Jerry DiPoto out as Angels GM
/The Angels organization is a mess.
Jerry DiPoto, who has served since 2011 as the franchise's general manager, has apparently resigned after his latest squabble with Mike Scioscia.
DiPoto and Scioscia, of course, are not strangers to beef. As Ken Rosenthal outlined in the original story, the two have been at odds since as early as 2012, largely due to Scioscia's unwillingness to either share or apply information handed down from the organization's analytics department.
The latest (or last) straw, as Rosenthal notes, was:
Dipoto expressed frustration with the coaches’ failure to convey scouting information to the players, sources said. At least one coach responded heatedly to Dipoto and first baseman Albert Pujols issued a pointed rebuttal to his GM, sources said.
In my head it makes me laugh picturing Albert Pujols issuing a "pointed rebuttal," but that's beside the point. The real story is that the Angels -- albeit 41-38 and only 5 games behind the Astros in the AL West -- were never able to reconcile a clearly modern, analytics-driven GM like DiPoto, with the archaic on-field stylings of Mike Scioscia. It is what happens when the owner, Arte Moreno, has his manager staked to ten-year contract, twice as long as his GM.
The power was never truly in DiPoto's hands, and although this paradigm was destined to eventually fail, I wouldn't have guessed it would be so sudden.