So umm.. thoughts on Jerry Dipoto

[NrM]

Yes, it was Dipoto's plan to have Weaver, Vargas and Hanson out for extended periods, Pujols to have a nagging injury that affects his play, Burnett to be out for the vast majority of the season, Bourjos to be injured, the team's defense and baserunning to suck, and hamilton to hit like mathis. 

 

All easily predictable things that he should have known about in advance and prepared better for them by magically rebuilding a crappy farm system in one offseason. 

Yes it is his fault. He's the GM. Injuries isn't the reason this team hasn't performed. You're delusional if you really think that.

 

Every team deals with injures. Look at the Rangers.

[Docwaukee]

Yes it is his fault. He's the GM. Injuries isn't the reason this team hasn't performed. You're delusional if you really think that.

 

Every team deals with injures. Look at the Rangers.

so you blame dipoto for bad bad baserunning and poor defense?

for hamilton performing as he has?

injuries have had no effect?  So starts from Williams, Richards, Enright, and Buckner instead of Vargas and Weaver have been a wash?

 

I'm delusional?

 

How about something less than an absolute extreme in any direction when assessing culpability? 

Blanton sucks and that's JD's fault?  Sure.

 

Yes, every team's injury affects them in exactly the same way.  Yes, all teams have the same amount of depth.  Yes, all teams have a similar farm system to draw from. 

 

Feel free to actually look at what has happened instead of making half-assed generalizations. 

[NrM]

so you blame dipoto for bad bad baserunning and poor defense?

for hamilton performing as he has?

injuries have had no effect?  So starts from Williams, Richards, Enright, and Buckner instead of Vargas and Weaver have been a wash?

 

I'm delusional?

 

How about something less than an absolute extreme in any direction when assessing culpability? 

Blanton sucks and that's JD's fault?  Sure.

 

Yes, every team's injury affects them in exactly the same way.  Yes, all teams have the same amount of depth.  Yes, all teams have a similar farm system to draw from. 

 

Feel free to actually look at what has happened instead of making half-assed generalizations. 

And who's fault is it for having no depth and a horrible farm system?

I know the farm system was bad when JeDi got here, but he's done absolutely nothing to improve it. 

 

If anything, you just proved my point even more. 

[Erstad Grit]

Bottom line is JD fan club here has made up their mind.

 

If anyone says they saw this coming they just respond "bull crap hindsight"

 

If anyone points to the current results they just respond "not his fault-injuries" (Pirates lost their rotation and look great) 

 

Our GM made several ill-calculated risks and did not provide a safety net. 

[tomsred]

I assume that Jerry has a long term plan for the organization.  I have no idea what that long term plan entails.  At this point he should have thoroughly discussed it with Moreno, and with Scioscia to some extent.  Are the moves made so far part of that plan, or are they stop gap measures until he can execute his full plan?  Arte has alluded to the fact that Jerry has not had the full opportunity to execute his full plan, and that he is willing to let him have the time to do it (however long that is, but again we don't know how long that really is).

 

I fully agree that some of the changes made by Jerry so far are very suspect if judged individually.  He's made mega changes to the front office personnel, I don't know what else he could possibly do there, and again we have no idea how to judge the negative or positive effect of those particular changes.  If he changes the manager and coaching staff and this has no improvement, and then rolls a couple of more sevens on players, then I'm real worried he has no clue whatsoever as to what he is doing; and at least the circumstantial evidence would say that definitely he should be fired.  To fix the mess at that point might take many, many years.

 

I'm kind of worried we have an energetic, charasmatic GM who might be too inexperienced to get things fixed.  He might also be ineffective at getting the organization as a whole to buy in to his plan, or maybe he doesn't share the information properly.  Baseball people, players, owners are a pretty weird lot, trying to get them all on the same page at times is hard, very hard.

[YouthofToday]

If only Reagins would have signed Beltre and kept Napoli we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years.

For the record I was vociferously for Beltre and was perhaps the chairman of keep Napoli dump Mathis brigade. I blame Scioscia.

[Docwaukee]

And who's fault is it for having no depth and a horrible farm system?

I know the farm system was bad when JeDi got here, but he's done absolutely nothing to improve it. 

 

If anything, you just proved my point even more. 

WTF?  

 

Now you must be trolling me

[tomsred]

Somebody has no clue how long it takes to improve a farm system.  There is like a black hole sitting over AAA and AA right now.  Most of the players worth bringing up to the ML level are here. We have some with real potential at AA, more at the lower levels.  But they all need developmental time (1 to 3 years of it).

[NrM]

Somebody has no clue how long it takes to improve a farm system.

 

I know how long it takes. I know the angels had a decent draft this year, grabbing a lot of arms.

With how many 1st round pick the angels have had these past couple years, it's hard to see many high ceiling prospects in the future.

[Erstad Grit]

Three obvious problems to me in regards to our farm are are the following.

 

1. Our team's strange reluctance to offer arbitration to walking players. While every once in a while you might get stuck with the player for another year we have lost a ton of draft picks in this manner.

 

2. We have made a ton of big splash mid season trades.  We went big with getting Teixeira, Kazmir, and Greinke. At some point that catches up. 

 

3. We continue to sign high type free agents costing us draft picks. 

[tomsred]

I know how long it takes. I know the angels had a decent draft this year, grabbing a lot of arms.

With how many 1st round pick the angels have had these past couple years, it's hard to see many high ceiling prospects in the future.

The only thing that will get us a real high ceiling prospect is a completely tanked season.  We have enough talent on the team to at least be above real bad, so maybe we get lucky next year and get a pick around the overall 10-15 spots.  We also need to quit throwing away draft picks for signing veteran players.  That's going to take a few years.

 

If Jerry really has a plan, he would probably add that we need to have some real "patience", and quit worrying about short term performance.

[von_etc]

 

 

1. Our team's strange reluctance to offer arbitration to walking players. While every once in a while you might get stuck with the player for another year we have lost a ton of draft picks in this manner.

 

 

This.

I get frustrated by this every year. This past off-season it was Torii. One year at $13m wouldn't have been so terrible. And he still might have taken the Tigers' offer, netting the Angels an early-round pick.

[The Dude]

Three obvious problems to me in regards to our farm are are the following.

 

1. Our team's strange reluctance to offer arbitration to walking players. While every once in a while you might get stuck with the player for another year we have lost a ton of draft picks in this manner.

 

2. We have made a ton of big splash mid season trades.  We went big with getting Teixeira, Kazmir, and Greinke. At some point that catches up. 

 

3. We continue to sign high type free agents costing us draft picks. 

Great points Grit. #1 Has been an issue since Stoneman, I don't understand the thought process behind it at all. Without looking through the past draft results, I know they've missed out on some solid ML players over the years that could have been drafted with the picks received through arb offers.

[Angel Oracle]

I sure hope JeDi has learned from his mistakes as a newb GM, and makes less of them from now on.

One test may come in less than 2 weeks, as the Tigers desperate need a closer to round out their team as a WS favorite.

Will Dombrowski, a GM standard for years, come calling on Frieri?

Granted there are a lot of good AL closers on also ran teams for the Tigers to choose from: Perkins, Holland, Janssen, Reed, and Wilhelmsen in addition to Frieri.

[mulwin444]

Frieri is solid...it would have to be a hell of an offer to give him up

[Jay]

It's Dipoto's first gig as a GM.  He was passed over in AZ when the GM spot opened up.  Arte took a chance on him.  He's made some mistakes.  Hopefully he learns and the team is better next year.

[Glen]

If only Reagins would have signed Beltre and kept Napoli we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years.

For the record I was vociferously for Beltre and was perhaps the chairman of keep Napoli dump Mathis brigade. I blame Scioscia.

 

 

Most people, myself included, didn't want Beltre for fear he would decline after a contract year.  We were all wrong on that one. 

 

Few, if any of us, wanted Mathis over Napoli. 

[mtangelsfan]

Another interesting thing I've noticed.

 

Dipoto gets a pass on Hamilton and Pujols because they were Arte's fault.

 

Reagins doesn't get a pass on Wells.  Couldn't that have been Arte's fault too then?

 

For the record, I will hold the gm's accountable for the moves made.

[Glen]

Another interesting thing I've noticed.

 

Dipoto gets a pass on Hamilton and Pujols because they were Arte's fault.

 

Reagins doesn't get a pass on Wells.  Couldn't that have been Arte's fault too then?

 

For the record, I will hold the gm's accountable for the moves made.

 

 

It was a given that Wells was going to suck.  I remember when the trade happened, all I could muster was a "wait and see" attitude because deep down I knew it was horrible.  With Pujols, I don't think many people expected a decline this much and this soon - most of the board was excited about the signing.  Hamilton was a risk, for sure.  His decline the last half of last year was alarming but again, he should have been better. 

 

I do agree that the GM bears the repsonsibility for those signings but I'm also not gonna use hindsight too much when I was somewhat happy with them.  The exception, as others have mentioned, is Blanton.  Terrible signing and it didn't take hindsight. 

 

With all that said...Dipoto has some work ahead fixing this team.  Right now I'm not sure if he can do it.

[mtangelsfan]

Not a lot of folks were fans of the Wells trade, but that wasn't my point.

 

If Arte was such a driving force behind the aquisitions of Pujols and Hamilton, why couldn't he have been the driving force behind the Wells trade?

[ettin]

One other salient point I would like to make is this: We complain that Dipoto and company don't sign this or that player but sometimes we forget that maybe the player(s) don't want to sign with us?

 

Is it possible that Joe Saunders was so hurt by the original trade that he doesn't want to return to Anaheim? Maybe, maybe not. In the case of Torii Hunter I think the front office might have been taken off guard by how much money other teams started throwing around in contracts.

 

2 years/$26 million is a lot of money for a 38 year old corner outfielder. I highly suspect that the Angels didn't give Torii a qualifying offer because they thought he wouldn't make more than $12 million on the open market and in hindsight they were wrong. Perhaps Torii got so annoyed with the offers that the Angels were making that he decided to just cut off discussions and move on? No one knows for sure.

 

Players salaries have skyrocketed in the last two years and I think it makes it difficult for any GM to properly judge a players value, especially with the massive influx of new cash to teams from regional sports network deals and also the MLB's new deal with FOX that also funnels more money to the teams from a National sports network deal.

 

The overall point I am trying to make is that sometimes the players don't want to come here or stay here. I don't think that was the case with Torii, for instance, but we are not privy to most of the private discussions and negotiations that happen between the front office and players.

[Glen]

One other salient point I would like to make is this: We complain that Dipoto and company don't sign this or that player but sometimes we forget that maybe the player(s) don't want to sign with us?

 

Is it possible that Joe Saunders was so hurt by the original trade that he doesn't want to return to Anaheim? Maybe, maybe not. In the case of Torii Hunter I think the front office might have been taken off guard by how much money other teams started throwing around in contracts.

 

2 years/$26 million is a lot of money for a 38 year old corner outfielder. I highly suspect that the Angels didn't give Torii a qualifying offer because they thought he wouldn't make more than $12 million on the open market and in hindsight they were wrong. Perhaps Torii got so annoyed with the offers that the Angels were making that he decided to just cut off discussions and move on? No one knows for sure.

 

Players salaries have skyrocketed in the last two years and I think it makes it difficult for any GM to properly judge a players value, especially with the massive influx of new cash to teams from regional sports network deals and also the MLB's new deal with FOX that also funnels more money to the teams from a National sports network deal.

 

The overall point I am trying to make is that sometimes the players don't want to come here or stay here. I don't think that was the case with Torii, for instance, but we are not privy to most of the private discussions and negotiations that happen between the front office and players.

 

 

Hard to say if any of those are true but they certainly could be factors. 

 

Queue the posts about Trout wanting to leave this lousy team...

[AZMike]

Another interesting thing I've noticed.

 

Dipoto gets a pass on Hamilton and Pujols because they were Arte's fault.

 

Reagins doesn't get a pass on Wells.  Couldn't that have been Arte's fault too then?

 

For the record, I will hold the gm's accountable for the moves made.

 

Moreno absolutely was the driving force behind the Wells trade. He wanted to see a big splash move happen at all costs. After missing out on Crawford or Beltre. Plan "B" in that case should have been to stand pat, which I'm certain Moreno would not have allowed.

 

That said, my main gripe about both Reagins and Dipoto is even though Moreno was making the call to trade for or sign these players, the GMs have done a poor job of negotiating those deals. For example, in the Wells deal Reagins absolutely should have pushed for more money or maybe an additional player coming back based on what was known at the time. 

 

In Dipoto's case this last offseason for example I wanted to see him exercise the option on at least one of Haren or Santana (given the health issues, likely Santana) THEN trade him if/when we managed to find a pitcher to replace him. Instead he went into the free agent and trade market with three holes in the rotation. That kind of desperation is what allowed Joe Blanton to demand $15M.

[Mark68]

Moreno absolutely was the driving force behind the Wells trade. He wanted to see a big splash move happen at all costs. After missing out on Crawford or Beltre. Plan "B" in that case should have been to stand pat, which I'm certain Moreno would not have allowed.

 

That said, my main gripe about both Reagins and Dipoto is even though Moreno was making the call to trade for or sign these players, the GMs have done a poor job of negotiating those deals. For example, in the Wells deal Reagins absolutely should have pushed for more money or maybe an additional player coming back based on what was known at the time. 

 

In Dipoto's case this last offseason for example I wanted to see him exercise the option on at least one of Haren or Santana (given the health issues, likely Santana) THEN trade him if/when we managed to find a pitcher to replace him. Instead he went into the free agent and trade market with three holes in the rotation. That kind of desperation is what allowed Joe Blanton to demand $15M.

Technically, Santana's option was exercised. He was then traded to the Royals for Tommy John....err...Brandon Sisk.

[Ohtaniland]

It's Dipoto's first gig as a GM. He was passed over in AZ when the GM spot opened up. Arte took a chance on him. He's made some mistakes. Hopefully he learns and the team is better next year.

When some of us attended the @ngelsWin spring fanfest Jerry Dipoto was a guest speaker. He mentioned his aquisition of Chris Iannetta as one that he was very proud of so that was enough for me. I think he's in over his head. This team is no better than last years team. Oakland and Texas are much better suited to win the AL West. No other GM in MLB With common

sense gives Pujols and Hamilton those deals.