Nobody disses carrier pigeons. Those things used to win wars.

Nobody disses carrier pigeons. Those things used to win wars.

DePodesta got DePodesta fired for his many bad front office decisions, not Plaschke and Simers.

Nobody disses carrier pigeons. Those things used to win wars.

As did the hoplite phalanx. But once someone develops Metallurgy, you can't really rely on those to defend your cities anymore.

As for DePodesta, suppose he did everything the mediots thought he should have done this season. The Dodgers would have had an even more expensive flop of a season and they'd still be saying the same things about him.

Schuey, would you care to elaborate?

If cartoons taught me nothing else - and they didn't - it's that carrier pigeons are surprisingly hard to catch.

Check out the Keisser article in the Presstelegram on October 31 for a list of DePo mistakes. The Dodger record was 61-89 in a weak division after their sizzling 10-2start. Plus anyone who was about to rehire Terry Collins clearly should not be running a baseball team, let alone what used to be the second most glamorous one in baseball.

"McCourt, ever sensitive to the Los Angeles media, changed direction," ESPN's Peter Gammons reported.

"The McCourts can't deal with the media pressure," a Dodger insider explained to ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick.

If McCourt is so sensitive to the LA media, why hasn't he shot himself in the head already? I doubt they would settle for anything less. Plaschke and Simers may have influenced McCourt's opinion of Depodesta, but I doubt they played any role in his firing. McCourt decided he didn't like where the 5-year plan was going next year (mainly Collins as manager), and dumped his general manager so he could set a different direction with a new guy.

If the McCourt was so violently opposed to the idea of Collins in the organization, why did they hire him on the minor league end in the first place?

good article Matt.

Plus anyone who was about to rehire Terry Collins clearly should not be running a baseball team, let alone what used to be the second most glamorous one in baseball.

The whole Depodesta analysis has been done to death: I think it's pretty clear that he made a bunch of mistakes, but that McCourt should have given him more time, and fired him now at least in part b/c of media pressure. As to the point above, I'm not sure I see the logic in hiring Collins, but your comment was also said of Torre when the Yanks hired him and of Francona when the Red Sox hired him.

Nice work, Matt. That must have felt good.

Check out the Keisser article in the Presstelegram on October 31 for a list of DePo mistakes

Mmm, okay. Since the original Press-Telegram article is offline, we'll just have to trot over to Newsbank

to get one. (Sorry, link only works if you have an OCPL card and maybe not even then.) Here's some glorious quotes from the Keister, er, Keisser:

He was 1 for 6 (.167) when making trades. Acquiring Steve Finley was his lone hit. Trading away Paul LoDuca, Guillermo Mota and Shawn Green were mistakes. Acquiring Jason Phillips was benign at best and Milton Bradley malignant.

Brad Penny was the team leader measured by VORP this year. Hee Seop Choi was tied for third in home runs. Meanwhile, LoDuca got extended to a $18M/3-year contract while producing six home runs and a .334 OBP. Was he really worth that kind of money? Only if you believe that a 35-year-old catcher playing in the melting Florida heat and humidity will be worth it in three years. And then there's Guillermo Mota, whose $2.6M contract was surely worth the 4.70 ERA he posted... right?

He was an awful 1 for 7 (.143) when it came to free-agent decisions. Not retaining Adrian Beltre and Finley were institutional mistakes for a franchise that trades on tradition.

But they were great decisions if you wanted to win ballgames. Ask Mariners or Angels fans how happy they were to see either step up to the plate this year; they had .255/.303/.413 and .222/.271/.374 lines, respectively. Beltre got paid $17M this year, and will get $11.25M/year for four more years. Matt Welch maintains that this trade was a mistake because it opened a hole on the third base side, but you know what? I'd rather have that for a year or two while Andy LaRoche develops than overpay for a guy who's only once been able to put it together consistently over the course of a season.

Signing suspects like the perpetually bruised J.D. Drew, the shady Derek Lowe, the aging Jose Valentin and malcontent Odalis Perez proved to be folly. Only the Jeff Kent signing was worthwhile.

And his actions would have been, what? I'll grant that the Lowe and Perez signings were a reaction to the loss of Matt Clement from the free agent pool, but Valentin was a placeholder. And sure, I'll concede that the Drew contract isn't the best deal ever signed, but neither is it the worst -- Mo Vaughn? Albert Belle? Anybody could have gotten a broken arm from a hit-by-pitch.

He also went hitless in understanding the complexities of clubhouse chemistry,

But was this anything more than a distraction?

threw nothing but beanballs when it came to working with his manager

Who actively undermined him.

was rude when dispatching people from the organization

Show me one case. One. Not contacting Finley to let him know he wouldn't be re-signed? Not communicating adequately with Beltre? Isn't this what agents are for? Cry crocodile tears for these guys, Keisser, especially after their respective 2005 seasons.

So let's make it very clear. DePodesta, with an on-base percentage of nil, was not fired this weekend by the Dodgers because his Statball system didn't work. He was fired because he was an inexperienced, mistake-prone and downright lousy general manager who never should have been hired and, in comparison, made Kevin Malone look like Branch Rickey.

If anyone looks like a horse's ass in this column, it's Keisser, and not DePodesta. If anything, DePodesta took the classy way out and refused to slag his former employer. Keisser, on the other hand, couldn't wait to avail himself of the cheap shot and the cariacature. If this is your idea of criticism, you'll have to pardon me a few minutes while I stop laughing.

As did the hoplite phalanx. But once someone develops Metallurgy, you can't really rely on those to defend your cities anymore.

Not to mention that the Great Wall becomes obsolete!

Oh, and scareduck rips Keisser's article apart.

If you're looking for Bob Keisser to support one's argument, you're building your foundation on sand. Keisser and the rest of the Press-Telegram are irrelevant in the Southern California media, except to the insular world of Long Beach.

The Dodger record was 61-89 in a weak division after their sizzling 10-2start.

To be precise, it was 59-89 after a 12-2 start.

Nice work Matt. I cringe every time I read those blowhards. Hopefully commentary like yours, in a paper as big as the Times, can begin to turn the tide...

Nobody thought this was hilariously ironic?

"[J.D. Drew] was the double sixes in Paul DePodesta's giant game of Strat-O-Matic

Double-sixes is great in most dice/board games. It's the big roll.

However, double-sixes is often an injury on a Strat card.

Okay, on Drew's card, it could be a double-fives.

Don't really care much one way or the other about DePodesta.

But is this guy trying to put down S-O-M in a roudabout way? If so, F*CK HIM!! I'll f*ck him up. Where does this f*cker live?

Kudos to Matt on a fine article.

As viciously idiotic (if that's possible) as the rantings of Plaschmers have been, it really makes you realize how weak the McCourts are as owners if they paid even one iota of attention to it. Sad.

I'm very surprised LA Times published an article slamming its own sports writers. Does it do that often? Does that mean that the sport section's general manager will refused to sign a contract extension?

Ha Ha Ha!

Dodgers suck!

LA TIMES tries to appear ombudsmanesque with these point-of-vew columns.
But they're really not that generous or thick-skinned.

Maybe that's why Plaschke hates the Internet so much: People there are doing his job, only better.


OOooh! BURN!

Double-sixes is great in most dice/board games. It's the big roll.

However, double-sixes is often an injury on a Strat card.

Yeah, but it's generally a HBP + injury which is Drew's bread and butter!

When I saw it, I thought it meant 6/6 which is on the pitcher's card anyways.

Nicely done, scareduck - exactly the point I was planning to make, though much more artfully stated. I'd add that Drew's VORP (31.0) was more than double Beltre's (15.1) despite missing half the season, and Lowe (while perhaps a "shady" character off the field) put up solid numbers (113 ERA+) while eating a whole raft of innings (222) on an injury-addled pitching staff that desperately needed a solid innings-eater.

Righteous, Matt.

That was a serious beatdown.

I doubt either of the protagonists will take the criticism on board, though. That would be too much to ask.

Simers might make a joke about it. Plaschke won't write about it all.

Hmmm, another article from another writer at another right-wing think tank comes up with a novel reason DePodesta was fired -- it was Plaschke and Simers' fault!

Guess I should give Welsh some credit for at least admitting DePo's crippling faults. But take away credit for blasting both Plaschke and Simers but only using examples from Plaschke's columns. But then, it does appear that the majority of critics treat them as one and the same, so why would it be important to quote Simers? Perhaps because Simers' primary target has pretty much been the McCourts and not DePo?

I don't care for Plaschke at all, but anyone who had bothered to read Simers would know he freely insults any and all, mostly with tongue in cheek, not excepting himself.

One last thing almost all of these pieces have in common (they pretty much have every thought in common): envy of print writers and other newspapermen who have better jobs than they do.

There is obviously some diversity of thought among participants at the Primer -- more than a few of us could see that Depodesta was over his head in important aspects of the job that went beyond sabermetric analysis -- so why is it that nearly every "printed" take on DePo looks and sounds like the same tired refrain?

If sabermetrically-inclined analysts want to be taken seriously in the mainstream of journalism, they need to drop the lazy, juvenile rhetoric and fortress mentality and demonstrate the real thinking they are clearly capable of.

Also -- while the Red Sox have an obvious sabermetric influence and were smart enough to pick up undervalued guys like Millar, Mueller and Ortiz, is it really accurate to give sabermetrics credit for their World Series success when they had, excepting the Yankees, the highest payroll in baseball?

Welch was far more upset at the way DePodesta was portrayed by Plaschke and Simers in the Times than how DePodesta performed in the job. Matt has often complained longly and loudly about how bad of a job DePodesta did. His complaints were about fairness, not DePodesta's acumen as a GM.

And I really don't think Matt Welch is envious of Bill Plaschke or T.J. Simers.

Also -- while the Red Sox have an obvious sabermetric influence and were smart enough to pick up undervalued guys like Millar, Mueller and Ortiz, is it really accurate to give sabermetrics credit for their World Series success when they had, excepting the Yankees, the highest payroll in baseball?

It's a reasonable question, but when you see teams like the Mets and Phillies, the answer seems pretty self-evident. With high-payroll teams, you can sometimes make gambles you wouldn't otherwise make. The Angels took one and lost on Steve Finley; the Red Sox won on the first year of Curt Schilling's contract, and lost this year. The Yankees lost on the Randy Johnson trade. That is to say, marquee players are nice and all, but when they go down you'd better have a solid plan B. The Angels' plan B is their farm; who do the Yanks have to fall back upon when their aging team gets injured? The point of sabermetrics is to identify undervalued players, something the Red Sox successfully did with David Ortiz.

Does anybody else find it odd that the L.A. Times would print an article that bashes two of its own writers?

On J.D. Drew's strat-o-matic card in 2004, on the basic side his injury is 1:12, meaning that it would require a double six to roll it. Specifically, it is a grounball(2b) A++ plus injury. On the advanced side, against both right and left handers, his injury is 1:2, meaning that it requires snake eyes to injury Drew. Against both right and left handers, it is a HBP plus injury.

is it really accurate to give sabermetrics credit for their World Series success when they had, excepting the Yankees, the highest payroll in baseball?

Not only that, but they were the only $100 million payroll team to ever win the World Series, being over $130 million. The Yankee championship squads, though well funded, did not have payrolls much higher than the other high spending teams.

The point of sabermetrics is to identify undervalued players, something the Red Sox successfully did with David Ortiz

Yes, but they also overpayed for the services of Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez. Cleveland is the example of the team that is built entirely on finding value. Shapiro, who is may be the best GM in baseball, has may shrewd trades to aquire players like Hafner and Sizemore and has also found undervalued players, mostly pitchers, on the free agent market. This allows them to be competitive despite mediocre drafts and a ridiculously small payroll. If the Indians had a reasonable payroll ($60-70 million), then they could afford big name player like Ramirez or Damon and would be the best team in the league. Because of their miniscule payroll, they did not even make the playoffs.

The point of sabermetrics is to identify undervalued players, something the Red Sox successfully did with David Ortiz.

That's also the point of scouting, market research and pretty much every other activity dictated by a baseball front office, or by any executives in any industry for that matter.

The point of sabermetrics is to use statistics that were not traditionally used to evaluate players (BA, RBI, W-L) to see which players were performing the best.

Sabermetrics doesn't really care too much one way or the other what a player gets paid.

Excellent work, Matt. A very enjoyable read.

Manny, yes. Damon, no. 8 mil was pretty reasonable for what he gave them: good defense, speed, a quality lead-off man and 120 runs scored a year.

Besides which, the Manny contract was inherited. And they've been desperately trying to get out from under it ever since the current regime took over the team. It had nothing to do with sabermetrics (which, as Bob T notes, is not about salaries anyway - the "undervalued" meme is, as Moneyball describes, about the A's using sabermetrics to help identified talent the market had mispriced).

But go ahead, blame Bill James for Dan Duquette's overpay.

Thanks for the nice words, all.

Does anybody else find it odd that the L.A. Times would print an article that bashes two of its own writers?

As Halofan was saying, "Outside the Tent" is a regular feature on the op-ed page where they invite an outsider to criticize one aspect of the paper's coverage. This one probably focused more on one individual than any of the 10 or so they've done, but it's basically within the spirit of the feature. And yes, it's pretty unique in newspaperdom; usually they just hire an "independent" ombudsman, which is a practice with a built in oxymoron.

another writer at another right-wing think tank

Thanks; I'd never been described that way before.

I work for the magazine, not the think-tank (the Reason Public Policy Institute); both wings are under the same Reason Foundation banner. And if Reason's "right-wing," then it's a new special kind of right wing that rails against the Drug War, despises the PATRIOT Act, advocates not just stem-cell research but cloning, and shows no respect for any political party (including Libertarian).

hi matt!!

that was a good article. you GO boy!!!!

and if reason don't respect no political party then it sounds like the right party for me. cuz every last politician/party there is got somethin stupid to say

Great article, Matt. I loved the final line.

Have you been contacted by Plaschke or Simmers yet?

Reason is right wing think tank? I think they do a pretty good job of staying right in the middle. I certainly wouldn't call Matt a conservative. It seems to me he has as much disdain for the right as he does for the left, if not more.

And I agree that TJ has been far more anti-McCourt than anti-Depodesta.

One last thing almost all of these pieces have in common (they pretty much have every thought in common): envy of print writers and other newspapermen who have better jobs than they do.

I think there might be a bit of truth in that. I think there's probably as much truth in the notion that Plaschke wishes that he were the one running the Dodgers.

I took the reference to "right wing" as a compliment -- didn't everyone?