Ex-Angels GM Jerry Dipoto not about to ‘open closets, dig up bones’

Jerry Dipoto, who abruptly resigned July 1 as Angels general manager in the wake of renewed friction with Manager Mike Scioscia, was a guest of Jim Bowden and Casey Stern on SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio channel Thursday. Among the excerpts:

Question: Can you say what happened with the Angels?

Answer: To be fair to all parties involved, and to be as truthful as I can, this was for the best for me personally, for the Angels organization, for Mike [Scioscia] and the players in the clubhouse. Sometimes it requires difficult decisions for the greater good. I don’t want to sound holier than thou, but this one, for the greater good, made the most sense. There were just certain things we weren’t going to be able to get beyond. … There were certain things that weren’t going to work with the way they were set up. Without getting into opening closets and digging up bones, that’s the best way to keep it.

Q: When was the writing on the wall for you, when did you know you were going to step down?

A: Like in any business, there’s a certain degree of professional discomfort, but you can work through that. I’m not at all opposed to the small day-to-day conflict that happens in any business. But there also comes a time where it’s gone well beyond that, and that’s something that becomes inoperable. I probably knew that was the case three or four days before it became public knowledge, and not much before that. This wasn’t some long-range diabolical plan to get us into a position where we could compete for a division title and then magically walk away. These are really tough jobs to find, prestigious positions, and to walk away, there has to be something pretty significant to make that a viable outcome. For me, it was the right thing to do.

Q: What do the Angels need to do before the July 31 trade deadline?

A: One thing we were always looking to do was to find ways to get better on the margins, to get deeper. We were able to accomplish a lot of those goals on the pitching side, both in the rotation and bullpen. Some of that needs to occur now with the offense. The last two weeks, the team just exploded, they’re scoring a lot of runs, and God bless them, they have good offensive players. But clearly there’s a need for additional bodies, whether they be on the bench or in a platoon system. Any team can use a big bat this time of year, and the Angels are probably right there among the top teams that do.

Q: What are your general thoughts on the trade deadline, what are you anticipating?

A: In the end, it always winds up being a little more wild than we anticipated. I think there are enough teams that right now are on the edge of determining whether they’re in the market or out as a seller, and that should make for an interesting last seven days or so. Right now, it looks like it should be a seller’s market, but I don’t think a host of impact bats will be available. That means the prices will be a little higher. But at the end of the day, the price of doing business is what it is. Right now, there are few enough bats out there that can come in and create a shift in the tide that it’s going to cost a premium to get there. I think there will be a little more pitching available, but oddly enough, I don’t know that that’s the primary need of those in the buyers’ aisle.

Q: Did you communicate with interim GM Bill Stoneman, how did the transition work? Did you talk to him about the deals you were working on?

A: I did inform all [the people in the front office] as to what was going on. We work in a pretty open shop. We had a very open and creative conversation internally about what we were doing, what we were talking about. Stoneman wasn’t naturally a part of a lot of that, but I did fill him in generally about where things were when I stepped aside, and I shared that information with [assistant GMs] Matt Klentak and Scott Servais and [pro scouting director Hal] Morris, who were all involved day to day. They got the notes on who we were talking to, what we discussed, and where the conversations were with various clubs, so I have every faith that they won’t miss a beat. They’re very sharp guys.