Padres Editorial: Brewer’s Banter
This is the first of a new weekly series where I will be ranting, raving, and discussing all the going ons in the baseball world over the past week.
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim General Manager Situation
Thought it would be fitting to lead off with the mess of a situation that is the Angels front office. The story goes like this: General Manager Jerry DiPoto and Manager Mike Scioscia apparently don’t like each other and never liked each other and their most recent conflict was the final straw for DiPoto. After the two got into some sort of conflict following Tuesday’s night game, Dipoto cleared out his desk and his office and left Angels Stadium.
The following morning it came out that Dipoto had resigned as general manager effective immediately. There were various reports that Arte Moreno was attempting to convince Dipoto to stay but the rift between himself and Scioscia was too great and Dipoto went through with his resignation.
Before the day was over Bill Stoneman, former Angels General manager and the man behind the Mike Scioscia signing was promoted to be the interim general manager for the remainder of the season. It seems it will now be his task to both deal with Scioscia and Moreno and attempt to make some trades to get the Angels back to the playoffs in 2015.
It is almost comical that a general manager resigned because of the power and influence of a manager. Usually a general manager would just fire a manager that he did not philosophically agree with but it seems that Arte Moreno consistently played the role of the overbearing boss. It is amazing to me that a manager like Scioscia, who has really had no great success since the World Series title of 2004, would have so much power over both the general manager and the organization as a whole.
It seems likely that Moreno will come to regret these decisions in both the short term and perhaps the long term. The Angels find themselves in the middle of a playoff race with a new general manager, an aging and underperforming roster, and a depleted farm system with no immediate help coming. The Angels may have the best player on the planet in Mike Trout but may find themselves in a huge heap of trouble.
The New York Mets Lack of Front Office Decision Making
The New York Mets are actually fielding a winning ball club and are finally on the cusp of real playoff contention and their front office is still doing everything in their power to screw it up.
The Mets clearly are absolutely LOADED with young pitching talent from the phenom Matt Harvey to Jacob deGrom to Noah Syndergaard to Steven Matz but still find themselves held back by their poor offensive output. The Mets have the resources, and clearly the incentive, to go out and make some sort of trade for some offensive help but have still done absolutely nothing to improve their situation.
It has to be infuriating to watch a team with so much young talent and potential to be squandering it away because their front office is afraid to pull the trigger and make a move. It may just be that the Mets have tried to make some sort of move but have found no one available. It seems more likely that an inept front office is once again blowing the Mets chances of finally getting back to the playoffs and finding some glory for a once storied franchise.
The Mets may continue to stand pat at the deadline and may find themselves completely overpowered by the Washington Nationals and out of the playoff picture completely. The Mets will continue to be a joke if they don’t make some sort of move to satiate what is becoming a more rabid fanbase.
The Philadelphia Phillies Future Rebuild
The Phillies took their first step towards rebuilding on Monday when they introduced Andy Macphail as an assistant to the current President of the Phillies as well as the future president of the Phillies following the completion of the season.
This was the best move for a franchise who has muddled along the last few years stuck between delusions of playoff contention and a full, bottom-up rebuild. Ruben Amaro has been an absolute failure as the Phillies general manager in recent years and has continually put off selling off the Phillies various expensive assets and starting to rebuild the team for future contention.
How much of the blame can be put on Amaro and how much of it can be put on Phillies ownership is unknown but nevertheless Amaro is likely nearing the end of his days running the Phillies further into the ground. MacPhail is a man with a storied history in baseball and a man with quite a bit of success taking teams from the absolute bottom to the top, seen both in his time with the Minnesota Twins organization as well as with the Baltimore Orioles organization.
MacPhail will likely want to hire his own general manager to run the team, and with the resignation of Ryne Sandberg, will also most likely want to find a coach that fits his mindset as well. The Phillies have been stuck in the dark ages as an organization when it comes to sabermetrics and analytics, and MacPhail’s first order of business, at least based on what was discussed during his introductory press conference, will be rebuilding the Phillies advanced statistics department from the ground up and moving the Phillies into the 21st century of baseball thought.
This transition can’t come soon enough for a Phillies team that has been wallowing in mediocrity over the past few seasons while both ownership and Ruben Amaro have hung on to delusions of possible playoff contention and past playoff successes. The rebuild starts now in Philadelphia.
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Editorial and Prospect Writer for East Village Times. Twenty-five years young, Patrick has lived in San Diego for his entire life and has been a Padres fan nearly as long. Patrick lives for baseball and is always looking to learn new things about the game he loves through advanced stats.