6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Per the Rays broadcast. Updates as I find them.

Update: Mike DiGiovanna reports he resigned. Arte Moreno:

#Angels Arte Moreno, in release: "We remained short of our objective in winning championship. In moving forward, we felt change was needed."

Reagins will remain with the team as a special assistant.

Update 2: LAT story.

Update 3: NBC Hardball Talk's Matthew Poulliot briefly reviews Reagins' tenure as GM, and reminds us of the expensive, ineffective bullpens he constructed (<cough> Brian Fuentes <cough>) in addition to the catastrophic Wells/Napoli trade.

More at the Register, whose Bill Plunkett reminds us of the name Scott Kazmir.

Update 4: Scott Miller at CBS Sports:

Moreno got years of great publicity after the first thing he did as owner was lower stadium beer prices, but his ownership clearly is at a crossroads right now. Though he talks the talk of winning championships, he's consistently failed in the free agent market over the past several winters: Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, Carl Crawford and Adrian Beltre, among others.

Bottom line, the Angels' actions jibe with their words less and less frequently. The organization has become soulless, and disingenuous.

I'm inclined to agree. Arte's public pronouncements before this last offseason were something of an embarrassment, and I wonder if that didn't drive the suicidal pursuit of Wells.

Update 5: Mike DiGiovanna's long-form piece includes a great deal of speculative analysis (no, Billy Beane isn't coming down here), and the following meatier bit:

John Carpino, the team's president, said he and Moreno were "a little bit surprised" by the resignation of Reagins, who will remain with the club as a special assistant to team Chairman Dennis Kuhl.

"Tony and I had a long conversation [Friday] morning, and for most part, yeah, this wasn't the plan," Carpino said. "It was a collective decision, and Tony was part of the decision-making process."

Carpino said a search for Reagins' successor will begin immediately and that the next GM would probably come from outside the organization. He would like to have someone in place in November, when players can file for free agency.

Labels: angels, firings, front office

... and slow. Proof of this latter precept came from Bill Shaikin, who informs us that the Dodgers (read: Frank McCourt) wants the bankruptcy court to delay until December 12 the disposition of a forced sale of the team. Earlier in the week, MLB asked the judge to force a sale of the team on the grounds that McCourt has one exit and one exit only from bankruptcy, and that path is through a pre-sale of television rights, one which MLB will never permit ("The only path to emergence [from bankruptcy] is through a sale of the Dodgers"). MLB also threatened the team with possible removal from the league if McCourt fails to hand the team over, a first.

Dodgers season ticket holders are now asking for representation before the bankruptcy court:

The motion asks the court to appoint a committee to represent the interests of the approximately 17,000 Dodgers season ticket holders, described as "the real stakeholders" in the case. The Dodgers and the official creditors' committee each have opposed the formation of a committee to represent season ticket holders, according to the filing, and so the U.S. trustee assigned to the case has denied the ticket holders standing "at this time."

The Dodgers have stifled "the basic desire of its most loyal and financially invested fans on whose goodwill they are dependent -- the season ticket holders -- to have a seat at the table in this reorganization," the filing reads.

It ain't over 'til it's over, but man ...

Update: Bill Shaikin, again doing yeoman's work, reports Fox is suing the Dodgers "seeking unspecified damages and order that any sale TV rights sale comply with current contract"; the net effect is "to try to stop #Dodgers proposed sale of TV rights, key to McCourt's strategy to emerge from bankruptcy as owner."

MLBPA will monitor "carefully" Dodgers spending. Presumably this is more about players getting their salaries. Supposedly the team has enough to pick up high-dollar free agents, but I remain unimpressed.

Update 2: The LAT story on the Fox suit.

Labels: dodgers, mccourts

Due to a foot injury; he has a broken bone on the top of his right foot. Trumbo leads the team with 29 home runs and 87 runs batted in.

Trumbo will be fitted with a boot, and has canceled plans to play winter ball.

Labels: angels, injuries

Okay, so I'm really glad the Angels didn't outbid the Red Sox for his services. Apparently she has breast cancer. Blecch.

Labels: ex-angels, red sox, stupid ideas

I have written almost nothing about the Angels for a long time, and felt little urge to do so for quite a while. Much of that is because of the overall mediocrity of the season, but it seems to me now that things have really, truly spiraled out of control. Losing 3-1 at home to the A's on Friday with Jered Weaver on the mound — a game that bitterly, appropriately, ended with Vernon Wells making the last out — was in many ways the apotheosis of this miserable, frustrating season.

At least, it was until today, when Mike Scioscia watched as his closer steadily gave up the lead and the win. It was obvious Jordan Walden was operating on a thread, and while I don't have much in the way of confidence in any other relievers in the 2011 Angels bullpen, Scioscia owed it to his paying audience to at least make the effort to try and seem like he planned on playing for something — say, the alleged AL Wild Card that is still in play. This of course included a pathetic yet somehow suitably appropriate error by Walden, who threw a routine and would-be inning-ending double play ball into center field.

Scioscia's fingerprints were all over the Vernon Wells trade; no ex-catcher with as much influence on the organization as he has could possibly have allowed Mike Napoli to be shipped out without his stamp of approval. That Napoli is stinging the ball down in Texas is an even bitterer blow, because it highlights how thoroughly incompetent the organization is from the general manager on down at correctly identifying and deploying playing talent. I have been reluctant in general to throw the field manager under the bus, but given Scioscia's inane reliance on a provably false offensive strategy, and his considerable power within the organization to make catastrophic personnel decisions, it's time the Angels started cutting some heads. There has to be some accountability, and it needs to start with the people making the bad decisions.

Fire Tony Reagins, and I might consider re-upping my season tickets. If, as seems likely, the organization makes it through September without any structural changes, I'll be happy to watch from the sidelines in 2012.

ESPN Box

Labels: angels, athletics, recaps, stupid ideas

Back from the thin air in Colorado... Baseball America has a lot of nice things to say about Dodgers, and especially, Angels prospects in the Pioneer League.

2. Taylor Lindsey, 2b, Orem (Angels)
3. Joc Pederson, of, Ogden (Dodgers)
4. C.J. Cron, 1b, Orem (Angels)
6. Kaleb Cowart, 3b, Orem (Angels)
7. Nick Maronde, lhp, Orem (Angels)
11. James Baldwin III, of, Ogden (Dodgers)
13. Nick Mutz, rhp, Orem (Angels)

No other team even got four players on this list, and the Rockies had three.

Labels: angels, dodgers, minors

Out of the office for a couple weeks, won't be following much of anything baseball for a while.

Labels: meta

• A $1.2 billion all-cash bid for the Dodgers comes from Bill Burke, according to Bob Timmermann the husband of LA County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, along with a consortium that includes Chinese state investors and unidentified US investors. This latter group, of course, could conceivably include anyone, so I don't take this news too seriously, but is it possible the Dodgers have a worse bidder than Jim Crane of the Astros or their present owner?
• The McCourts unloaded one of their two Holmby Hills mansions, weighing in at "only" 8,385 square feet, for a neat $6.525 million. Also, this:

  Frank also dismissed as "false" the suggestion by Jamie that he had "bank accounts or other assets in China or other offshore locations that I have not disclosed."

  By which I take it he does. Has he ever told the truth on any financial issue?

Labels: dodgers, mccourts