Could be..........................................
http://www.talkingchop.com/2014/8/23...ffs-are-missed
Could be..........................................
http://www.talkingchop.com/2014/8/23...ffs-are-missed
Chopping With The Braves And Rolling With The Tide
I'd be shocked if it actually happened. Sounds like wishful thinking to me.Originally Posted by CrimsonCowboy
What possibilities will be available at GM and Manager in 2015? Who would everyone like to see?
I think Wren has done far more good than bad. I wouldn't let him go.
Fredi, on the other hand...
That McGuirk article leads me to believe it's possible. If this team doesn't make it to the playoffs and actually win a series, it's a disappointing season. I think the brass is tired of the piss poor playoff performance and the terrible contracts that were given to the likes of Lowe, Kawakami, Uggla and BJ.
Can you summarize that article? I tried reading it but didnt have access
I prefer to have stability at hte top of the organization. Outside of the awful free agent moves the talent in the organization up and down is solid.
Freddi needs to go though.
Natural Immunity Croc
http://www.myajc.com/news/sports/bas...3828699.735468
Try that.
I agree. What is the problem with Wren? Other than the anchors that were/are the Uggla and Upton contracts. Upton could have been forseen, but I can't blame him for Uggla.
Wren put a good enough team together. We should be in the WC spot pretty comfortably. Giants have no business being close to us.
I don't think they can both UNLESS Wren refuses to fire Fredi and the demand he fire Fredi.
Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg
The Braves have won most games in the NL since 2011 . FG has been manager - I doubt he gets fired
Wren has put together the team that has won the most NL games since 2011 - I doubt he gets fired
/////////////////////
Tim Hudson is Tim Hudson and is having his won problems as we speak
Other than TP who would yall's pick for manager be?
I'd actually fire Fredi right now and call Snitker up for the rest of the year. Deal with the actual decision after the playoffs. If Snitker has a successful September/October, could go a long way.
I would start interviews by asking them where they would bat BJ in the starting lineup. Any answer that isn't "he wouldn't be in the starting lineup" gets them off the potential manager list.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
bravesnumberone (08-24-2014)
If Fredi goes then Wren needs to go. Wren's decisions have a much larger impact on whether we win or not than Fredi's do. Batting BJ leadoff is bad, but committing a quarter of our payroll to him and Uggla is way worse. Plus he just made a couple of boneheaded moves in extending Johnson and trading anything for Russell and Bonifacio.
...McGuirk gets that. But he rejects perceptions that the Braves have a detached ownership group that carries only about the numbers on a spreadsheet and that he and the organization haven’t set the bar high enough.
“I don’t agree. We hold ourselves to a high standard. We’re our own worst critics,” he said...
...He meets with the team’s owner, Liberty Media, once a year and that’s about the extent of the corporation’s contact with the team...
Ok Terry. We believe you. Liberty Media cares a lot.
thank you weso1!
This. I'm not a Fredi fan, but he's not the reason this team is up and down. That's on how this team was constructed. There are things that Fredi could have done to mitigate things, but overall, his bad bullpen management and line up construction are not the reasons this team is choppy. That's the term Terry McGuirk used to describe this team. Choppy. And he said he didn't understand why the team was choppy.
Q: You said the team is on an upward trend. Does that mean you’re satisfied with where they’re at?
A: Baseball is always going to be fits and starts. When I say linear, I think we apply a linear pressure upwards, but the results aren’t linear. This is a choppy team. It’s hard to understand. I thought I’d understand this team better in spring training than I do today. With six weeks to go, we’re still mildly in the hunt for everything. But I’m not comfortable with how far we’ve fallen behind the Nationals.Q: Why do you think they’ve been inconsistent?
A: In the spring, when we signed five or six young players to $280 million in contracts, we secured the nucleus of the team that we wanted to carry forward. I think sometimes we forget that we’re one of the youngest teams in baseball. They’re still learning the craft. They don’t really know everything they need to know to be stars. We’ve lost some stars over the last couple of years in Chipper (Jones) and (Tim) Hudson and (Brian) McCann. Those guys provided a lot of stability in the clubhouse. We’ve had other guys who weren’t stars but led. But we looked at this team as needing to originate with our youth.
Q: You’ve used words like choppy and uncomfortable. Did you have a higher expectation level and, if so, are you disappointed now?
A: I had a high expectation. I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed. The up-and-down performance was different than what I expected. But as I look back now — maybe not, given our youth. We bring up Tommy La Stella up, Dan Uggla goes out, now (Phil) Gosselin is here. You can see the change.http://www.myajc.com/news/sports/bas...3828699.735468Q: So let me come back to: What should the expectation level be? What if you don’t make the playoffs, or you make it but get bounced early again?
A: Those are fair things to ask. It’s fair to question accountability if we don’t perform. Sometimes you have to ask: What are your capabilities in a mid-market opportunity in baseball’s economic system? Baseball is getting further away from having economic parity. But our goal is championships. Most everybody who was there in ’95 from a management standpoint is here now. We know what it takes. We had the best team in baseball probably in ’96 and we should’ve won. But it takes a lot of special things coming together.
Q: In your mind, are jobs on the line if you don’t reach a certain level?
A: I don’t want to put absolutes on anything. With six weeks to go in the middle of the hunt, I wouldn’t say anything that would upset the direction and the performance of the team. Teams have a psyche and organizations have a direction and we’re totally focused right now on trying to make the playoffs. I don’t even want to say what we’ll do if we don’t make it. We’re evaluating in either case and we deserve to be judged on our evaluations. That’s not just my view. I turn to people like John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox to make decisions on some of these things.
I do feel we sometimes forget how young this team is. Last year, the team set a record for the amount of WAR via players who were age 25 and younger.
I do find it interesting that he comments about being a mid market team in the economic structure of baseball. The way he talks about BJ Upton after that makes me think that he isn't satisfied with contracts like BJ and Dan have with their lack of production. He's essentially saying he wants to spend more money, but he wants to spend it wisely.
In the end, I don't think major moves will be made. I do think they will look hard to offload BJ's contract this offseason, but they are going to have to see how trading BJ will effect their chances of keeping Justin Upton long term.
I'd strongly consider Roger McDowell. He's done a great job with the pitching staff, imo.
thank you weso1!
Would be very surprised if either were fired.
Wren has had a few misses but a lot more wins. It's easy to sit here now and bash the BJ signing, but we got him at a time when we needed to sign a CF and that kind of contract was the market price. He was already an overpay, but no one saw the Mendoza line being renamed after him following two seasons.
Before Uggla was acquired, everyone talked about how badly we needed a right-handed power bat and how that would have helped in 2010. Had our lineup stayed healthy that year and we had one, I think we could have made a serious run at the World Series. Despite a two-month slump, he hit 36 homers in 2011. Nobody could have know he would crash and burn like that.
Lowe and KK, especially, are probably worse, but we were desperate for pitching.
So with that in mind, if Wren had more flexibility to the point where an emergency signing of Ervin didn't put us over budget, I think he would put a WS contender on the field.
I'm willing to give him another shot.
As for Fredi, I'm done. Last night's failure to recognize that you have to try your damn best to win every close game you can was the final straw for me.
Several have suggested Terry Pendleton or even bringing back Ned Yost, and I'd probably be OK with that. But I'd like to go outside the organization.
Ones that immediately come to mind for consideration, if I could pick anyone: Joe Maddon, Bob Melvin, Clint Hurdle.
Some of you trolls might go look at those guys and nitpick, but I've got to believe any one of them pinch hits Heyward last night, and to me, that's an immediate upgrade.
This is the same team as last year who won 96 games.
Our starters are the same for the most part, but our bench is garbage and our bullpen has regressed heavily. This years team is very similar to the Nats last year in that regard and we'll likely end up with a similar record.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote