Second Guessing Scioscia – Dipoto’s downfall

Welcome to Second Guessing Scioscia, our look back at some of the questionable decisions that Mike Scioscia made in the last week. And, boy, there are some questionable decisions to be reviewed. In the history of this column, we have never once struggled for content. However, we aren’t anti-Scioscia. The official MWAH stance on Scioscia is pro-Scioscia overall. But his in-game tactics need some help and we are here to provide that help by nitpicking incessantly and grading them with our patented SciosciaFace grading system.

This week, we break format a bit and focus not on the in-game tactics of Mike Scioscia, but rather just how culpable he is for the downfall of Jerry Dipoto.

Does Scioscia have blood on his hands?
The consensus among the media and fans alike is that Mike Scioscia is a power-hungry, megalomaniac Luddite. That’s the broad stroke of the narrative, but it may not actually be the most accurate one. As simple as it is to boil this down to a old school vs. new school debate, what really appears to have gone wrong between Jerry and Mike was their working relationship.

The main storyline that the media has grasped onto during this saga have been the accounts of Dipoto complaining that the coaching staff wasn’t implementing the scouting reports and analysis the front office was passing along. We are supposed to believe that Scioscia was actively shunning the advice from the nerds upstairs and all of their new-fangled “spreaded sheets.”

While Mike was undoubtedly not the most receptive to sabermetric analysis, it isn’t as if he was closed off to it completely.

• The Angels have shifted quite regularly this season.
• The Halos have dramatically cut back on sacrifice bunts in the last few years. Scioscia’s teams used to sac bunt 50+ times per season, but they laid down just 26 sacrifices in 2014.
• The team has been more conservative about stealing bases, stealing fewer than 100 bases each of the last two seasons, the only time they’ve done that in the 21st century.
• Scioscia stuck with Mike Trout hitting in the two-hole much longer than anyone would have expected, only dropping him lower in the order out of sheer desperation to ignite the lineup this year.
• He has become less rigid in his use of bullpen roles, at times adopting a closer-by-committee approach and actually accepting the idea of exploiting platoon advantages by having a southpaw or two in the bullpen.

Some of that has been forced on Scioscia due to the personnel Dipoto handed him, but Scioscia has also willingly adopted some of these new philosophies.

The problem is that it took a lot arm-twisting, negotiating and hand-holding to make it happen. Scioscia just never bought all the way in.

That’s why the Angels had to hire guys like Rick Eckstein and Rico Brogna to the weird hybrid scout/coach/front office role that basically boiled down to them being translators between the front office and clubhouse. They felt the need to have someone whose main job was to take the analysis of the front office and bring it to the players and coaches, only framed in a way that they were comfortable with.

If Scioscia had just allowed himself to become comfortable with what the front office wanted to do, that wouldn’t have been necessary. It also would have helped his staff and his roster be more open to the ideas the front office was trying to implement. By keeping himself at an arm’s distance from the more modern philosophies, even while implementing some of them, he kept the rest of the clubhouse even further away.

As the manager, Scioscia leads by example. If everyone else can tell that he isn’t really buying what Dipoto’s crew was welling, why should they?

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere already, but just look at what happened in Pittsburgh when the front office there got Clint Hurdle to go all-in with their philosophies. He was as old school as they come, but when he jumped in with both feet, everyone else followed suit. Had he just dangled one foot in the water because the GM told him he had to, the Pirates wouldn’t be winning and Hurdle wouldn’t be the manager anymore.

Alas, Scioscia not being the manager anymore just wasn’t an option, which only compounded the problem. Scioscia knew he was untouchable so long as he at least gave the appearance of trying to meet Dipoto halfway. For Arte Moreno, that was good enough. But halfway wasn’t good enough for Dipoto, nor should it have been. He’s supposed to be the one in charge and the guy in charge shouldn’t be bending over backwards to accommodate an insubordinate underling. Yet that is what Moreno asked him to do time and time again.

That has to be a frustrating work environment and it is no wonder Dipoto took his ball and went home. Scioscia probably wasn’t even trying to get Dipoto to quit or be fired, but he probably isn’t all that broken up over it either. In fact, it is pretty obvious from his comments that this break up isn’t causing him to lose any sleep.

However, he does have blood on his hands here. He didn’t stab Dipoto in the back so much as he pointed the knife in Dipoto’s direction and the dared Jerry to come at him. All Scioscia had to do was stand his ground and Dipoto would just impale himself. Sure enough, that’s exactly what Jerry went and did.

VERDICT:

The verdict is that Mike Scioscia don’t care. FLAGS FLY FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!