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Sez Bill at Be Jolly, Inc. ..
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DR's DIAGNOSIS
Two interesting things here. Second and easier one first: it's clear that DiPoto and Servais are the opposite of that thesis. A brain trust that is trying to impose their own, fresh, vision of the world rather than using a 1990's recipe like Lou's. So that much is in our favor.
Since Auguest 2001, Padna, Dr. Detecto et al had been wringing their hands and moaning about the institution and culture in Seattle. I'm here to tell you that as a fan I am satisfied, no, delighted, that the right way of doing things is finally here.
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The first and harder idea is this. The fascinating premise here arrives if you take this concept --- > [If The Fans Hate A Trade, It Has A Chance] < --- literally. The idea is interesting NOT when you take it in a USSM kind of way, but in an analytical kind of way.
The SSI denizen is assuredly not what Bill is talking about (or should be talking about, at least), but we'll condescend that he would be talking about casual fans and casual 'net rats.
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Stipulating the above ... I'm not even sure exactly what that would mean if it were true, but let's think for a second. [Patrick Kivlehan and an erratic reliever for a Gold Glove centerfielder who hits like Carlos Peguero at 8 homers a year.] Is James saying that a good trade must perceive something almost imperceptible, like --- > Leonys Martin's hitting potential? Perhaps the idea is that if you want to outsmart a fellow GM, you obviously would have to outsmart everybody OUTside baseball.
Which would echo the "unheard melodies" concept in master chess, that most of the jockeying between GM's is occurring at a level opaque to others with less information.
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Hard to say. But one thing is for sure - most of Jerry DiPoto's trades have been hard to understand. I like the suggestion that they're hard to understand because they're beyond our perception. I don't know if it's true, but I like the suggestion.
Here is a convenient b-ref.com list of DiPoto's transactions. Feel free to post your fave "Now I Get It" deal, or the reverse. Leonys Martin would be my own first pick, since I disagreed with DiPoto so sharply on Martin's ability to hit. I still love, love, love the Nate Karns deal, though I may be the only one. What do you think about Montgomery for Vogelbach at this point?
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Fair and Balanced Dept.
Man alive, you run down that list of relievers -- Nick Vincent, Arquimedes Caminero, Drew Storen, 20 other guys -- and for a guy who used to be a middle reliever himself, DiPoto hasn't had a very good year on that end of things. Had to pull that Mark Lowe / Edwin Diaz maneuver out of his ear to finally get the ballclub going.
Enjoy,
Dr D
Vincent's been fine this year, apart from when he was injured and not telling anyone. That move was fine IMHO. Caminero is a work in progress with huge upside...no one will fault you for trading basically nothing for a guy like that. Hasn't worked in 2016 the way I'd hoped, but let Stottlemyre work with him some.
I'm with you on Vincent. The over use on that one road trip hurt him. He tried to pitch through it and got merked several times. Other than that one stretch he's pretty much the guy he was last year. As a middle reliever, he's far from the worst problem in the pen this year.
Not sure any of the pitcher moves were dumb, or a big problem, etc.
Vincent though had a 2+ ERA and FIP for the Padres, and we were hoping that he (or someone like him) would stabilize the bullpen in the 8th. In the American League the fly balls seemed to cost him, and IIRC the Mariners just sort of decided he wasn't the Big Solution in the setup role.
It wasn't a disaster. Taken as a whole, the late-inning losses were, until Diaz-Cishek finally solved it IMHO.
In the DiPoto trades we've seen this year the one thing that impresses me is that he didn't hurt himself THIS year and he likely helped himself NEXT year in every trade...or the ones that I can remember.. Martin came for a RP that we got back. Heck we got Kivlehan back, too. Kivlehan is doing decently well in his first taste of the bigs in SD, btw.
Weirdly, I'm not yet convinced that Martin's downside isn't larger than his upside. There is something oddly broke in a guy who swings from his heels, whiffs at a high rate, CAN pull the ball into the air, runs like a deer...yet has hit only 17 doubles, playing every day. His career high in doubles is 21! Man, Lind has 15 doubles and he runs like a duck. He's 140 PA's short of Martin, too. Martin has settled down to hit 3 HR's in the 2nd half of this season, about his normal career rate.
Even sending Monty away, didn't "kill" us this year. GM's usually try to fix this year or build for next: DiPoto has quasi-managed to do both...in almost every swap.
I like that.
B-Ref.com gives him an average of 20 per 162 games, as you point out Moe. This year with his HR 'binge' his SLG is still in the threes.
Still, this year his OPS+ is 91 -- *exactly* where it was in Texas in 2013 and 2014 (90, 92) -- and we'd have definitely accepted that in March.
Moe is spot on, that JeDi acquired players with more options and club control in the future. Trading Miley for Miranda, and Monty for Vogelbach are good examples. Could we have used Monty down the stretch this year? Yes, I am convinced of that, but that needs to be balanced with juggling the 25/40 man rosters. We had guys coming off the DL and there were tough choices for roster spots. We lost LeBlanc in another move, and he was a player obtained off the scrap heap, but contributed when we needed it. I like the move for Vogelbach, as he may contribute as early as September or perhaps next spring if Lind is gone. The September sell offs of Wieland and LeBlanc for PTBNLs are interesting, but maybe just a testament of them needing a 40 man roster spot for a Sept call-up.
"...the guy who has been successful somewhere else will almost always try to re-create what he has done before, which is usually a mistake."
I wonder how Dipoto seems himself in this sense.
Does he think that what he's doing is recreating what he did in LA...because the reasons it didn't work there were Moreno and Scoscia? That he's had the right approach all along?
Or does he see himself as someone who needed to do things differently because it didn't work there?
And you can take those same questions one level up. Did Lincoln/Mather decide to approach this GM hire differently than the previous ones? Or did their criteria and their decision making stay the same...just finding a better guy to fit their process?