Dipoto Grade Sheet

[Inside Pitch]

The Angels had, what, a week to decide on Santana and Haren? I'm sure the #1 goal was to retain Greinke, but not at the salary the Dodgers are paying him. But that process took longer than the timeframe that the Angels had to decide on Haren & Santana.

 

The Angels had an entire season to decide what to do with those guys.  Looking at Haren in ST, it seems they chose wisely there.  With Santana, it may just be the case of a team finally getting sick of a guy who caved mentally.  But, there is no denying his arm was sound and that he finished the season on a good note.  Even with his horrendous showing, he was pretty good Vs RHBs.   The argument that he gave up too many HRs is hard to defend when you consider the team traded for two guys that give up a ton of HRs and signed another.

[Angelsjunky]

Right, Inside Pitch. The bottom line is that, for whatever reason, Dipoto decided to the route of Hamilton/Blanton instead of Hunter/Greinke; I think the latter would have been a better combination, but we'll just have to see.

 

I'll do another update in a couple weeks and will name it something different, like "Transaction Progress Report - April Edition" because I think a lot of folks have been hung up on the whole grade report thing. The whole point of this thread was not to judge Dipoto in a final way but keep track of the performances of the players Dipoto got rid of vs. the ones he brought in.

[Inside Pitch]

The thing we don't know is if Arte has directed him to get more sluggers. It's possible that Arte wants offense cuz it's sexier than Pitching. DiPoto was a pitcher, so I can't imagine that he doesn't understand how important pitching is. It is possible that Arte is more in charge than we think because of what Reagins did.

And as far as Santana and Haren a concerned, they both sucked for us last year, and Santana has been a head case for us. Sure hindsight is 20/20 and Ervin is dojng well, but we couldn't wait to get rid of him. I'd look at Butcher for our pitching issues before DiPoto. Why is CJ so crappy all of the sudden?? It's not because of JD.

 

 

Well, if Dipoto is going to cower and cave to the owner, he's the wrong guy for the job.  

 

Everyone and their brother had an issue with how Bill Stoneman operated, he didn't talk, he was hugely secretive but he acted on his own beliefs after the Disney ordered Edmonds debacle.  

 

The year he came in, Tony the Tiger Tavares, had just asked publicly why the team couldn't fire the entire team.   The farm system was easily in worse shape than it is now and the team was as fractured in the clubhouse as it could get.  Stoneman stepped into a terrible situation and was promptly criticized by everyone when he chose to go with the guys in the system over guys like Steve Traschel.   I remember Traschel because it was Steve Bisheff's over the top ranting about  it that drove me to stop reading the OCR.   Fans still jumped on the bandwagon and called him a Disney, Yes man who's only concern was to save them money.  

 

Chuck, I'm assuming you have grown close with Tim Mead over the years.   Ask him about the real story behind the Edmonds trade if you haven't already.  That one situation may have been the springboard for Stoneman having been able to act on his own advice,

 

But with an owner like Arte, the GM can't be a chickenshit.

[Inside Pitch]

I'll do another update in a couple weeks and will name it something different, like "Transaction Progress Report - April Edition" because I think a lot of folks have been hung up on the whole grade report thing. The whole point of this thread was not to judge Dipoto in a final way but keep track of the performances of the players Dipoto got rid of vs. the ones he brought in.

 

Honestly, I'm probably more obsessively watching how this works out than I typically would be in large part because I tend to be a big believer in some of the things Dipoto is investing in.  I just worry he went too far in one direction, like Jack Z did in Seattle a few years back when he ditched offense for defense at every position.

 

I think it's fair to keep track of the situation, I think it's silly to come to any conclusions after two weeks (not that you did that), but ...there were questions coming into the season, and it's fair to criticize the early returns as a result of those questions.

[Jim]

Right, Inside Pitch. The bottom line is that, for whatever reason, Dipoto decided to the route of Hamilton/Blanton instead of Hunter/Greinke; I think the latter would have been a better combination, but we'll just have to see.

 

I'll do another update in a couple weeks and will name it something different, like "Transaction Progress Report - April Edition" because I think a lot of folks have been hung up on the whole grade report thing. The whole point of this thread was not to judge Dipoto in a final way but keep track of the performances of the players Dipoto got rid of vs. the ones he brought in.

The idea of grading something so incomplete and with so many variables is at its heart, judgmental. I was not saying that your judgment of the situation is wrong, just a bit premature. I like your idea of making an April, May sort of thing. I am looking forward to seeing how it all pans out. My guess is something of a 50/50 deal, some good, and some not as good.  

[Adam]

His hair gets an A+

[AZMike]

His hair gets an A+

I wonder if he uses Head and Shoulders like a couple of our flaky players

[ettin]

I didn't say that, gotbeer. I fully expect Hamilton to have a much better year than Wells.

 

The point of this thread is to get an OBJECTIVE view as to how Jerry Dipoto's moves have actually worked out - based on actual numbers. That is, in the end, the only way we can judge his performance. So far its not looking good, but as I said it is only 10 games into the season. I'd like to update this every ten games or so to keep track.

 

Sample size. I agree with the principle of what you are trying to do AJ but call me back when we get at least 50 games in and some of those numbers won't be statistically sound over a full season for that matter.

[ettin]

The Angels had an entire season to decide what to do with those guys.  Looking at Haren in ST, it seems they chose wisely there.  With Santana, it may just be the case of a team finally getting sick of a guy who caved mentally.  But, there is no denying his arm was sound and that he finished the season on a good note.  Even with his horrendous showing, he was pretty good Vs RHBs.   The argument that he gave up too many HRs is hard to defend when you consider the team traded for two guys that give up a ton of HRs and signed another.

 

Santana was traded because of two things: His velocity dipped 1 mph in 2012 (and notably is still down a mph) and Ervin throws the slider over 30% (this season he has thrown in 42%!) of the time and it has been statiscally proven that pitchers who throw splitters (Haren) and sliders are more prone and inclined to have a serious arm injury. The velocity dips are a red flag and warning sign for the both of them so Dipoto tried to flip them for something useful. Notably Dipoto saw that Marmol had a significant increase in fastball velocity last year and I think that is why he focused on trying to acquire him at the time (although his velocity has dipped back down this year).