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On a quiet Friday afternoon, we have now gotten some juicy tweets from Fox Sports reporter Jon Paul Morosi:
Angels are expected to replace either general manager Jerry Dipoto or manager Mike Scioscia before start of next season, sources say. (more)
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) August 23, 2013
Philosophical differences exist between the men, and it has become increasingly apparent to organization that status quo is not tenable.
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) August 23, 2013
Relevant point: Scioscia is signed for more years and greater dollars than Dipoto. Scioscia is unlikely to resign and forgo huge payday.
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) August 23, 2013
If true, this is a pretty big deal. The Angels won the A.L. West five out of six years from 2004-09, on the strength of a big budget and a potent farm system. 2004 was also the year Eddie Bane went from Tampa to Anaheim to become the Angels' farm director. Bane was fired at the end of 2010, after that streak ended, by then Angels g.m. Tony Reagins. Bane recounts it thusly:
Then-general manager Tony Reagins summoned Bane, Angels' scouting director from 2004-2010, into his office two years ago and told him to get lost.
"Real short conversation," says Bane, who now scouts for the Detroit Tigers. "He said, 'We're not going to renew your contract.' I said, 'You've gotta be kidding me.' He said, 'I don't like your last couple of drafts.' "
The 2010 draft doesn't look like anything special for Anaheim, but the 2009 draft brought the Angels Mike Trout, Pat Corbin, Tyler Skaggs and Garrett Richards.
In any case, Reagins left at the end of 2011 and was replaced by Jerry DiPoto, who had been the Arizona Diamondbacks' general manager. DiPoto's time as general manager has seen the Angels make the disastrous Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton signings, as well as the bad signings of Ryan Madson and Joe Blanton and the pointless trade of Tommy Hansen.
Its hard to evaluate either Reagins or DiPoto as a g.m., though, as Angel owner Arte Moreno was supposedly the force behind signing Hamilton and Pujols, while Scioscia has been considered one of the more powerful managers in the game.
As Morosi notes, Scioscia has a long, long term contract...a 10 year, $50M deal that runs through 2018. If the Angels have decided that DiPoto and Scioscia can't co-exist, DiPoto may be out simply because it would be so expensive for the Angels to axe Scioscia.
Assistant general manager Scott Servais was hired away from the Rangers by DiPoto soon after DiPoto was named g.m. Servais was the Rangers' player development director, and one of JD's "inner-circle" of trusted advisors before he went to Anaheim. If DiPoto is out (and if we assume that Servais's philosophy is similar to DiPoto's, and thus he wouldn't be a candidate to replace DiPoto or stick around once DiPoto is gone), it would seem to open up the possibility of Servais returning to Texas.