OCR on Scioscia and the next GM

[Blarg]

Pretty sure Scioscia would like to have a 25 man roster next season than going a 24 while a rule 5 wastes a roster space. It was as if he was managing with a handicaping sysyem in place for Lou E Villes competitive balance after winning 98 games the previous season

[Jay]

If I remember correctly the agressive small-ball style of Scioscia's earlier teams was something they taught in the minors.

 

Maybe they stopped teaching that when Dipoto came aboard and that was a source of problems.

[19HALO71]

I don't see a problem with the major league manager wanting players to have certain skill sets when they arrive at the big club. I for one would think that the minor league teams emulate the style of play that is utilized at the major league level.

 

 

Go Halos!!!

[nate]

I would think the Manager should manage his team in line with the organizational philosophy.

[Homebrewer]

Again.. I'm fairly certain that all major leaguers come to the majors with the "skill set" of running bases.

Am I the only one who watches this team run the basses like a bunch of knuckleheads ?

But it's OK, because they are being 'aggressive"?

 

Mentioned a couple times in this thread is the fact that advanced metrics shows that bunts and overly "aggressive" base running are counter productive to scoring runs.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Homebrewer

[Blarg]

I would think the Manager should manage his team in line with the organizational philosophy.

What exactly has been the philosophy? He got a 24 man roster with Joyce as his left fielder and no bench. What philosohy was assembled on the field that he was supposed to manage, the slow, station to station then strike out looking philosophy?

[Stradling]

Again.. I'm fairly certain that all major leaguers come to the majors with the "skill set" of running bases.

Am I the only one who watches this team run the basses like a bunch of knuckleheads ?

But it's OK, because they are being 'aggressive"?

Mentioned a couple times in this thread is the fact that advanced metrics shows that bunts and overly "aggressive" base running are counter productive to scoring runs.

I agree with the fact that bunting in most situations is bad for scoring mutliple runs in an inning. However, I have no idea how you quantify "overly" aggressive running. I would still assume we outscore our projections and I would assume that aggressive base running is part of the reason. Yes we all hate seeing players thrown out by 20 feet, but for every one of those we score on a bang bang play by being aggressive.

[Jay]

I would think the Manager should manage his team in line with the organizational philosophy.

 

Well that's just it, the organizational philosophy was in place before Dipoto came aboard.

 

In any case Jerry's gone, the issue is resolved.

[nate]

Go through the 25 man roster over the last 10 years and show me one where there wasn't one wasted roster spot.  You keep pointing to Featherston but every year the Angels have that.

 

You can characterize it however you want but the high OBP station to station offense has been successful.  Not to mention that he ignored advanced scouting on the defensive side.

 

When you have a GM that is in charge of player dev and scouting, then you would think the Manager would abide.  Instead he was as stubborn as he always has been and ignored the organizational philosophy and went with his own.  Angels are probably two losses away from missing the playoffs for the 5th time in 6 years.  The WS was 13 years ago.  Some how Scioscia still lives off of that.

[Inside Pitch]

The "responsibilities of a manager" should be defined by the team. He feels he needs more control in player development, and the previous GM seemed to disagree and work to disconnect him. That seems in line with the narrative, lasagna joked aside.

 

Years ago Peter Gammons wrote an article about the Angels and how when minor leaguers came up it was a seamless transition in part because they were already used to what they would be expected to do at the MLB level....    That no longer seems to be the case.  Maybe this ties into that, and I can see why the two sides would be at odds.  So who was the hard ass here?  The manager that wanted guys to be able to bunt/whatever or the GM that didn't want them even working on it?   Not knowing who said what and what they were and weren't being told to do, it's hard to say.  My guess is the same old biases will slant people's opinions.  

 

Also...  F the contact play.  Most annoying thing of the MS era....  

 

Except that advanced stats say that this is counter productive.  That is why Dipoto was trying to change those things.

 

Have you actually looked at the advance stats?  Because that's not at all what they actually say.  What most studies have determined is that it's counter productive if done at the wrong time or if you have people who are bad at it...  Bill James himself has done a 180 on the idea of bunting being always bad...   This is a really mathy article but it's an attempt to break down the data using batting order and other variables ... http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/07/empirical_analy_1.php   You can really just skip to the bottom two paragraphs if you just want to see what the hypothesis is...  Like all saber stuff, it's all theoretical.   Basically, the real argument about bunting or not bunting and "productive outs" becomes whether or not getting ONE run is worth possibly costing yourself MORE runs you could have scored had not you given away an out.   So like stealing bases it's based entirely on the success rate.  Since most people are bad at it, the common belief has been not to do it.

[Stradling]

Go through the 25 man roster over the last 10 years and show me one where there wasn't one wasted roster spot. You keep pointing to Featherston but every year the Angels have that.

You can characterize it however you want but the high OBP station to station offense has been successful. Not to mention that he ignored advanced scouting on the defensive side.

When you have a GM that is in charge of player dev and scouting, then you would think the Manager would abide. Instead he was as stubborn as he always has been and ignored the organizational philosophy and went with his own. Angels are probably two losses away from missing the playoffs for the 5th time in 6 years. The WS was 13 years ago. Some how Scioscia still lives off of that.

No, not really Nate. There is a difference between having Featherston and having McDonald. Featherston HAS to stay on the roster, period. You can release him, but then you invested months into him. So you basically have to wait it out, then put him in the minors next season.

[Jay]

Actually the WS was 13 years ago.

 

But there were 5 division titles, 2 trips to the LCS, and 3 trips to the LDS from 2002-2009.

 

I guess you can say the organizational philosophy was reasonably successful during those years.

[Inside Pitch]

Mentioned a couple times in this thread is the fact that advanced metrics shows that bunts and overly "aggressive" base running are counter productive to scoring runs.

 

Good thing I was around to point out that the "fact" is a actually different than how people interpret it.   It's not whether or not a bunt is good or bad..  A bunt CAN be good.  The question is whether or not it's upping your chances at ONE run is worth lowering your chances at MORE runs.

 

Remember how people used to say the Angels were just extremely lucky when they would outperform their pythag on a year basis?   See a connection at all?   This isn't about liking or not liking MS..  this is about looking at the results and asking whether or not it worked.

 

[nate]

No, not really Nate. There is a difference between having Featherston and having McDonald. Featherston HAS to stay on the roster, period. You can release him, but then you invested months into him. So you basically have to wait it out, then put him in the minors next season.

 

Releasing him is no different than releasing anyone else.  Investing months into him doesn't make any sense to me.  Did they not invest months into McDonald?

[Stradling]

Good thing I was around to point out that the "fact" is a actually different than how people interpret it. It's not whether or not a bunt is good or bad.. A bunt CAN be good. The question is whether or not it's upping your chances at ONE run is worth lowering your chances at MORE runs.

Remember how people used to say the Angels were just extremely lucky when they would outperform their pythag on a year basis? See a connection at all? This isn't about liking or not liking MS.. this is about looking at the results and asking whether or not it worked.

Apologist

[Stradling]

Releasing him is no different than releasing anyone else. Investing months into him doesn't make any sense to me. Did they not invest months into McDonald?

Because he has upside, it just isn't now, so no it isn't the same thing. Oh and McDonald was better defensively and could get a bunt down if needed late in a game. I like how Scioscia is using Featherston now that Gia is back as a late inning runner and a defensive replacement.

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

Actually the WS was 13 years ago.

 

But there were 5 division titles, 2 trips to the LCS, and 3 trips to the LDS from 2002-2009.

 

I guess you can say the organizational philosophy was reasonably successful during those years.

 

Agreed.  The franchise thrived during the steroid era.  

Edited September 30, 2015 by Catwhoshatinthehat

[Jobu]

Fangraphs has the Angels 10th in the league for UBR, which is their weighted baserunning measure. Diamondbacks are world beaters in the category, fwiw.

However, the Angels have been so dreadful at stealing bases, I'm sure it negated any positive value.

[nate]

In 2009, Robb Quinlan played 54 games.  He had an OPS barely over .600

[Inside Pitch]

 

When you have a GM that is in charge of player dev and scouting, then you would think the Manager would abide.  Instead he was as stubborn as he always has been and ignored the organizational philosophy and went with his own.  Angels are probably two losses away from missing the playoffs for the 5th time in 6 years.  The WS was 13 years ago.  Some how Scioscia still lives off of that.

 

There is some truth to what you are saying but -- perhaps you should be asking yourself what the organizational philosophy was....   If we are to believe minor leaguers were told to stop working on certain things because the team was moving towards a more Earl Weaver type offensive mindset then the farm system itself would likely reflect those attributes -- right.   Why doesn't it?   Looking at the collection of minor league talent assembled in recent years we aren't seeing a lot of guys with high power profiles -- we are seeing a lot of older guys with mediocre walk rates and high K rates...   I understand the idea of high floors and I understand there was a concerted effort to improve the pitching depth, but there was a gross failure in the minors offensively.  

 

The other thing that is worth questioning or discussing is the viability of the plan in the first place.  The common narrative currently is that power has become much more scare, that the game is moving back towards pitching -- so does it make sense to make your philosophical focus based on something that's becoming harder to obtain?  I'm sure there is a lot of middle ground there -- power isn't just HRs, it's something that is worth debating.

 

FTR, I'm a big big believer in controlling counts -- something JD was very vocally in favor of...  I despise the contact play as the Angels employ it (Maddon is the same exact way BTW), but I similarly despise station to station baseball, and for many many years the widespread belief was that the NL dominated the AL in large part because they did try to move runners and didn't just wait around for the HR...  Somehow, I'd like to have a team that can both get on base and then actually not trip over it's own tallywhacker when it gets on base.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Inside Pitch

[AngelsLakersFan]

Ok, so I read it, and it seems as though Scioscia wants more input in the minor leagues and what the players are doing. He also wants more of a say of what his roster looks like. I know some will look at this as Scioscia wanting more power, but his last line about the responsibilities of being a manager are greater than the 25 people in his locker room, probably is very true.

 

It sounds like what Scioscia wants is to be the "GM." Just without having to do all of the tedious work.

 

The best front offices are the ones with a singular clear vision that is implemented throughout the organization. Scioscia seems to want this as well, but he thinks it should be his vision. The truth is, managers today are responsible for implementing the organizational strategy at the field level and communicating concerns to the front office, not dictating organizational strategy from the team on up. In this sense it sounds like Mike would like to do the exact opposite of what the current trend is in the sport.

[Glen]

My takeaway from this is that I hope Discarcina isn't our 3b coach next year.

[AngelsLakersFan]

Part of the problem is the aggressive base running and bunting. So yeah, that is the problem. I prefer a GM who constructs the club and the manager to be an extension of the GM's philosophy. I probably wouldn't have a problem with Sosh wanting more power across the entire org if he wasn't so old school. You may like his style yet I think it hurts the Angels.

 

The problem with "Scioscia ball" is that there are structural issues at play that disadvantage the Angels and prevent them from implementing this type of strategy optimally. No matter how successful Scioscia has been with this strategy in the past we cannot continue playing this way. The team philosophy has to evolve or we get left behind.

 

As fans of this team the past several years it's clear which direction we've gone. Doubling down on Scioscia philosophies is the surest way to bring back the glory days of the Tony Reagins era. I do like Scioscia as a manager, but these facts on the ground negate any positives he may bring.

 

We need to get on the same page as an organization and look towards the future. Scioscia is an obvious impediment to that goal.

Edited September 30, 2015 by AngelsLakersFan

[19HALO71]

Ultimately, it's a results driven industry.

Currently, as we speak, there are 10 other teams that are not in the playoffs. I'm sure that they are re-evaluating their system's.

As far as I can tell, the Angels system is working. How do I know? We're still significant in the 2015 season.

 

Go Halos!!!

[Inside Pitch]

The probably with "Scioscia ball" is that there are structural issues at play that disadvantage the Angels and prevent them from implementing this type of strategy optimally. No matter how successful Scioscia has been with this strategy in the past we cannot continue playing this we. The team philosophy has to evolve or we get left behind.

 

As fans of this team that past several years it's clear which direction we've gone. Doubling down on Scioscia philosophies is the surest way to bring back the glory days of the Tony Reagins era. I do like Scioscia as a manager, but these facts on the ground negate any positives he may bring.

 

We need to get on the same page as an organization and look towards the future. Scioscia is an obvious impediment to that goal.

 

Its really a square peg round hole sort of thing...   Unless everyone gets on the same page and works towards a common goal -- we are doomed.