Who’s
to Blame: Jerry Dipoto or Mike Scioscia?
It
has been one disappointing season for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. After signing Josh Hamilton this last
offseason to a 5 year $125 million (that’s 25 mil. a year) and signing both CJ
Wilson and Albert Pujols to a combined 15-year 317.5 million contracts the
Angels have just been average or worse.
Sure they’ve had their moments but most came from young superstar Mike
Trout, to be fair though Pujols had a fine season the slow start makes things
scary moving on. In the end who’s
to blame for the lackluster seasons the last 2 years even with all these “star”
players. The GM who picked the
players? The coaches who are
unable to bring out the potential of the players? Is it the players themselves not playing to the potential
and not making adjustments? Well I
want to look at the rumor that either Jerry Dipoto or Mike Scioscia is going to
be fired at the end of the season and I want to see who the real problem is.
To
start this off the person to blame for the Angels problems is actually quite
simple to spot and name but no way to get rid of, mainly cause he is the
boss. Arte Moreno is very much the
Jerry Jones or George Stienbrenner of LA, very active and very destructive at
times to the team at times. As a
quick example before we move on to Moreno, back in 2011 it has been reported
that Arte Moreno told GM at the time Tony Reagins that he was to be fired if he
didn’t finish the deal for Vernon Wells in 24 hrs and we know how that deal
went.
Arte
Moreno purchased the Anaheim Angels back on May 15th, 2003 from the
Walt Disney Corp for $180 million.
His first move, as owner was to reduce ticket prices and beer price and
showed his willingness to improve the team/spend big money by signing Vladimir
Guerrero. The next major move was
to change the name from Anaheim Angels to the Los Angels of Anaheim, a change
that to this day is mocked openly and in my opinion is the worst name change in
history of sports. In 2006 he
signed a very lucrative deal with Fox Sports West for broadcast rights to the
team. Since Moreno has taken
control the team has been very successful on the field with Western Division
Champions in 04, 05, 07, 08, 09 and 3 consecutive winnings seasons (07-09).
That
is an abridged history of Moreno ownership of the Angels, up to this point he’s
successful but the cracks are showing.
Moreno does not have a baseball mindset and doesn’t fully understand the
game as people that he hires to do the job. With the example I gave with Wells all signs pointed to it
being not just a bad idea since Wells has never played well in Anaheim. He forced the deal, and in the process
taking one of the worst contracts in sports, to get him costing money. There is some evidence to say that
similar things were said about Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols but nothing so
concrete. So that’s my feelings
about Moreno and my problems I have with him but lets get to the heart of the
question.
Jerry
Dipoto took the job on October 28th 2011 after being the intern GM
for the Diamondbacks the previous years.
He has a very little track record so it’s hard to say that he’ll get
better or get worse. What values
he has for his teams and what is his philosophy when it comes to building
teams. I feel that he hasn’t had a
lot of time to really make the team what he wants as much as what Moreno tells
him to do. But that doesn’t mean I
haven’t seen things I didn’t like, as an example his decision to not sign Trout
to a long term contract that could have locked him in for multiple years and
cheap in the long term. Not trying
to repair the farm system with trades, international signings, etc. The team had an opportunity to trade
Howie Kendrick for prospects this previous trade deadline, this could have
helped the team try and form a system since the signings of Pujols and Hamilton
makes the team forfeit their 1st round pick last and this draft. That’s what I see of Dipoto, so lets
look at the other half.
Mike
Scioscia has been the manager of the Angels since 1999 and has proven to be one
of the smarter and better managers in baseball. Winning a World Series back in 2002 against the Giants and
winning multiple Western Championships in the over 10-year career. He’s always favored small ball to power
hitters which is one thing that I don’t knock him for but his inability to
change over time with the new style of game has started to worry me. He doesn’t rely or use (to my
knowledge) advanced scouting tactics to try and play the numbers on a batter and
leans more old school tactic.
I
wanted to give each person on his post an equal show of what I see and believe;
I wanted to represent them as best I could so you could make a choice
yourself. In the end the question
is still the same, if one of these guys has to go who would I say is “more to
blame”? While I don’t like saying
things like this I’d still have to say Dipoto is probably the guy I’d say is
hurting the team more. Scioscia is
just as much to blame but losing a good manager is harder on a team when the
new one may not be any better.
Then again we never know since if the Angels had 20/20 hindsight they
could have had Joe Maddon as their coach and we wouldn’t even be having his
conversation.
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