Grantland: Scioscia like the way it feels

[TroutBaseball]

Here is Jonah Keri's longer form article on Grantland: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/mlb-mike-scoscia-jerry-dipoto-los-angeles-angels-resignation/

 

 

According to him Scioscia takes a "feel" based approach to opponents and can't be bothered by scouting reports. Butcher wants everyone to pitch down and away no matter what.

 

[Angel Oracle]

Shakes head.

 

If we had enough offense, pitchers wouldn't have to worry about the perfect pitch so much.

Blyleven excelled, despite usually being amongst the league leaders in most HRs allowed.   Key was, he bore down when runners were on base, and gave up mainly solo HRs.

 

But does "Sleep Like A Baby" Butcher truly think teams don't catch on, when he wants his pitchers to constantly throw down and away?

Edited July 2, 2015 by Angel Oracle

[Brian Ilten]

The very thought that Scioscia would not use every advantage at his hands to help the team win pisses me off.

 

Guess what folks, yes, you and I want the Angels to win far more than their own manager.  So why bother watching anymore?

[Turd Ferguson]

This just keeps getting worse and worse. It also explains a lot. Can you imagine if we had to face Trout? We ignore the scouting reports and pitch him down? And then wonder why he slugs 1.000 against us. Or someone like Napoli--if he knows we pitch everyone down and away, pretty easy to look for that. Nice "one size fits all" approach to the game, skip.

 

Regardless of what he has done in the past and regardless of his HOF credentials, the game has evidently passed Sosh by.  

[rvt]

Sosh needs to go.  But would he opt out if no one is willing to pay him equally to his contract here?  I have my doubts. 

[Mark68]

Blyleven excelled, despite usually being amongst the league leaders in most HRs allowed.   Key was, he bore down when runners were on base, and gave up mainly solo HRs.

Just like every pitcher the Angels face.

[bloodbrother]

Rest of MLB continues to move forward while the Angels will go on living stuck in the past. No need for any forward thinking in this org anymore. Just keep it simple. Wooo!

[nando714]

Sosh needs to go. But would he opt out if no one is willing to pay him equally to his contract here? I have my doubts.

The dodgers would definetly pay him

Have sosh stay in his contract. Somehow trade him to the Dodgers for Puig

[bloodbrother]

Why would Sosh leave now? He's the only Manager in MLB who acts as GM and Owner. He won't get that perk anywhere else in the league.

[Tyler]

The Angels won 95 games last season. The Angels lost offensive pieces for the 2015 season. The Angels are struggling offensively. It's not rocket science. Dipoto needed to make upgrades to the offense and failed in his attempts (Joyce, WW, Kubitza trade, Freese).

[Make Angels Great Again]

This article seems a little extreme.

 

While I don't doubt that its partly true, I find it hard to believe that even Scioscia could be this idiotic.

[Mark68]

The Angels won 95 games last season. The Angels lost offensive pieces for the 2015 season. The Angels are struggling offensively. It's not rocket science. Dipoto needed to make upgrades to the offense and failed in his attempts (Joyce, WW, Kubitza trade, Freese).

No. They won 98 games last season. Joyce was brought in to supplement/cover for Hamilton when he got his inevitable injury and share DH duties with Cron (who is not a Major League caliber hitter). Even then, he is WELL under his career averages, as is Iannetta. Freese has actually been an average hitter this year. Not sure who WW is.

 

It was certainly not Dipoto's fault that Hamilton hurt Arte's pride and therefore caused himself to be run out of town on a rail. It was not Dipoto's fault that due to the money owed to Pujols and Hamilton (Arte's signings, not Dipoto's) and Arte's refusal to exceed the luxury tax threshold for even one season, he had little wiggle room to obtain what little hitting talent was available during the offseason.

 

Not that there seemed to be a need to do so, since the offense was so good last year.

[Stradling]

Sosh might opt out just for a chance to have a better roster. This team has three possibly four offensive players that are worth anything. I put Aybar in there because historically he has been a very solid player on both sides of the ball. Everyone on here that is vilianizing him, calling him an egomaniac, well if you stay true to that belief then you would also have to believe that having that kind of ego would make him want to win. He can find a better roster to win with, hell he can probably do that and only have his home games 40 miles away. As far as power, guys like Scioscia if he was on the open market would automatically get clauses in his contract that allowed him to be involved in player acquistiion and roster. Please note that I haven't put Scioscia on a pedestool in this post, it is just a matter of fact that managers with this track record have options and also have power on the open market.

[WallyWorld]

Guess what folks, yes, you and I want the Angels to win far more than their own manager. 

 

You don't really believe that's true, do you? You can take issue with his methods - I certainly do - but it's silly to infer that his refusal to use advanced stats is because of a lack of desire to win/succeed. He simply thinks there are better ways to go about it. I disagree with him. Dipoto disagreed with him. Most forward-thinking baseball people today would disagree with him, but it has nothing to do with how badly he wants to win.

[aznhockeyguy]

Whenever I see the word "feel" used in this type of context, I'm reminded of the gambler's fallacy of recency bias. "It landed on red 6 times in a row!  It's gotta be black on the next spin, I feel it!"  While "feel" sometimes does work, it doesn't work very often.  

 

As I was reading this article, really reminded me of that episode the Simpsons did about sabermetrics and baseball which had none other than Mike Scioscia guest starring. 

 

Here's the wiki of the episode. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoneyBart

Edited July 2, 2015 by aznhockeyguy

[Make Angels Great Again]

No. They won 98 games last season. Joyce was brought in to supplement/cover for Hamilton when he got his inevitable injury and share DH duties with Cron (who is not a Major League caliber hitter). Even then, he is WELL under his career averages, as is Iannetta. Freese has actually been an average hitter this year. Not sure who WW is.

 

It was certainly not Dipoto's fault that Hamilton hurt Arte's pride and therefore caused himself to be run out of town on a rail. It was not Dipoto's fault that due to the money owed to Pujols and Hamilton (Arte's signings, not Dipoto's) and Arte's refusal to exceed the luxury tax threshold for even one season, he had little wiggle room to obtain what little hitting talent was available during the offseason.

 

Not that there seemed to be a need to do so, since the offense was so good last year.

 

Walter White.

[Mark68]

Sosh might opt out just for a chance to have a better roster. This team has three possibly four offensive players that are worth anything. I put Aybar in there because historically he has been a very solid player on both sides of the ball. Everyone on here that is vilianizing him, calling him an egomaniac, well if you stay true to that belief then you would also have to believe that having that kind of ego would make him want to win. He can find a better roster to win with, hell he can probably do that and only have his home games 40 miles away. As far as power, guys like Scioscia if he was on the open market would automatically get clauses in his contract that allowed him to be involved in player acquistiion and roster. Please note that I haven't put Scioscia on a pedestool in this post, it is just a matter of fact that managers with this track record have options and also have power on the open market.

Here's hoping.

[Chimi]

This explains why our offense looks so terrible against pitchers the rest of the league crushes. The whole Cy <insert bad pitcher here> joke isn't really a joke, but reality. Our Manager doesn't believe in the scouting reports. I'm so tired of hearing after every game about how well a pitcher pitched against us in that game. It's sickening.

[AngelsFaninGA]

The Angels won 95 games last season. The Angels lost offensive pieces for the 2015 season. The Angels are struggling offensively. It's not rocket science. Dipoto needed to make upgrades to the offense and failed in his attempts (Joyce, WW, Kubitza trade, Freese).

 

Which pieces? Howie, who he traded for a guy that's pitched very well in two starts here and has much more long-term value, and Hamilton, who didn't contribute anyway. So we had one hole at 2nd base going into the season. 

[katrinab]

why believe everything you read? everyone has a take on this and its all speculation at this point

 

i for one am tired of reading all of this crap. Dipoto resigned for reasons unknown, and everything is being taken out of context

 

unless you are in that clubhouse,  no one for sure knows how things are done in there

[nando714]

Sosh might opt out just for a chance to have a better roster. This team has three possibly four offensive players that are worth anything. I put Aybar in there because historically he has been a very solid player on both sides of the ball. Everyone on here that is vilianizing him, calling him an egomaniac, well if you stay true to that belief then you would also have to believe that having that kind of ego would make him want to win. He can find a better roster to win with, hell he can probably do that and only have his home games 40 miles away. As far as power, guys like Scioscia if he was on the open market would automatically get clauses in his contract that allowed him to be involved in player acquistiion and roster. Please note that I haven't put Scioscia on a pedestool in this post, it is just a matter of fact that managers with this track record have options and also have power on the open market.

Sosh would fit Philly. He'd love their veteran presence

[stormngt]

He will be forced to go. The media circus is going to be too much for the franchise.

Why would Sosh leave now? He's the only Manager in MLB who acts as GM and Owner. He won't get that perk anywhere else in the league.

[Mark68]

Sosh would fit Philly. He'd love their veteran presence

Yeah, but it might not be a good fit after this year, once MacPhail & Co give Amaro the boot he needed three years ago. They'll find a way to dump most of those veteran players on somebody once Amaro's gone.

[stormngt]

This is what i am talking about a media circus. With the Internet anyone can post any narrative they want. With the events one sided statements such as those posted in the article have an appearance of accuracy. I don't want to see Sosh go but it inevitable. There is too much damage done to the credibility of the franchise.

This article seems a little extreme.

While I don't doubt that its partly true, I find it hard to believe that even Scioscia could be this idiotic.

[Inside Pitch]

This article seems a little extreme.

 

While I don't doubt that its partly true, I find it hard to believe that even Scioscia could be this idiotic.

 

Its not extreme really, but it's kinda of leading in the way it puts the information forward.   He claims they had him move away from his FB -- which was true, but he fails to mention that opponents went from hitting .154 in 12, to .187 in 13, to .257 in 14 off his FB -- he didn't really start throwing the slider until they started hitting his FB -- also, opponents batting average against his slider in 2013 was .000  I'm getting this is from the same link he supplied in his story  -- http://www.brooksbaseball.net/outcome.php?player=457117&b_hand=-1&gFilt=&pFilt=FA%7CSI%7CFC%7CCU%7CSL%7CCS%7CKN%7CCH%7CFS%7CSB&time=year&minmax=ci&var=baa&s_type=2&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=07/01/2015

 

Also, if you look at his pitch values, http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5178&position=P#pitchvalues his FB was less effective than his slider, that year.   

 

The other thing that's somewhat leading is the talk about the shift in draft focus...  I'm not sure Dipoto is really responsible for shifting away from HS guys in the draft as much as it was a case of the situation calling for players who were further along...

Edited July 2, 2015 by Inside Pitch