollar gambling activity that came to light recently.

The three-time Manager of the Year sat down with Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville of the Starkville podcast recently and offered his own reaction to the shocking story that rocked baseball ahead of Opening Day.

Former Cubs skipper Joe Maddon 'upset' by Shohei Ohtani situation

The 70-year-old Maddon said he was 'viscerally upset' when he first heard the news last month - and expressed a great deal of surprise based on what he witnessed as manager of the Angels. According to Maddon, the thought of Mizuhara being 'disloyal' to Ohtani was near-unthinkable based on their relationship.

Aside from the shock, Maddon admitted he has questions (as do we all) about the situation, namely how such high-dollar transactions went completely unnoticed by anyone around Ohtani or, for that matter, Ohtani himself. The appearance is worth a listen, as he also (as is often the case these days) talks about why he's not back in an MLB dugout - something that's been a constant talking point for the likely future Hall of Famer in the last few years.