Again, first two I thought of without googling. But it's worth noting that GM's do get run out and usually find new GM jobs. How good or bad they are is speculative. And considering GM'S generally keep their jobs for several seasons, I don't think a 15 year span is all that long.
And yet how exactly was the Orioles franchise changed under his campaign? They were worse off after he left than before he came on leaving them with major payroll liabilities from unwise spending. Ring any bells?
The Atlanta Braves signed Nick Markakis for 4/45 - Never forget 12/3/2014
"Klay Thompson > James Harden" - Heyward
"Chris Bosh is the MVP of the Miami Heat" - Heyward
"Hibbert is better than Dwight Howard"- Heyward
"Steven Adams will be a top 10 center in two years - thethe
Carpe'd
"Yes, I did think Aldrich was good UNTIL I SAW HIM PLAY. "- thethe
I think it's just as possible to believe the Braves fired Wren because they didn't think he was fit to do the rebuild, as it is that he was fired because he didn't want to do the rebuild. I think the Braves wanted to bring Roy Clark et. al. back and they weren't going to do that with Wren at the helm. My guess is Wren probably didn't want to rebuild, but I don't think he would have stomped his feet and held his ground. Imo, he would have done the rebuild if JS and McGuirk wanted him to. I just think JS trusted Clark and his guys to do the rebuild more than they did Wren's guys.
And I think the Braves made the right decision both in deciding to rebuild and going with Roy Clark and his band of merry men.
thank you weso1!
No, it's not 'speculative' in the slightest. It's pretty easy to determine whether or not a GM was successful or not. Wren was -- that's not debatable, so I'm not quite sure why you are even wasting the breath.
The quote I sourced had nothing to do with Wren's performance as GM of the Orioles, but the eerie coincidence between his grand plan and the plan the Braves are currently attempting to execute.
No mention of the all star lineup he inherited? Again, he had an entire offseason to improve the rotation and brought in two pitchers, one of which was even older than Smoltz. The other was a rookie. What a great gameplan.
And despite the 1st Tex trade, we still were rated one of the better farms in the league. With players like Heyward, Hanson, Locke, Schafer, etc.
So to clarify, who thinks Wren was a bad GM?
I don't.
Do good GMs/employees sometimes get let go?
Yup.
Should we have tried to go for it this year?
I have to question your sanity if you say "yes."
And yeah, I think saying the team was ****ty when Wren got here is very untrue, and our farm wasn't terrible by any means. It's not like he resurrected a terrible organization.
Well the NL East is like the worst division in the league. One of the reasons given by the front office in the offseason was that the Nationals were just too strong to overcome. The same Nats team that's like .500 right now. As we can see anything can happen. Those posters saying we had no chance to beat out the Nats this year were wrong.
Wren inherited a team with:
McCann
Tex (wanting to leave)
Chipper (35)
KJ
then:
Renteria (30)
Matt Diaz
Andruw Jones (30)
Francoeur
Prado
Escobar
With a pitching staff of:
Hudson
Smoltz (40)
Buddy Carlyle
Chuck James
Kyle Davies
Jo-Jo Reyes
Lance Cormier
Personally, I would assume it would be difficult to add 4 starting pitchers in 1 offseason.
"Yes, I did think Aldrich was good UNTIL I SAW HIM PLAY. "- thethe
Moves under the new ownership suggest the Braves will continue their commitment to player development. In the last year when draft-and-follows were in play, Atlanta signed seven, most notably lefthander Cole Rohrbough for $675,000. They dropped another $4.9 million on the draft and made a significant splash on the international market in July by signing Colombian righthander Julio Tehran for $850,000.
Wren also acted quickly to keep continuity in the player development and scouting departments, giving two-year contract extensions to scouting director Roy Clark, farm director Kurt Kemp and director of Latin American operations Johnny Almaraz. Clark, the game's longest-tenured scouting director, enters his 10th season in that position and his 19th overall with Atlanta.
As with the front office, the farm system also has gone through upheaval. The Braves used 18 rookies when they won the NL East in 2005, and they've continued to incorporate young talent the last two seasons. They also shipped five prospects to the Rangers for Mark Teixeira at the trading deadline, including the top three prospects on this list a year ago—catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, shortstop Elvis Andrus, lefthander Matt Harrison—and one of their most electric arms, righty Neftali Feliz.
Yet Atlanta hasn't gutted its system. They may not have as many big names, but the Braves still have plenty of promising lefthanded starters and sluggers with all-around games. The best of the young southpaws (Rohrbough, Jeff Locke, Steve Evarts and Chad Rodgers) were all products of the 2007 draft. The first three players the Braves signed out of the 2007 draft (outfielder Jason Heyward, third baseman Jon Gilmore and first baseman Freddie Freeman) added to their collection of athletes with power bats, which already included outfielders Jordan Schafer and Brandon Jones.
I still don't hold it against them that they looked at what the Nats had and said "well, ****." Because we all did the same, and so did like, everyone in baseball. Their struggles are certainly crazier than ours were last year, and they've suffered a ton of super important injuries.
And we wouldn't be beating out the Mets this year, either. Our pitching has been way too weak to compete with them, AND we wouldn't have had the guy who has been by far our best pitcher if we kept the team in tact. So it would've been even worse.
I don't think going for it this year would've been wise at all, and I don't blame the FO for noping-out of that.