Remember the purge of anything Wren touched?Originally Posted by Julio3000
The Coppy version of that is happening now. Anyone who even mentions OBP is gone.
Remember the purge of anything Wren touched?
The Coppy version of that is happening now. Anyone who even mentions OBP is gone.
I believe it's a scout that goes in behind other scouts and verifies their scouting reports.
The article made some decent points. I do think the team had a leadership vaccuum. We have a bean counter at the top of the organization in McGuirk. We need someone more in the mold of a Kasten or what a guy like Rich McKay is for the Falcons.
Also, Hart definitely shares in the blame. What the article hinted at but never really hammered home is the fact that Hart needs to shoulder some blame no matter what. Either he was aware of what Coppy was doing and so was complicit or he was unaware and so was derelict in his duty to supervise Coppy (spending too much time on the golf course).
I might be one of the few here who don't scoff at the "Braves Way". I think it's important for any organization to establish standards for those who are a part of it. I think the problem is that the Braves Way has become more of a tagline and something to be used for a feeling of superiority instead of it's actual purpose of establishing standards, encouraging people to strive for excellence, and let people know that if they buy in that the organization will take care of them.
I've actually seen corporate cultures rot and die first hand. It invariably leads to drama and stuff like we're seeing with the Braves.
clvclv (10-04-2017)
Well, yeah, that's the pessimistic scenario, and it's a bit too credible for comfort.
Coppy may have been a slimy weasel that everyone hated, but he was the one trying to drag the Braves kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
He was against promoting Swanson, Hart was for it, and that's all I need to know to make the assessment of who the smarter baseball ops guy is.
I'll be willing to bet the first interview with the new GM contains a quote that is essentially, "I like to look at analytics, but at the end of the day I think scouting is the lifeblood of an organization".
Make no mistake, the next GM hire will be an old school dinosaur thinker, and the Braves will have one of the least advanced FOs in the game. The dumbing down of the FO will certainly bring joy to some, to the detriment of the Braves.
I disagree. You're assuming that Hart and JS are desperately clinging to their jobs. They really aren't. JS is semi-retired and seems to be taking the building of Sun Trust park and the new spring training facility as his legacy.
Hart could probably have the GM job himself if he wanted. He didn't even have to cede the job to Coppy in the first place. Hart doesn't really want to be making the roster calls these days. And if the Braves decided to retire Hart tomorrow I really don't think Hart would care. JS had to beg him out of retirement in the first place.
Whoever the new GM is (I think there's a 90% chance it's Moore) will almost certainly have a long leash. GM's generally have a longer shelf life than managers, even when the team is consistently terrible. So the new GM wont be looking to trade everything to win in 2018. He'll be stepping into a fairly good situation looking to build something special.
I actually think Coppy probably felt more pressure to win now than the new administration will next season.
I don't necessarily disagree with this take, but I do think it's worth exploring the whole line about JS and Hart being "semi-retired," etc.
The bit about Hart having to be talked into the job smacks a bit of Julius Caesar refusing the crown.
If these guys so desperately want to retire and play golf full-time, they should do that. Why haven't they? They've achieved the pinnacle of success in their field and it's quite understandable if they don't walk away from it lightly. If they don't want to go, fine, but perpetuating this idea that they want to retire but for some reason have not? It doesn't really pass the smell test for me.
Jaw (10-04-2017)
I think you're overplaying the scout v. stat debate. That has died down a lot in recent years as teams have generally incorporated both. Pretty much every GM out there wants to have as much information as possible.
Thing is, even granting Schuerholz every benefit of the doubt, even granting he was right to fire Wren, even granting Coppy had to go, even granting Schuerholz had nothing to do with any of the malfeasance, you’re still left with this reality:
His first handpicked successor was a loathsome asshole who let the farm system rot.
His second handpicked successor was a loathsome asshole who broke every conceivable MLB rule and earned the hated of most of the baseball community.
I mean, that’s some pretty god awful personnel evaluation, right? That’s royally screwing up a vital hire - twice. It would seem to betray a pretty significant failure in character judgement.
If nothing else, it would suggest that Schuerholz probably doesn’t deserve a say in the next GM/whatever title we’ll give the guy.
CK86 (10-03-2017), DirkPiggler (10-03-2017), Jaw (10-04-2017), nsacpi (10-03-2017)
Yeah, exactly. That's what I was getting at earlier with my "if you meet an asshole one day" comment.
I don't think it's that they want to retire. I think it's more that losing their jobs doesn't really scare them. If you're a 45 year old first time GM you're going to do anything you can to cling to that job. When you're 77 and removed from the day to day of the team, you probably don't fear getting forced out.
As for why they don't just retire? They don't fully retire because they still enjoy being involved. They just don't want to constant stress that being "the guy" would bring.
Really? Everything that has happened the last 3 years clearly points to a distinct fracture in the FO between the dinosaurs and the dorks. Now all that's left are the dinosaurs.
Coppy didn't even consider promoting Swanson until Hart made it so. I don't think it's much of a stretch to figure out who was behind the Kemp trade and the Markakis signing. I don't think it was a mystery who the "trade for an Ace" faction in the FO was. I'm also willing to bet the Colon/Dickey/Garcia acquisitions were a compromise between the opposing factions.
It's a little comical that folks still can't see what actually happened here.
I can almost guarantee that whoever the next GM is will make sub-optimal move after sub-optimal move. The Braves don't want to be an organization that adapts to new standards of statistical analysis because they have had a certain way of doing things for decades now. Anything that challenges that modus operandi isn't going to fly. I almost think they gave Coppy a chance during the rebuild, knowing we would be bad, just to have something to point to and say "See! This isn't how you run an organization! Its all about the human element! Numbers can't tell you that."
It all boils down to this:
"The Braves Way" has evolved into an idiom for blame projection and scapegoating. The sad part of all of this is it seems as if McGuirk and the Two Johns, feeling pressure from the public and the press to become more progressive in their analytical approach within the FO, decided to retain a GM who they knew had character flaws (perhaps similar to Wren) and point to their shiny new hire post-termination as a "See? We hired an analytically minded GM and look what happened!" as a means to justify going back to their true legacy.
Sad.
CK86 (10-03-2017), The Chosen One (10-03-2017)
Yes, I think this is an important point. With respect to corporate culture and how the "Braves way" could be something benign and useful--sure, I get that. But it seems like an empty, and slightly Orwellian rationalization now. Whatever is bad is not the Braves Way. Whatever we do in the future will be a return to the Braves Way.
striker42 (10-03-2017), The Chosen One (10-03-2017)
The moves you're referencing aren't really scout vs. stat moves. They were moves motivated by business considerations. Swanson was needed for marketing. The Kemp trade was made so we could get away from Olivera. Markakis was signed because we knew we'd be bad but still wanted to put a team out there that wouldn't be so bad as to completely alienate fans.
The problem isn't stat vs scout. It's business vs baseball.
One of the ajc guys recently said the Braves FO has always had a holier than thou we're better than you attitude that has angered everyone in baseball, no matter who is in the GM chair.
Aggression with prospects is fine, but being stupid is not. There should be a way to find a happy medium between a Pirates like idea of being overly cautious with prospects and going stupidly fast with prospects.
I seriously don't get where the idea that we're going to go scout only comes from. The scouting vs stats war is largely over. Scouting departments aren't afraid of being completely replaced by computers and statisticians aren't viewed as interlopers. I don't know of any team that neglects either one.
What we're talking about are degrees here. Some teams prefer to lean a little more on scouting, others lean a little more on advanced stats. All teams consider both.
we suck
bravesnumberone (10-03-2017), CK86 (10-03-2017)
dilettantism is the word that comes to mind...and we have been paying a price for it
"I am a victim, I will tell you. I am a victim."
"I am your retribution."
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