It must be October because Angels fans are wondering if this is the offseason where Arte Moreno decides to fire Mike Scioscia?
No, it isn’t. That’s not going to happen this winter. I’m not sure it is going to happen any winter given Moreno’s unabashed love for Scioscia, but winter, for sure, is a definite “NO.”
The sentiment to fire Scioscia, which is only being expressed by a minority, a very vocal minority, of fans is understandable though. To put it mildly, Scioscia had a rough ALDS.
Kole Calhoun sacrifice bunting on a 3-1 count? Ugh.
Kole Calhoun bunting at all? Yikes.
Carrying an extra reliever on the ALDS roster instead of Tony Campana? D’oh!
Josh Hamilton starting every game and not once being pinch-hit for? Make the bad man stop.
Yeah, it was a bad time. There’s no sugarcoating it. There’s also a lot of onus being placed on just those three games. They were the three most important games of the season, so that’s understandable, but it still doesn’t merit his dismissal. If mismanagement in the LDS portion of these playoffs were grounds for being fired, Mike Scioscia, Matt Williams, Brad Ausmus and Don Mattingly would all be looking for work right now.
The days of anyone actually believing that Scioscia is some sort of genius are long gone, but this was actually a pretty good season overall for him, at least up until the postseason. Trust me, I should know, I’ve literally been second guessing him all season. All the dumb stuff he did in the ALDS were things he didn’t really do during the regular season.
The sac bunts? He only had 26 laid down in all of 2014. Why he suddenly lost his mind and started sac bunting like a madman in Game 1 of the ALDS is a mystery that science has yet to answer, but we can probably chalk it up to playoff pressure. That game aside, he made huge strides in avoiding his typical buntfuckery this year.
He also demonstrated some actual progressive thinking when it comes to the bullpen. Part of that was by necessity as he tried to patch together the late innings back when the Angels were still trying to make Ernesto Frieri a thing. Scioscia spent a few weeks using a situational closer, endearing himself to sabermetricians everywhere. Even after Dipoto overhauled the bullpen and made it more or less idiot-proof, Scioscia deftly determined the optimal way to deploy each of his middle relievers. Need a GIDP? Go get Mike Morin. Need a whiff? Grilli time. Need to face some lefties? Better call Salas. That shouldn’t be a thing that’s actually that hard to figure out, but better managers than Sosh (and Sosh himself) have made a mess of bullpen roles before.
Perhaps his most impressive decision was his willingness to go with the “bullpen day” starter in the final month of the season. I can’t prove it, but I refuse to believe that the Scioscia of ten years ago would have ever gone for that idea. Again, this was a decision born out of necessity, but he deserves credit for adapting and actually employing the strategy effectively.
But those are just some of the things we fans can actually see. What we can only speculate on is what Scioscia did in the clubhouse.
Team chemistry was a huge focal point for Jerry Dipoto in building the roster last offseason. That certainly seemed to payoff based on the comments made by Angel players all year long as well as just generally observing their behavior this season. Of course, we also observed them winning 98 games and it turns out that winning a bunch of games is really good for team chemistry, too.
Still, Scioscia must’ve been doing something right to get the team to come together, especially after they got off to a slow start. After the way the previous two seasons unfolded, it would have surprised exactly no one if the Halos had gone off the rails after their middling first month, but they didn’t. Scioscia deserves credit for that… probably.
On the other hand, Scioscia also deserves some blame for the chemistry needing to be fixed in the first place. There were plenty of rumors of clubhouse unrest and a generational divide on the roster during and after the lousy 2013 campaign. We don’t know how much of that was his fault just like we don’t know how much of the improved chemistry was a result of his actions, but it is a factor that needs to be considered.
This leads to a larger point though that Scioscia had to take all of these steps forward in the first place. He had to be dragged into the 21st century with some of his ideas by Jerry Dipoto for this to happen. Even after doing that, he quickly reverted back to #smartbaseball Sosh once the playoffs started.
It is great that he relented and ascribed to some of the more stat-friendly strategies, but is that really a good fit for the Angels now?
They’ve got a saber-savvy GM who clearly has certain things he’d like to see done with the roster he’s putting together. He shouldn’t have to spend two-plus years convincing his manager to actually do those things. That’s not because Scioscia isn’t a good manager, he just may not be a good manager for this version of the Angels.
Just look at the Texas Rangers. They had a lot of success under Ron Washington, but he was a manager with severe shortcomings and was never really on the same page with GM Jon Daniels. When he resigned for “personal reasons” even Daniels admitted that it was a blessing in disguise since it freed him up to hire a manager who he could have a more symbiotic relationship with. That’s something the Angels should at least consider affording Jerry Dipoto.
Then again, if they aren’t committed to Dipoto, which his as of yet still unexercised 2016 contract option suggests, maybe holding onto Scioscia makes sense. But that would put the Angels back in a position where Scioscia sits atop the organizational totem pole, an arrangement that Moreno specifically aimed to put an end to two winters ago.
Which brings us back to the status quo of Dipoto as the GM and Scioscia trying to meet him halfway. For 162 games, that worked pretty well. Next year if Scioscia can learn from his ALDS experience and make progress, maybe he can get it to work well for 181 games. Because he IS going to get that chance. If he didn’t get canned after the 2013 disaster, he sure as heck isn’t going to get cut loose after a 98-win season, no matter how bad the ALDS went.
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