Scioscia's Shrink

Tito Francona,Jr., Manny Delcarmon, the Angles players and North America knew he wanted to squeeze. The same group is hip to his insistance on the vaunted “Contact Play” as well as ill timed sacrifices. I agree with your thoughtful analysis of the catching situation. Tony Reagins “took one for the team.” He didn’t have the juice to take Vernon’s 82 million. Kazmir was an organizational cost saving altenative to signing Lackey, (they thought Butcher could “coach him up”)….Baseball is making wholesale fireings and “reassignments”….should’nt Hatchcer and Butcher be re-evaluated?

Scioscia wants submissive catchers. Scioscia wants to call ALL the shots. They got rid of the Molina brothers and Napoli, all excellent catchers who were assertive leaders. I believe it is more of a control issue.

10 years is a long time to manage the same team. I will be the first that says there is 95 percent of Angel fans who like Mike. Some think he is a God. But, I on the other hand think he is a good manager but its time to leave. He needs to be held responsible for the Angels not making the playoffs.

1. The way the team played in Sept and the last two weeks, especially with Boston saying here Angels we are going to tank for you.

2. The team was a flat out embarrassment running the bases this year. This is on the manager, he needs to be held accountable. The team never improved but continued to run them selfs out of innings late in the season, especially in Toronto. It was just not one player, there were several players who be called out on the bases such as getting doubled off on a pop fly. Can he fire a base coach too?

3. The over managing of his pitching staff, I wish there was a stat that had all the Angels games this year where the team had a two or three run lead late and the starter was pitching well only to not be able to go out and start the 7th or 8th or taken out in the middle of the 8th only to see the pen blow it. I would guess over ten games which would of gave us a play off berth. I remember the loss on a Sunday at Dodger Stadium, where the starter should of went the distance I believe the Wells hit a two run homerun to go up 2-1. Mike took out the starter and and Walden with about 45 seconds to warm up blew the game.

How many times would you see a starter up 3-1 and has not giving up a run since the 2nd inning, but because we have a match up problem in the top of the 8th or the pitcher is a 100 pitches Mike would pull him?

Finally, if you google Angels Baseball Rumors. You will see what I knew and some of you knew, Mike was basically the GM of the team, or lets say shared duties and had way too much in put . This team lacked power, trading Napoli was just as much Mike as it was Reagins. The Angels had two catchers this year where National League pitchers had a higher batting average.

Mike, is better suited as a National League manager, that is where he needs to be. Fans , wake up, the Angels are not going to beat Texas, NY, Boston or Detroit to get to a World Series, with 3 infielders all 5 foot 8 or 9 with no lack of power. 10 years from the last World Series is too long, especially when the Angels only played in a 4 team division.

Mike will stay, but hopefully a strong GM comes in and tells Mike to just manage the team and not play GM. Maybe he will resign and the Angels can look more like an American League team this year. The Angels scored a total of 667 runs this year, lowest run total since 1994. Its a shame Tony and Mike didnt realize that if the Angels kept Napoli and added some 3rd base power, we had a great 1-2 punch in a short play off series with Weaver and Haren.

for those who say will Mike won a World Series for us, or would you like Terry Collins back? Then your settling, if you cant see that this was not one of Mike’s finest managerial jobs then your too much of a fan and a homer.

As I read on the internet this morning, one GM added Mike was basically the GM. I read a couple of days ago, another GM does not want to play second fiddle to Mike.

You want Mike back as manager if;

1. If you enjoy watching players making the same base running blunders over and over through the year on the base paths, with no improvement.

2. Seeing Callapso hit 4th in a game or Maicer, basically seeing 4 or 5 single hitters that are 5 foot 8 in the line up.

3. Not knowing who in the heck is in the line up the next day.

4. Having your lead off hitter hit 2 home runs and score 5 runs but the next day he is hitting 9th because of match ups, some times you can just over think too much .

5. In a race to get a play off spot and Aberu goes 0-5 and strikes out 4 times but he starts the next night in Toronto.

6. Seeing a starting pitcher throw a gem and seeing the other team having trouble getting runner on base or scoring and the starter is pulled late only to see the bull pen blow it.

Iv been criticized here basically every time I have a post, but one thing that is consistent is I have wanted Mike gone for the last three years,