The decision on who will be Seattle’s next General Manager could come within a few hours and certainly within the next few days.  It doesn’t appear that CEO Howard Lincoln and President Chuck Armstrong will wait until the World Series concludes to make their announcement as originally reported, but will instead announce it before it starts on Wednesday.  With that, I realized we don’t have any info on candidate Jerry DiPoto up on the site, so this post is an attempt to throw some stuff together before my day gets busy. 

By the way, I apologize for the site being more or less inactive over the last week or so.  I was in Florida for a while taking a break and hanging out with my niece and nephews.  I planned on keeping up with things at night, but the condos wi-fi connection didn’t do so well up on the 22nd floor, making it difficult to get on more than a couple times.  Glad to see Dustin jumping in and getting the news up.

I want to start by saying I really like DiPoto, and he may be the guy I’m rooting for to get this job.  I commented recently that my favorite might be Tony LaCava, but the more I read up on DiPoto the more I like him.  That said, I will not complain about who gets the job.  All four finalists appear competent and any of them could end up being the best GM this organization has ever had, and it’s because of this that I can’t pick a personal favorite.  What makes the caliber of finalists that Lincoln and Armstrong have come up with more impressive is that Peter Woodfork, Jed Hoyer, David Forst, Rick Hahn and Chris Antonetti all dropped out on their own, and other great candidates were unable to interview as well.  Coming into this, who would have thought that the final four could be so solid despite lacking all the names listed above?  It’s amazing, but I’m getting off topic.

DiPoto is currently the Director of Player Personnel for the Arizona Diamondbacks.  He played in the MLB between 1993 and2000 as a reliever for the Cleveland Indians, New York Mets and Colorado Rockies before being forced into early retirement by a neck injury.  After retiring he spent 2003 and 2004 in the scouting department for the Boston Red Sox.

While with the Red Sox, DiPoto was major part of their philosophy change.  When Theo Epstein was named GM in 2002 the Sox began a Billy Beane-esque type approach when it came to scouting and drafting, focusing on players that would not have been given much attention a few years earlier.  DiPoto was undoubtedly a big part of building that team of unlikely heroes.  It’s hard to know exactly who scouts are responsible unless they’re given credit in the media, but a big chunk of the Red Sox’ nucleus was brought in during DiPoto’s tenure. 

After helping bring a World Series to Boston, DiPoto returned to where his playing career ended.  He joined the Colorado Rockies in November 2004 as Director of Pro Scouting.  After one season he landed with the Arizona Diamondbacks in the position he currently sits.

Recent late round draft picks are hard to analyse without pulling up hundreds of stat pages and scouting reports, but DiPoto’s first round picks are a bit simpler.  In 2005 he drafted Troy Tulowitzki, in 2006 Max Scherzer, and in 2007 Jarrod Parker.  Tulowitzki, despite stumbling this season, appears to be a great pick and was the best player available at that pick, Scherzer has been great so far and is very highly regarded, and Parker is the Diamondbacks’ top prospect.  All of those picks appear to be better than the majority of the players taken after them.  The same can’t be said about all of Seattle’s top picks in recent years.

DiPoto was known as a passionate student of the game as a player and was basically an extra scout for the teams he played for.  “We’d go back to the hotel after games, and he’d break down my at-bats,” said Rico Brogna, a former teammate and current scout. 

Beyond his own resume, I like where DiPoto’s head is at and the way he appears to approach team building.  ”I’ve followed the game passionately since I was a kid,” he was quoted after being hired by the Rockies.  “One of the things I did was watch trends. What makes a team great? What creates long-term success? The Twins in the early ’90s. The Braves in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The Mets of the mid-to-late ’90s. What they had in common was a very high-level minor league system and a sound process, a right way to do things.”

That foresight and vision of sustained success is important as the organization continues to recover from the Pat Gillick years, and I love seeing quotes like that.  Those trends continue to appear in today’s winning teams– just look at the entire 2008 playoff field (with the exception of the Chicago teams, perhaps).  Having a candidate with a clear understanding of what makes a winning franchise and a potential dynasty is quite encouraging.

DiPoto has been considered a GM prospect for years now, even when his experience was at a minimum with the Red Sox.  He’s worked for three smart organizations and has helped build parts of two World Series teams in Boston and one in Colorado.  It’s a matter of time before he lands a GM job, and he’s been called a frontrunner at various times for the Mariners’ opening.  There isn’t a ton of info available on DiPoto and this post probably doesn’t do him justice (read the links below for more), but I really have a great feeling about him and may like him more than the other candidates. 

We should know shortly.  Side note: if DiPoto is hired, there are rumblings that Bryan Price, Seattle’s former pitching coach, could come to Seattle as the new manager.

 

Sources/Further Reading: Diamondback’s bio, ColoradoRockies.com article 1/14/05, Arizona Republic article 7/2008