Jerry Dipoto Out as GM of Angels?

[Raw Biz]

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/07/jerry-dipoto-possibly-out-as-angels-gm.html

 

Very interesting story going on here. There has long been animosity between Dipoto and Scioscia and it looks like it's finally boiled over. Dipoto seems to be in that new-school of statistical analysis and Scioscia is very old-school, going off of gut-feeling and how a player looks.

 

I decided to look at the Dipoto's transaction history to see what sort of things he's done.

http://www.angelswin-forum.com/forums/topic/61-jerry-dipoto-gm-history/

 

His first big moves were signing CJ Wilson and Albert Pujols to big contracts, which hasn't worked out as good as he may have hoped. At first glance, some of this trades are questionable (for instance sending Grichuk+ for Freese+, as well as the Greinke deal) but I don't know enough about their minor league system to pass much judgment.

 

What are people's thoughts on him? While I would love to bring in a younger, statistical-oriented GM, his transaction success doesn't stick out like Freidman or even Daniels. If/when Melvin retires or moves up the chain of command, is he someone you would target? Personally, I really like Ray Montgomery and would like to see him take over but I also love what Ray did in the draft this year.

[jerichoholicninja]

It's tough to judge what he's done as I'm sure Moreno just told him to put a winner on the field at all costs and Scioscia probably has more pull than him in the organization anyway.

[ewitkows]

Rosenthal provides an overview of the situation, writing that “he and his staff viewed Scioscia and the coaches as practically insubordinate” in declining to utilize statistical information.

[TheCrew07]

Are we sure the Brewers aren't already statistically orientated?

 

Players like Wolf, Lohse, Marcum, Lind, and Cameron would seem to fit the sabermetric mode more than the scouting mold, players with warts who aren't sexy but are productive. Mark A. has mentioned "spreadsheets" on a couple of occasions and Melvin talked about taking the organization in that direction early in his tenure as well. I actually think that's one of the reasons the Brewers are relatively good at "patching" but not "building", they analyze their targets sabermetrically. They get most out of the money they have available spend but in the end all that really means the payroll is always near the redline and the team will produce around an average rate. Or put another way, the payroll is maxed out and the team will have the potential to be good, but never great.

 

I don't want Dipoto, I don't want another puppet GM, and I have a hard time believing all front offices aren't using sabermetrics on at least some level. I'm much more concerned with a GM's philosophy on organization building and how they assign value to players than anything else.

[danzig6767]

It's tough to judge what he's done as I'm sure Moreno just told him to put a winner on the field at all costs and Scioscia probably has more pull than him in the organization anyway.

Yea, my guess is that signing Pujols was more a decision made by Moreno. I gotta think most GM's would understand that contract was going to be an albatross, it was only a matter of how soon, not if.

 

In pro sports, the degree of involvement by owners is a huge wildcard. Some owners are willing to mostly set a budget and let their GM make the decisions and some owners want to be much more involved, playing the role of both owner and part time GM.

 

Here with the Brewers, it seems very clear that Attanasio likes being involved with both setting a direction each year and negotiating with the agents of free agents he wants to sign, be it Suppan, Loshe, Garza, K-Rod, etc.

[Thurston Fluff]

I think any GM who is pure sabre or pure traditional scouting is shortchanging their franchise. I also don't think there are many that only do one or the other. It's hard to find a guy like Perez if you only look at numbers. It's also hard to find value if you never evaluate what is actually valuable. The only way to do that is to do some math once in a while. Together you can find more than either can do alone.

[xisxisxis]

What are people's thoughts on him? While I would love to bring in a younger, statistical-oriented GM, his transaction success doesn't stick out like Freidman or even Daniels. If/when Melvin retires or moves up the chain of command, is he someone you would target?

 

He is the worst GM in the majors. Makes Melvin look like a brainiac....

 

His FA signings are horrible. His trades are horrible and talent evaluation is exceeded by 95% of the yahoo fantasy baseball GMs. Paul Depodesta should get another shot at GM before Dipoto gets another interview in baseball.

 

 

Are we sure the Brewers aren't already statistically orientated?

 

If they do then they keep dividing by 1 over each of their metrics....

[TheCrew07]

Are we sure the Brewers aren't already statistically orientated?

 

If they do then they keep dividing by 1 over each of their metrics....

 

I'm not sure why I found that so funny, but I did...

[Raw Biz]

He is the worst GM in the majors. Makes Melvin look like a brainiac....

 

His FA signings are horrible. His trades are horrible and talent evaluation is exceeded by 95% of the yahoo fantasy baseball GMs. Paul Depodesta should get another shot at GM before Dipshito gets another interview in baseball.

 

Is that all on him though? I thought a lot of this is because of Moreno. Some the recent trades he's done (getting Skaggs, Santiago, and Heaney) are pretty good.

[LouisEly]

MA has mentioned almost every time he's been on the TV telecast about their "analytics meetings". Not sure what their analytics are, but they definitely use them. That's probably why he's completely befuddled by this season; any halfway reasonable analytics would not have predicted Lucroy, Gennett, Ramirez, Lohse, and Garza to be as bad as they have been so far.

[trwi7]

Moreno is insane, so I don't really put the free agent signings on him. A couple of good looking trades though. Mark Trumbo for Tyler Skaggs and Hector Santiago. Howie Kendrick for Andrew Heaney.