"The Root of the Angels' Problems..."

[Dick B Back]

6 minutes ago, Taylor said:

Dipoto would be a great GM under a different owner.

[Taylor]

Dick B Back, you missed my sarcasm.

[T.G.]

I think it's time for the members of AW to buy the team.

 

How do we start a Go Fund Me page?

[stormngt]

42 minutes ago, GrittyVeterans said:

Arte is to blame moreso than Dipoto. This mess is almost all him. Ask yourself who was the main guy involved in the Pujols and Scioscia deals? It was Arte

He went unhinged for about 5-6 years after Stoneman left and it killed us. He meddled in personnel decisions, ignored the foreign market for players, gave Scioscia too much power by hiring a patsy GM like Reagins

This mess is 95% on him. 

Hes spent a lot of money and tried to win and I respect him for it. He did it in a very dumb way for a significant amount of time there and it has cost his franchise dearly

we can only hope the lessons were finally learned

Has there been anything that documents the claims: 

1.  Arte insisted on signing Pujols 

2.  Arte made Scioscia the "silent GM"

3.  Arte insisted on signing Hamilton

Outside of speculation by Angelswin????

[tdawg87]

50 minutes ago, GrittyVeterans said:

Arte is to blame moreso than Dipoto. This mess is almost all him. Ask yourself who was the main guy involved in the Pujols and Scioscia deals? It was Arte

He went unhinged for about 5-6 years after Stoneman left and it killed us. He meddled in personnel decisions, ignored the foreign market for players, gave Scioscia too much power by hiring a patsy GM like Reagins

This mess is 95% on him. 

Hes spent a lot of money and tried to win and I respect him for it. He did it in a very dumb way for a significant amount of time there and it has cost his franchise dearly

we can only hope the lessons were finally learned

Dipoto was absolutely 100% involved in the Pujols deal as well as Wilson.

Arte was probably all about Coke Boy but JD was all-in on Pujols. To imply otherwise is just dumb.

 

[Docwaukee]

16 minutes ago, True Grich said:

I think it's time for the members of AW to buy the team.

 

How do we start a Go Fund Me page?

utley at 2b

headley at 3b

randy winn in LF

cozart at SS

wieters at C

Matt Clement as our #1 starter. 

wade davis at closer

darrin erstad as manager

[Second Base]

It's probably best that Dipoto left like he did, otherwise he would've been fired or at least not had his option picked up.

And this incident with Scioscia regarding shifting...Eppler has had no problem getting Scioscia to use them. Granted not as much as other teams, but they're still using them.

Maybe it was just a personality thing.

[tdawg87]

Matt Clement has been stuck on the 5 for 14 years.

[HaloNArizona]

49 minutes ago, Taylor said:

Dipoto would be a great GM under a different owner.

No sarcasm necessary, I think Dipoto is great GM for Seattle.  I am looking forward to their future.

[T.G.]

12 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

utley at 2b

headley at 3b

randy winn in LF

cozart at SS

wieters at C

Matt Clement as our #1 starter. 

wade davis at closer

darrin erstad as manager

I heard Palmero was trying to make a comeback... pencil him in at 1B.  I heard Ankiel is also thinking of coming back as a pitcher. Boom.  We have an ace.

[Jobu]

I don't know who is ultimately responsible for the variety of bad decisions over the last several years, but it is true that the same people who hired Reagins and Dipoto hired Eppler. It's ok to be skeptical.

[GrittyVeterans]

1 hour ago, tdawg87 said:

Dipoto was absolutely 100% involved in the Pujols deal as well as Wilson.

Arte was probably all about Coke Boy but JD was all-in on Pujols. To imply otherwise is just dumb.

 

I could be wrong but I read that Arte pushed hard for Pujols

[tdawg87]

3 minutes ago, GrittyVeterans said:

I could be wrong but I read that Arte pushed hard for Pujols

Oh I don't doubt that. But I know JD was just as much on board with it.

The prevailing narrative at the time was that JD was against the signing and only did it because Arte made him. I think Arte and JD were on the same page.

[Inside Pitch]

8 hours ago, eaterfan said:

Honestly, I'm not sure how much of it has to do with scouting. I think a lot of it is player development. There is no way a team can be that bad for a decade and this good for 3 years in a row. I think Eppler has done a tremendous job in that area.

I think the player development aspect gets underrated by people...   

The Angels while under Stoneman got a lot of praise around baseball for having guys play a certain way from rookie ball all the way up to MLB.  It was said when guys came up they were already playing the game the same way and they were able to step in right away -- we saw some of that shift when Stoneman moved on.   Baserunning started to become a bigger issue up and down the entire system.   You started to see guys failing at small things like making contact, swings got longer as the franchise seemed to chase more power bats.  The Angels had never been a team to walk much, but they were famously good at making contact and then suddenly they weren't.  When JD came on and the power struggle ensued he essentially removed the MLB team and it's coaches from having any input into the minor league thing and that divide grew even worse.

The repercussions from the Clay Daniels fiasco was also a huge huge issue....   But the failure to add develop the talent they did have had a pretty profound effect and then the organizational schism that happened between 2012-15, drove a stake into the organizations heart.

Edited August 4, 2018 by Inside Pitch

[Inside Pitch]

6 hours ago, Dick B Back said:

I miss Tom Kotchman as Florida scout and either rookie or A-Ball manager, can’t remember which it was. If I remember right, he signed quite a few who ended up being decent or better players, i.e. Howie and Shields.

Had some kind of falling out after being with the Angels in these capacities for years.

Kotch is ALSO in the Boston system now...   The "falling out" came from JD not wanting him to manage, just a scout.   He wanted to have HIS guys teaching the incoming players how to play and Kotch was seen as too old school and reliant on all the things that fell into the MS playbook.

[Troll Daddy]

It’s really a shame that Eppler ignored the team in Jun & Jul  ... there could of been moves to improve the ball club before the trade deadline. 

Another wasted season for Trout & co.

[Inside Pitch]

6 hours ago, Scotty@AW said:

It wasn't just poor drafting by the Angels for a solid 9/10 consecutive seasons, though that will torpedo any team.

It also included a complete disaster in Latin America, which involved Arte firing every director, coordinator and scout in the organization that had anything to do with our system down there.

To be clear, the Angels weren't doing anything that any other team wasn't also guilty of. The only difference is Arte morally couldn't stand by it while 29 other owners were perfectly fine with screwing kids out of money by skimming off the top.

In a country and system where it's all about who you know, and everyone doing "favors" for one another, the Angels international system basically committed suicide by clearing house like that. They went almost a decade without signing a single top international prosoect.

You are misrepresenting how that went down.   

It wasn't a case of Arte being morally superior, it was a matter of the FBI and MLB formally investigating Clay Daniel for having skimmed money from the players.  Daniel's misdeeds were believed to have gone all the way back to when he was a scout for the Reds organization.  Daniels, Jorge Oqendo, and I think it was (David?) Wilder of the White Sox all got popped and ended up losing their jobs -- Wilder even got prison time as they were able to find direct links to money.   Oquendo and Daniel had worked under Jim Bowden in Cinci (when he was their GM), who was also a central figure of the investigation.  I think the final report cleared Bowden of having been guilty of taking part of anything but it was believed he turned a blind eye to what had been going on.  The FBI also wasn't able to prove Daniel had taken money but it was believed it would have been impossible for him to not have been actively involved -- essentially, he didn't care that it had been happening so long as the scouts got they players signed.   All four of the Angels scouts in Venezuela were fired and blackballed from MLB -- none of the scouts in the DR got canned -- but it didn't really matter.

When word got out the Angels had been cheating players out of money -- the Buscones in the DR stopped working with them, they painted the Angels as being dirty, mostly because they saw it as the team having robbed them of money they would have taken from the players themselves...  There was widespread corruption no doubt, but mostly with how teams would pay off buscones,  not teams stealing directly from players as the Angels guys had been doing.   Unfortunately for the Angels the Buscones were the real power brokers in the DR and they decided the Angels organization was personal non-grata.  The top three Angels scouts left the organization of their own free will and took jobs and players with them to the teams the Buscones WOULD work with.

So in one fell swoop the Angels were disgraced in both the DR and Venezuela.   

Edited August 4, 2018 by Inside Pitch

[Inside Pitch]

2 hours ago, GrittyVeterans said:

I could be wrong but I read that Arte pushed hard for Pujols

That became the common narrative AFTER the fact..  But when that deal went down -- there was a shit ton of talk of how hard core JD pushed on Pujols and how he even used the impending deal to lure Wilson.   

[Keener]

4 hours ago, Dochalo said:

utley at 2b

headley at 3b

randy winn in LF

cozart at SS

wieters at C

Matt Clement as our #1 starter. 

wade davis at closer

darrin erstad as manager

Jack Cust says hello.

 

Or was that the espn board?

[tomsred]

8 hours ago, True Grich said:

I think it's time for the members of AW to buy the team.

 

How do we start a Go Fund Me page?

You'll need some help from the Russians.  She can help you with connections.....

[UndertheHalo]

1 hour ago, Inside Pitch said:

You are misrepresenting how that went down.   

It wasn't a case of Arte being morally superior, it was a matter of the FBI and MLB formally investigating Clay Daniel for having skimmed money from the players.  Daniel's misdeeds were believed to have gone all the way back to when he was a scout for the Reds organization.  Daniels, Jorge Oqendo, and I think it was (David?) Wilder of the White Sox all got popped and ended up losing their jobs -- Wilder even got prison time as they were able to find direct links to money.   Oquendo and Daniel had worked under Jim Bowden in Cinci (when he was their GM), who was also a central figure of the investigation.  I think the final report cleared Bowden of having been guilty of taking part of anything but it was believed he turned a blind eye to what had been going on.  The FBI also wasn't able to prove Daniel had taken money but it was believed it would have been impossible for him to not have been actively involved -- essentially, he didn't care that it had been happening so long as the scouts got they players signed.   All four of the Angels scouts in Venezuela were fired and blackballed from MLB -- none of the scouts in the DR got canned -- but it didn't really matter.

When word got out the Angels had been cheating players out of money -- the Buscones in the DR stopped working with them, they painted the Angels as being dirty, mostly because they saw it as the team having robbed them of money they would have taken from the players themselves...  There was widespread corruption no doubt, but mostly with how teams would pay off buscones,  not teams stealing directly from players as the Angels guys had been doing.   Unfortunately for the Angels the Buscones were the real power brokers in the DR and they decided the Angels organization was personal non-grata.  The top three Angels scouts left the organization of their own free will and took jobs and players with them to the teams the Buscones WOULD work with.

So in one fell swoop the Angels were disgraced in both the DR and Venezuela.   

And now ? It does seem like the Angels have been in other places and not so much in the DR.  Am I mis remembering this ?

[Docwaukee]

we've actually been back in Venezuela for awhile now.   Longer than the DR.  I could see Arte pulling the plug regardless of the investigation though.  

[Inside Pitch]

35 minutes ago, UndertheHalo said:

And now ? It does seem like the Angels have been in other places and not so much in the DR.  Am I mis remembering this ?

I can't say with any certainty that it's water under the bridge, but it's definitely better. 

What I can say is that it was pretty bad at the time and the situation was made worse with the passing of Preston Gomez.  Gomez was universally loved, seen as a grandfather figure by Latin players.   The Angels used to send him not to scout but rather to win families over when attempting to woo players.  Preston was hit by a car then passed away early in 2009, the Angels best bet at damage control died with him. 

Imo, the biggest factor driving the Angels return to the DR besides Billy, is the changes made to the system.  Even if the buscones don't want to do business with the Angels with money being capped they have no choice but to work with them.   

At the end of the day, it's about money.

Edited August 4, 2018 by Inside Pitch

[Docwaukee]

15 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

I can't say with any certainty that it's water under the bridge, but it's definitely better. 

What I can say is that it was pretty bad at the time and the situation was made worse with the passing of Preston Gomez.  Gomez was universally loved, seen as a grandfather figure by Latin players.   The Angels used to send him not to scout but rather to win families over when attempting to woo players.  Preston was hit by a car then passed away early in 2009, the Angels best bet at damage control died with him. 

Imo, the biggest factor driving the Angels return to the DR besides Billy, is the changes made to the system.  Even if the buscones don't want to do business with the Angels with money being capped they have no choice but to work with them.   

At the end of the day, it's about money.

so we're back to working with buscones?  

[Tank]

7 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

Matt Clement has been stuck on the 5 for 14 years.

In a somewhat related story, I saw this week that Mo Vaughn now has a big & tall clothing line called MVP (Mo Vaughn Productions).