On Tuesday the Dodgers announced that they have hired Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux and 19-year veteran Raul Ibanez as special assistants to Andrew Friedman in the team’s front office. The team indicated that Maddux and Ibanez will help Friedman, who is president of baseball operations, while also working in scouting, player development and interacting with players at the major and minor league levels.

The hirings themselves instantly awakened Dodger fans who might have been snoozing just a bit waiting for spring training to start with pitchers and catchers reporting to Camelback Ranch on February 19th. The blogosphere and other social media as well as the print media lit up with the announcement.

For most bringing Maddux and Ibanez on board was hailed as another step in building the most dynamic front office in all of MLB. For some it raised the question as to when the Dodgers might complete their 25-man front office roster.

It seemed that Greg Maddux is almost as revered by Dodgers fans as the greatest of all Dodger pitchers – Brooklyn born Sandy Koufax. Maddux pitched but 114.1 innings with the Dodgers during two stints with the team but somehow this most recent signing seems somewhat like a homecoming. That is, Maddux being a Dodger is in the natural order of things. No doubt the folks in Atlanta and Chicago don’t see things in the same light.

While Greg Maddux may be getting most of the ink and attention, it’s what Raul Ibanez brings to the Dodgers staff that could prove to be more valuable. (Photo credit – Tom Mihalek)

Maddux was a master of his trade while being somewhat of a soft-tossing right-hander getting guys out with an 83-mph fastball. His mastery was one of location, changing speeds, never being predictable and keeping hitters off balance.

Little wonder the Dodgersphere woke up with his signing, not just as a special assistant, but more so to assist with scouting and player development. The net affect of his influence on player development will only be seen in proportion to his direct contact with players, especially minor league pitchers. That is, time at the various Dodger affiliate fields and not so much in central office. My hope would be that influence would be brought to bear at the lower levels of the farm system. Just think what he might do guiding 19-year old Grant Holmes and helping him learn how to pitch.

It is interesting that both Maddux and Ibanez played the game at the MLB level until they were 42. Ibanez is somewhat less known compared to the the Hall of Fame Maddux and also a more recent retiree having played his last game on September 28, 2014.

For me Ibanez is the more interesting of the two signings. Everyone understands signing Greg Maddux. Is a bit of a coup. The question for me is what it is, or might have been, that presently lands Raul Ibanez in an already crowded Dodgers front office? Certainly others must have seen the same attributes in Ibanez, as this is not his first foray into the world of baseball management.

In November of 2014 Raul Ibanez was among three finalists, along with Kevin Cash and Don Wakamatsu, to replace Joe Maddon as manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. He eventually withdrew from the competition citing family considerations and Kevin Cash was selected as the Rays’ manager.

Ibanez did have a long and successful MLB career playing all or parts of the season at that level for 19 years, 11 of them with the Seattle Mariners who had drafted him in 36th round of the First Year Player Draft in 1992. He played seven years in the minors before making it to MLB at the age of 27 in 1999 and playing in 87 games with the Mariners that year.

Ibanez, with his 1,200th RBI in 2014, became the 88th player in baseball history to hit 300 home runs, drive in 1,200 runs and have 2,000 hits. He finished his career with 305 home runs, 1207 runs batted in and 2,034 hits. Not too shabby for a 36th round selection.

Now Raul Ibanez is a Dodger in an entirely new role. What does he have to offer that made the Dodgers jump at the opportunity of signing him to a front office position?

Ibanez is one of those players that most likely should have been consumed by the game. Apparently with little chance of making it to MLB and even less chance of a lengthy career, he defied all the odds. He simply wouldn’t be defeated by a five ounce ball and a 34 inch bat.

In June of 2001 he was designated for assignment by the Royals – not once but twice – in a span of five weeks. None of the other 29 MLB teams bothered to claim him off waivers. With that as a backdrop he could have packed it in, gone to the minors and sulked or felt sorry for himself. Instead he contacted ex-Royal Kevin Seitzer and went to work.

As Seitzer recalls, Ibanez had the mind set of a power-hitter and suggested a complete overhaul, urging him to hit for a higher average, produce a higher OBP and cut down on his strikeouts, figuring that his power would come. From that point on Ibanez’s career turned around. Through perseverance and attitude he turned his demotion into an opportunity.

Ibanez has gained a reputation not only as a hitter but as one who know about hitting. He attributes much of his on-field success to Kevin Seitzer and the beginning of learning how to hit.

“It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me,” Ibanez said. “Kevin taught me how to hit. My whole life, I had just hit, but I didn’t know how to hit.”

Ibanez said Seitzer’s instruction helped him to shorten his swing and concentrate on hitting the ball to left-center field.

“He gave me a solid foundation,” Ibanez said. “He taught me how to be fluid with my hands, how to hit with my legs and most important, to be stubborn with my approach, trying to hit to left-center.”

Seitzer convinced Ibanez to ditch his 110 percent swing and forget about pulling the ball.

“He taught me to swing with 70-80 percent effort,” Ibanez said. “It was a lot of the same things that hitting coach Jeff Pentland now teaches here. The other thing is Seitz taught me to be stubborn in my approach, to stay in the middle of the field, no matter what.”

In an interview with Kirby Arnold of the Kitsap Sun, Ibanez explained the secret to driving a ball out of the park. It is almost as if he is talking with Dodgers center fielder Joc Pederson.

“There’s strength involved, obviously, but hitting a home run takes as much technique as it does muscle,” said Ibanez “It’s balance, weight transfer, bat acceleration in and through the hitting area, then extension and follow-through.

“The acceleration of the swing has to be in the hitting area and not before you get to the hitting area,” Ibanez added. “That’s why a hitter tends to hit a home run when he least expects it. It seems like he’s swinging easier. When guys try to swing hard and hit home runs, they pull their heads and pop up or miss the pitch, because they start tying to accelerate from way back here and they can’t do it. You can’t accelerate from behind your body. You’ve got to accelerate from the center of your body.”

Among other things, Raul Ibanez has been there, done that and understands the struggles of every minor league player. Through perseverance he has willed himself to be successful at performing the most difficult task in all of sports – hitting a round ball coming at you at 90 miles per hour from just over 60 feet away – and doing so with a round bat. With help from others and a willingness to listen he has developed his tested and true techniques of hitting. But there is still more if he is to pass on his knowledge of hitting and baseball life in general to minor league players.

He was not much help to the Royals and was not chosen as a member of their postseason roster. However, his contribution is still remembered by his then Royals teammates as a turning point in their season and perhaps still partially responsible for their 2015 World Series victory.

Shortly after his arrival in Kansas City, the Royals were playing poorly and in danger of falling out of playoff contention. The players were obviously frustrated and getting down on themselves. That is when Ibanez – then a member of the Royals for only three weeks – took matters into his own hands by calling a players-only meeting.

Although Ibanez was excluded from the Royals’ 2014 playoff roster, many of his teammates credit the players-only meeting he called for on July 22, 2014 as the turning point of the season for the eventual World Series runners-up. (Photo credit – George Nikitin)

When discussing that meeting with USA Today’s Bob Nightengale two months later, it became evident that it was pivotal for his much younger teammates.

“I just gave my honest observations and told them about the potential and talent they had. The talent here is so incredible. They just need to believe that. So I told them that looking in from the outside, every team hated to play them. Everyone saw the talent they had. This was their opportunity. They were on the cusp of greatness. I just thought they needed a belief.”

Following that meeting, which is considered pivotal by all involved, the Royals took off and not only made it to postseason play, but all the way to the World Series before losing the seventh game of the series to the San Francisco Giants.

Ibanez has a three-prone approach to bring to his new gig with the Dodgers. First, he has baseball smarts, especially about hitting learned in the school of hard knocks. Secondly, he has displayed for over 25 years – and truly believes – that determination and will are more important than intelligence, and are more important than talent. His third prong and perhaps the most important is not only the ability, but the willingness to communicate those skills and beliefs to young players.

Perhaps his message to the youngsters will be this:

“It’s definitely frustrating. It’s aggravating. It’s all of those things. At the same time, they say it’s not how many times you fall off the horse. It’s how many times you get back up. We’re going to keep getting up and keep fighting at this thing.”