The Angel season has been over for nearly 48 hours now and we still don't know who, if anyone, Arte Moreno is going to fire in the wake of the bitterly disappointing 2013 season. Reporters have tried and failed to get to the bottom of the question on everyone's mind: will Scioscia and/or Dipoto get fired?
Now, I am no reporter, nor would I ever try to be one. However, I would like to be a psychologist. Mind you, I have no formal training in that field, but I did take a few courses in college and I went to a pretty good college, you guys. Sure, my day job is a very nerdy tech job that has absolutely nothing with the study of the mind, but it has always been an interest of mine. Not to toot my own horn, but I think as far as amateur psychology goes, I'm pretty awesome. I know that I am because I totally predicted who the murderer was on an episode of The Mentalist once. Wait, was it The Mentalist or was it The Closer? Actually, I think it was Criminal Minds. That's a real show, right? I can't remember. It doesn't matter. The point is I am going to get all up inside the head of Arte Moreno, Mike Scioscia and Jerry Dipoto to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Just to let you know how seriously I am taking this task, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night specifically to up my acumen for this exercise.
We haven't gotten much evidence about who is getting fired since the big story broke in the news several months ago. The rumor mill has all but dried up. What we have gotten no shortage of in the last few weeks is Mike Scioscia talking about his future. In an interview just a week or two ago, Mike Scioscia made it clear that he is "committed" to managing the Angels in 2014. He even went so far to say it wasn't an issue to him.
I mean, wow, that is some heavy stuff. It is just dripping with confidence which, in my professional opinion (EDITOR'S NOTE: the opinion is not professional at all), that leads me to believe he knows something we don't know. Why else would he be so confident? And why would he doubt him? He literally said he was confident.
He also said he was planning on being part of the team in 2014 and if there is one thing I have learned in my intense studies, it is that suicide threats become serious only when the person makes a plan. I can only assume that same logic applies to a guy keeping his job. Yes, this is a man who isn't going anywhere,
But you know, my deep inner-Freud alarm is going off. Maybe Scioscia is too confident? I mean seriously, he won't shut up about how much he isn't worried about his job security. Methinks that maybe Scioscia dost protest too much. He's trying so hard to convince us that he isn't worried, therefore he must be truly terrified on the inside that he is going to get the pink slip. The smoking gun is that he went out of his way to talk about how his relationship with Dipoto has improved. He says this despite his constant denials over the last two years that there ever was any rift. That smacks of a guy engaged in what I am told is probably cognitive dissonance. His little mind games don't fool me though, Scioscia best stock up on burn creme because he is so going to get fired.
Let's not just focus Scioscia though. Dipoto obviously has a big role in all of this. Alas, he has been largely silent on the topic. In fact, the only real comment he has made on the matter came last week when he defiantly told reporters that didn't "want to have this conversation." It was a statement just dripping with psychoanalytics, a term I just coined because I am so confident in my expertise. This is classic avoidance behavior. Dipoto knows he has a problem and is dealing with that problem by avoiding it. In my opinion, that is the perfect strategy.
You don't need to be an amateur psychologist to know that the best way to cope with your biggest issues is to just ignore them. Just bottle them up. Shove them deem down into your subconscious and never, ever address them even when prompted. If you don't think about it, it can't come true. It is my patented psychological strategy called DERP which stands for Deny Emotions, Repress Problems. As far as Jerry is concerned, he has some 80-grade DERP going on right now. He is DERPing so hard that I don't see how his job security problem could possibly affect him. It is just good science.
Hmmm, there is one thing bothering me about this clearly well-thought out and perfectly reasoned diagnosis. The trademark of Dipoto's GM career is that he is a big fat liar. He denies and lies about everything. He said they weren't pursuing Pujols right up until they signed him. The same goes for Josh Hamilton. There is a very real possibility that Dipoto is once again telling us lies. Well, that damn dirty liar isn't going to fool me. As the old psychological saying goes, once a pathological liar, always a pathological liar until they promise you they aren't lying. Dipoto hasn't promised to stop lying, so I can only assume that he is lying here about not wanting to talk about getting fired, so it must mean he does want to talk about, which goes against every DERP ever. Poor guy, he is obviously headed for unemployment now.
That is unless he secretly wants to talk about getting fired because he knows he won't get fired. Whoa. I think I just blew my own mind. This Dipoto guy must be like the supreme ninja of lying. Or maybe that is just what his sick, twisted mind wants us to think. No sir, he isn't going to fool me. I'm on to his clever gambit. I'm going to get all reverse psychology up in this piece and determine this is nothing but a convoluted ruse by Dipoto to throw us off the scent that he is ALSO getting fired.
Here is the thing though, really everything we just covered doesn't matter. Like, not one little bit. I don't even know why we bothered spending so much time and effort dwelling on it. The real decision here lies with Arte Moreno, the superego of the Angels, if you will. When it comes to Arte, he couldn't be easier to read. Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't pick up on it earlier. You see, Arte Moreno has had virtually nothing to say about who might or might not get fired. The conclusions is simple. No news is good news. It is right from the first page of Freud's famous book. Probably. I mean, I haven't read any of his work because I don't speak Austrian, but the "no news is good news" thing seems pretty obvious and I am sure a smart dude like Freud must've mentioned it at some point.
So, good news, Mike and Jerry. You both get to keep your job. Unless, I'm wrong, in which case forget that paragraph on Moreno, because then my prediction is you both get fired. Either way my bases are covered. You should be expecting a bill from me in the next few weeks because I am pretty sure this session isn't covered under Obamacare.
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