Reveille1984

The whole idea that Trout should be dinged because he's teammates with Joe Blanton, Tommy Hanson, Josh Hamilton, etc. instead of good baseball players still seems awfully stupid to me.
 
whatever though.

I'm sure Puig has coached the Dodgers pitching staff to have the 3rd best ERA in baseball.  Trout should get on that.

Well, its better than nothing.  As long as they make the challenge flags hot pink. 

I'm sure Puig has coached the Dodgers pitching staff to have the 3rd best ERA in baseball.  Trout should get on that.

Well, its better than nothing.  As long as they make the challenge flags hot pink. 

I'm sure Puig has coached the Dodgers pitching staff to have the 3rd best ERA in baseball.  Trout should get on that.

Offense isn't a problem for this team, shouldn't really have anything to do with how they score runs or if it "plays to Scioscia's strengths" as long as they're scoring.  Top 5 in baseball for OBP, OPS and AVG, 8th in runs... I'll take that any year.  Defense looked good on paper as well.  They've sucked for whatever reason this year, but guys like Aybar, Trout, Pujols, Hamilton, Bourjos, Callaspo, etc. have always been plus defenders.
 
The problem has been and continues to be pitching, and with a shitty barren farm system and weak free agent crops what is Dipoto really expected to do?  There really hasn't been much available, and we haven't had the pieces to really do anything substantial through trades.  I think it's shortsighted and somewhat of a stretch to say this team is terrible because of him, but irrational hate is irrational hate I guess.  Some of his acquisitions have been odd/questionable (Blanton deal especially) and I'm not saying he's been great or anything, but most of the moves he made were for the most part praised while they were happening.  Shifting the philosophy of an organization doesn't happen in a year or two.  

The guy turns 28 in a few months, how much potential does he really have left?  AJ pretty much nailed it in that he's a one-tool player that is only valuable because that one tool is very good.  He walks a little more every year, but his K rate increases along with it.  His arm is nice, but who cares if he has a plus arm really?  He's played a total of 27 games in the OF this year and has racked up a whopping 1 assist.  We don't need him in the outfield with our current logjam, so 80% of the time he's playing 1B/DH anyways.
 
All in all, I don't really care if he stays around or gets potentially packaged for pitching.  I feel like he's more valuable on another team honestly.  A nice player, but not a building block.  The future of the team is going to be guys like Trout, Bourjos, Calhoun, Lindsey, Conger, Green, etc.  

I can't imagine Scioscia being gone anytime soon with five years left on his contract.  I just don't see it.  I can maybe see Butcher being relieved as a scapegoat, or possibly someone else on the staff.  
 
Regardless of what happens, we need to at least try and shore up some pitching in the offseason through trades.  I saw a graphic used yesterday in the broadcast showing something like Weaver and Wilson having a combined 2.70 ERA for the past two months, while all other starters have combined for an ERA around 6.00.  I mean, that is unbelievably terrible.  If we have another season of dragging Hanson, Blanton and Williams out there it's going to be another long, long year.  
 
I can actually see us having a competitive team next year if we get even one more serviceable starter and resign Vargas.  Weaver, Wilson, Vargas and Richards is at least a respectable core rotation.  

Offense isn't a problem for this team, shouldn't really have anything to do with how they score runs or if it "plays to Scioscia's strengths" as long as they're scoring.  Top 5 in baseball for OBP, OPS and AVG, 8th in runs... I'll take that any year.  Defense looked good on paper as well.  They've sucked for whatever reason this year, but guys like Aybar, Trout, Pujols, Hamilton, Bourjos, Callaspo, etc. have always been plus defenders.
 
The problem has been and continues to be pitching, and with a shitty barren farm system and weak free agent crops what is Dipoto really expected to do?  There really hasn't been much available, and we haven't had the pieces to really do anything substantial through trades.  I think it's shortsighted and somewhat of a stretch to say this team is terrible because of him, but irrational hate is irrational hate I guess.  Some of his acquisitions have been odd/questionable (Blanton deal especially) and I'm not saying he's been great or anything, but most of the moves he made were for the most part praised while they were happening.  Shifting the philosophy of an organization doesn't happen in a year or two.  

no worry, they're coming to Anaheim this weekend, they're sure to turn things around =)

Offense isn't a problem for this team, shouldn't really have anything to do with how they score runs or if it "plays to Scioscia's strengths" as long as they're scoring.  Top 5 in baseball for OBP, OPS and AVG, 8th in runs... I'll take that any year.  Defense looked good on paper as well.  They've sucked for whatever reason this year, but guys like Aybar, Trout, Pujols, Hamilton, Bourjos, Callaspo, etc. have always been plus defenders.
 
The problem has been and continues to be pitching, and with a shitty barren farm system and weak free agent crops what is Dipoto really expected to do?  There really hasn't been much available, and we haven't had the pieces to really do anything substantial through trades.  I think it's shortsighted and somewhat of a stretch to say this team is terrible because of him, but irrational hate is irrational hate I guess.  Some of his acquisitions have been odd/questionable (Blanton deal especially) and I'm not saying he's been great or anything, but most of the moves he made were for the most part praised while they were happening.  Shifting the philosophy of an organization doesn't happen in a year or two.  

Seems pretty clear that the Moreno/Dipoto/Scioscia relationship is broken. We know Arte isn't going anywhere. I think it takes at least 2-3 years for a new GM to make his mark on a team, so I'd like for Dipoto to stay and see what happens with a new manager that presumably shares his vision for the team.

Mike Scioscia does some dumb shit. His lineups can often be head-scratchers. His bullpen decision are often questionable at best, and downright insane at worst. That said, there is absolutely nothing that he can do to make Josh Hamilton start hitting again. To make Tommy Hanson a quality starter. To make Frieri a good closer. To make the defense do basic fundamental things that are taught in little league. Mike Scioscia is not a psychologist. It's not his job to turn these guys into baseball robots. I often see the argument that the team isn't motivated and they don't have their heads in the game and that this falls on Mike. I honestly don't see what he can do to "motivate" them other than giving pep talks and getting on their cases for doing something stupid. Either way it's ultimately up to the player to decide how "motivated" he is. They aren't soldiers. They aren't dogs to be house broken. They are normal adults playing a game for a living. Do you blame your supervisor at work for "lack of motivation" when you completely **** up? Since the world isn't Office Space, my guess is no.
 
I do believe it is time for a change next year, and I think the entire coaching staff needs to go. I just don't know why people expect a complete turn around in Mike's absence. This year sucks, and Mike should take some of the blame for that, but so should all the underperforming ****wads this team is littered with.

First let me say I appreciate your response..  You make solid points and I like the way you're stating your opinions..  
 
Now that you know I respect what you're saying..   spare me the hindsight stuff...  I wasn't on board with the Hanson trade and questioned the make-up of the pen from the start.  I was also one of the very few that hadn't punted completely on Santana -- but, I didn't really bitch when they moved him either.  I had accepted that they had grown tired of his inconsistency.
 
Getting back to what I was saying and we seem to be getting away from. IMO, I'm correctly pointing out that many here were so obsessed with adding offense they didn't seem to pay attention as the team got farther and father away from run prevention.  You lumped  Ianetta in with the other bats that helped to make the offense better -- which is fine, but he's a complete zero defensively and he cost the team an arm.  While he's not the end of the world, he's an example of that change in direction and how it's impacted the team. Now, if you don't feel that any of that applied to you -- then it's not aimed at you and you can unruffle your feathers.  To be honest, the comment isn't directed at ANYONE specifically but rather that group think that you can't deny existed here.  You can argue that the team didn't punt on run prevention so much as it felt it would obtain it in some non-traditional ways but, that was a gamble...
 
Personally, I don't blame anyone for the defensive implosion, but the lack of attention to the pen coupled with the suspect nature of the rotation was IMO shortsighted and again... I have said that from day one.  I never had a problem with the guys they signed, I had a problem with them signing guys who had not yet shown themselves able to throw and calling it a day.  When you have guys with a propensity to throw a lot of pitches and be out of games early, a strong bullpen is a must have -- we never had that.

I'm saying nobody ever complained about run prevention and small ball, they complained about the offensive approach of the team.  Did I say Calhoun morphed anything?  Or that Iannetta was defensively good?  I'm saying we're going in a better offensive direction overall, and the fact that we are even without Pujols and Hamilton supports that idea.  You present your point of view as if run prevention and a good offense are mutually exclusive... you don't have to neglect one in pursuit of the other.  Every team improves what they can when they can.
 
What could we have pursued this offseason run prevention wise?  We had one of the best defensive teams in the game on paper.  Bourjos, Trout and Hamilton in the OF - looked good.  Gold glove shortstop, plus defensive third baseman in Callaspo, average to good defense from Kendrick.  And remember last year when we had Weaver, Wilson, Haren, Greinke, and Santana? Everyone raved about how good our pitching staff would be, yet we still weren't even close to the playoffs.  I'd say everything looked well set up to prevent a lot of runs.  And last offseason the pitching market sucked outside of Greinke, we signed Burnett who had been solid for years.  How have we been "neglecting run prevention"?  What should/could we have done differently?
 
A lot of people here like to repeatedly use hindsight to support their arguments of what should have been done even though things didn't look so bad at the time.  Nobody was complaining when we got rid of Chatwood and his 5 BB/9, yet now that he's coming around a little we're starting to see the "Dipoto shipped out a great pitcher for a shitty catcher!" posts.  There's a lot of other similar examples of this. And Oakland and Texas aren't doing anything dramatically different, they just have good pitching and depth due to deep farm systems and we don't.  Not exactly rocket science.  

What do the playoffs really have to do with anything over such a large scale of time?  Baseball, despite it's lack of a hard cap, has some of the most parity involved out of all sports out there.  Since 2001, 15 of the 30 teams in baseball have been to a world series.  
 
Especially with the resources that we have, it isn't likely that we're going to completely suck for the next 10+ years.  Trout knows this as well, and he has the chance to play for one franchise his entire career as a HoF player.  I'm sure that isn't taken lightly, and there's worse places to be than Southern California.

Scioscia is pissed that someone didn't put the lid back on the spaghetti sauce and he's going to get to the bottom of it.

I prefer "insufferable asshole syndrome", but that's just me.  If I was Borenstein and my brother was pulling this type of crap on one of the primary forums of my professional team, I would be unbelievably embarrassed. 

Scioscia thinks his name is Kole Plathoun. 

Probably because there hasn't been much to be excited about this year.  Nice to see a kid come up and actually acclimate

Most of those guys are still in A ball, I wouldn't really call them "blocked" until they get through a year or two in the Texas League and prove they can hang.  Lindsey is in line to take over second once Howie is gone, he isn't blocked.  Yarbrough will likely be a utility guy or a bench player unless his plate discipline evolves; 18 BB's in nearly 500 PA's is not the heat especially with Lindsey around.  Same with Cron, he's been mediocre at best this season.  Grichuk is hitting in the .230's in AA.  Aybar's only under contract until 2015 and Stamets is in A ball as well, he isn't blocked.
 
Every organization has a surplus in something, it isn't like it's unusual.  Cream rises to the top in most cases, or guys get traded.  Such is baseball.  

And his name is ridiculous, cows don't have gills.

Yuck... what is the point of that.  Only under contract two more seasons and is almost 30.  Plus he's been mediocre to bad the last two seasons, while pitching in the NL.
 
Angels trade porn is like hiding under the bed hoping your abusive daddy Dipoto doesn't find you.

I look forward to them defending their two time off season championship.