Earlier this month Albert Pujols stuck up for Mike Scioscia amid speculation that the Angels’ awful start could put his job in jeopardy and now owner Arte Moreno has given the manager a vote of confidence.
Moreno replied “right now, zero” when asked by Jon Morosi of FOXSports.com what the chances are of Scioscia being fired, which is in itself is a pretty interesting response if you’re into reading between lines.
Here’s more of what Moreno told Morosi:Mike has zero problems, OK? This is his 14th year. Mike goes beyond what he does on the field. He’s a good person. He’s a good person in the community, a very good baseball guy. You don’t have to ask me. You just ask other managers, other baseball people. Look at 14 years’ worth of productivity. Look at his record. ...
You know what? To me, if you’re going to let someone go, you’re letting someone go because you don’t believe their performance is what your expectations are. If everybody on the team was hitting .300, and the pitchers were undefeated, and all our relievers had done a good job and we’d made no errors, we wouldn’t be in this conversation. Right now, in Mike’s job, I have no questions about Mike.
Couple things. One, it seems like not a great sign when, in trying to talk up the manager, the owner brings up his being “a good person.” Two, it’s becoming increasingly common for people to dismiss criticism of a manager by saying, basically, if the players were performing better this wouldn’t be an issue, which flipped around seems to suggest managers shouldn’t receive praise for teams with players performing well. Can’t have it both ways.
Whatever the case, Scioscia is under contract through 2018, so to fire him Moreno would be eating a ton of money.
