Rosenthal Argues That Wren Wasn't a Drooling Moron

[Russ2dollas]

I do agree that JS is getting revisionist history. He is acting like the Braves way is some magic thing. He's not talking about the Texiera trade or the JD drew trade. He missed on plenty of guys.

[50PoundHead]

I stand corrected, Prado was the only other one besides McCann that was worth a damn.

But even then, nobody expected Prado to have the career he's had now. We all thought he'd just Wilson Betemit ended up being. Not a starter but a super utility guy. Prado exceeded Betemit's career.

Interesting you should compare those two. Betemit was projected for greatness after he ate up the low minors, but then he proceeded to eat everything else and grew out of the SS position. Then he stalled at AAA. I held out hope for him and he did have a couple of good seasons both in Atlanta and elsewhere, but it never truly came together for him.

The thing on Heyward that scared a number of scouts is that no one could project him because no one pitched to him in high school. Clearly a superb tools guy who still has time to be a superstar. Russ, did you mean Minor high floor/low ceiling or the way you wrote it. I thought he was a low risk pick.

The one thing that bugged me about the way Wren and DeMacio ran their draft under the new system is that they would pick guys (the recently-released Mikey Reynolds is an example) a few rounds before projection and then proceed to pay them the full slot amount. Most teams that pick guys before projection save money on those relatively early round slots and roll the savings into bonuses for a couple of "tough signs" later in the draft.

[50PoundHead]

I do agree that JS is getting revisionist history. He is acting like the Braves way is some magic thing. He's not talking about the Texiera trade or the JD drew trade. He missed on plenty of guys.

Which is often forgotten if you are sitting on a fat wallet and can cover your mistakes with cash. If you gauge JS' performance post-Turner, it's not that pretty a picture. He didn't complain a lot about the bad economics of baseball when he was in the top five in payroll.

[The Chosen One]

Interesting you should compare those two. Betemit was projected for greatness after he ate up the low minors, but then he proceeded to eat everything else and grew out of the SS position. Then he stalled at AAA. I held out hope for him and he did have a couple of good seasons both in Atlanta and elsewhere, but it never truly came together for him.

I still remember both of their first games/at-bats. Wilson was 19 at the time I think? Came up for a September cup of coffee. I remember it because Skip was doing the game that inning and mentioned the hype and how it was like opening up a Christmas present early.

As for Prado, I remember him being on a Sunday Night telecast against the then Washington Nationals, and tripling in one of his first at-bats at RFK.

I never imagined Prado would be a very important piece of our team years later and be as good as he was.

[Braves1976]

I wasn't that big a Wren fan because I didn't think that he had a long-term blueprint for the team (and I think that showed by the end of his tenure), but JS isn't blameless. His last few years were brutal. Further, I think JS did look over Wren's shoulder to some extent and I think that pressure led to a couple of ill-advised moves.

I recall you and I usually agreeing on Wren, but after they used him as so much a scape-goat I wonder just much they were looking over his shoulder. It seems to me they're running a good old boys club so hard to just blame one man involved. Fredi certainly should've gotten fired after 2011 but he didn't. For all I know Wren could've wanted to fire him back then but was out-numbered. Plus Wren was about to fire Fredi when they fired him.

[The Chosen One]

Which is often forgotten if you are sitting on a fat wallet and can cover your mistakes with cash. If you gauge JS' performance post-Turner, it's not that pretty a picture. He didn't complain a lot about the bad economics of baseball when he was in the top five in payroll.

Exactly. Which is what I mentioned earlier. Some fans seem to forget we had the first or second payroll for most of the 90's. When you have that influx of cash, you can spend money on scouting AND buy free agents. There's no way the Braves could afford to buy a Maddux-equivalent value pitcher in this market with our payroll. And if this were the Turner Braves, it's very likely we could've signed Darvish, Puig, Moncada, etc. But we can't do that anymore.

[Millwood1Hitter]

I recall you and I usually agreeing on Wren, but after they used him as so much a scape-goat I wonder just much they were looking over his shoulder. It seems to me they're running a good old boys club so hard to just blame one man involved. Fredi certainly should've gotten fired after 2011 but he didn't. For all I know Wren could've wanted to fire him back then but was out-numbered. Plus Wren was about to fire Fredi when they fired him.

That's wrong, Fredi was Wren's guy. Wren wanted Bobby out and he succeeded. Wren wanted someone to be his puppet. Wren wanted to rid of Fredi when it was obvious his hot seat was getting flaming hot.

Now it can be up for debate whether Fredi was truely Wren's first choice, I think that was an organizational decesion, but if Wren isn't in charge and JS and company are still in charge Bobby is still on the field in 2011.

Wren did well his first half of his tenure, his second half was a disaster once he started putting more of his stamp on the organization and brining in "his" guys. And lest we forget, probably one of the biggest blunders Wren made was impulsive decesion making and not doing due dilegence, especially in finding a competant hitting coach. His first hire was "bleh" and was trying to hit a home run and didn't interview anyone else to determine the best guy, and his second hire was the best available guy with experience that was from Georgia. Make a good decesion there, maybe he see the likes of Heyward not go backwards.

This coming from one of JS's biggest critics. Guy is one of the most overrated upper management guys in any sport, let alone baseball. He made numerous blunders starting in 1997 that didn't allow the organization to get another World Series ring. Combine that with his growing arrogance and inability to deal with agents, and a tightening budget, and JS tripped over his own feet.

[Braves1976]

That's wrong, Fredi was Wren's guy. Wren wanted Bobby out and he succeeded. Wren wanted to rid of Fredi when it was obvious his hot seat was getting flaming hot.

Now it can be up for debate whether Fredi was truely Wren's first choice, I think that was an organizational decesion, but if Wren isn't in charge and JS and company are still in charge Bobby is still on the field in 2011.

Wren did well his first half of his tenure, his second half was a disaster once he started putting more of his stamp on the organization and brining in "his" guys. And lest we forget, probably one of the biggest blunders Wren made was impulsive decesion making and not doing due dilegence, especially in finding a competant hitting coach.

How can you call Fredi Wren's guy when you even say it's up for debate that he was truly Wren's first choice? Fredi has always been Bobby's boy, that we know for sure. But it interesting you believe that Wren liked Fredi so much while at the same time wanting Bobby to go away. It's hard to see that both ways IMO.

[keithlaw]

Exactly. Which is what I mentioned earlier. Some fans seem to forget we had the first or second payroll for most of the 90's. When you have that influx of cash, you can spend money on scouting AND buy free agents. There's no way the Braves could afford to buy a Maddux-equivalent value pitcher in this market with our payroll. And if this were the Turner Braves, it's very likely we could've signed Darvish, Puig, Moncada, etc. But we can't do that anymore.

We absolutely could. Thanks to bad FA signings, Wren consistently tied up ~25% of our payroll into AAAA garbage players. Before we traded The Player Formerly Known as BJ, we had $34 million tied up between him, CJ, and Uggla and owed the unholy trinity ~$84 million over the next 3 years. We should have used that money on a single elite player.

[keithlaw]

I recall you and I usually agreeing on Wren, but after they used him as so much a scape-goat I wonder just much they were looking over his shoulder. It seems to me they're running a good old boys club so hard to just blame one man involved. Fredi certainly should've gotten fired after 2011 but he didn't. For all I know Wren could've wanted to fire him back then but was out-numbered. Plus Wren was about to fire Fredi when they fired him.

You don't get to build a screen door submarine and then blame the captain when it sinks

[Nerfherders]

I don't think Wren was all that bad, really. You can fault him for the FA contracts, but I don't honestly think anyone foresaw the collapse of Uggla and BJ. Alot of the farm system issues had to do with the rapidity of which the Braves graduated players. It's like a college team full of seniors. Despite this, the lack of top end talent on the farm was real, and this along with the FA disasters and Wren's working relationships doomed him.

[smootness]

He makes some good points, but he also has some seriously flawed logic.

Wren wasn't an idiot and did some very good things, and for most of his tenure looked to be doing very well. I was really pleased with him. And of course the 'new regime' (not really that new) is going to say we're making a bunch of changes and doing things better because that's what everyone says.

But first, evaluating a farm system's health simply on the number of players who have been promoted to the major leagues is flawed. That number includes guys like Joey Terdoslavich, Phil Gosselin, Gus Schlosser, etc. Those are major league players, but they're far from impact guys. Drafting low-upside future bench guys high in the draft will probably ensure a lot of them make the majors, but it doesn't necessarily help you compete. Also, limiting the time frame to 5 years tilts it in the favor of teams who draft more college guys with lower risk; these guys also generally have lower ceilings. Doesn't mean your farm system or drafting strategy is better.

And second, the other major flaw in the evaluation of the farm system at the time is using a player's standing within the organization to prove their overall quality or value. Yes, we got our top prospect within the last 5 years internationally (Peraza). Yes, several players on our roster were drafted within that time period. And yes, our two highest pitching prospects before this offseason came in the last 5 drafts. But what the heck? What organization couldn't say the same? Were the top prospects for most organizations drafted or signed 6+ years ago? That's thin logic used only to support an already established opinion; it doesn't prove or disprove anything.

Wren deserves credit for finding guys like Gattis and Beachy, and he did do a good job for most of his tenure with the farm system. But that clearly changed over the last couple years. Regardless of how many guys we had graduate to the majors or how many guys we traded that will play for somebody, you still have to look at what we had coming and evaluate it on its own. And if Heyward and JUp had left us with nothing, tell me what in the farm system was going to produce average to above-average major league players in the near future.

We had Peraza, Bethancourt, and that's about it on the position player side. Kubitza? Kind of my point.

He seems to agree that changes needed to be made, that trading Heyward and Upton were smart moves, and that moving Gattis and Kimbrel after that made sense. But he disagrees...with what, exactly? I just don't get the article. He's basically saying, 'The Braves have been smart this offseason, but...did they need to be? They had already been smart and good before.'

Wren's fate was sealed with Uggla and BJ.

[GovClintonTyree]

I don't buy a lot of the Wren criticism. From 2009-2013 - 5 years! - once he washed out the end of the Schuerholz debacle (go back and look at the rotation in September, 2007 if you think debacle is the wrong word), the Atlanta Braves averaged over 90 wins per season.

That's a fact. I don't have to guess who made what decision or any of that crap. Frank won. That simple.

For a barren farm system, we sure did graduate a lot of players, average age 22, good ones who are contributing or all-stars at the major league level - Freeman, Heyward, Simmons, Gattis, Teheran, Wood, Beachy, Medlen, Jurrjens, Minor, Kimbrel. So any analysis of our farm must include guys who graduated, otherwise it's just not accurate.

Frank really had two problems - every time he had a pocket full of money he blew it like Charles Barkley on a bender in Vegas (mostly on Mel, IMO) and he was apparently a micromanaging giant penis and a lot of people were just waiting for the power to go out so they could bury that ****er in his back right down to the hilt.

I don't feel like our management team is better with the three Johns. I know what the narrative is, and I see we're off to a good start and I hope we ride this wave right to the shore. I didn't love Frank, but I didn't have to work with him. And Frank won. Won a lot.

[GovClintonTyree]

I do agree that JS is getting revisionist history. He is acting like the Braves way is some magic thing. He's not talking about the Texiera trade or the JD drew trade. He missed on plenty of guys.

He set the club back five years with those two idiotic deals. Teixeira didn't even make sense. We needed pitching.

[GovClintonTyree]

Blaming Wren is cop out. I hated the smugness of the presser b/c those old guys acted like they were perfect IMO. Who did the Texeria trade....not Wren.

Wren had bad drafts. By all accounts he got luck on Minor. Minor was going to be like other Wren picks but he picked up some life and mpg on his fastball that we didn't know was going to happen.

I will go read the article, but how did we not win the JUp trade? Only argument I have for not winning is the CJ extension. But the production we got out of Jup and CJ (one year) was worth what we gave up. I know Prado did some things and Ahmed is starting at SS, but no big deal. Then we traded JUp and got more value in return.

Would it really take a lot for the package we got from the Pads to be equal or better than what the Diamondbacks got? Ahmed has a leg up b/c he's a SS, but he wasn't going to play there with Simmons and won't hit enough to be 2B or 3B.

The whole "Minor got faster" thing was crap. Keith Law saw him pitch twice on short rest in the SEC tournament and formulated his opinion. His second start in the majors, he K'ed 12 Cubs and touched 94. After Minor had his big year, rather than admitting he might have been wrong, Law said he got faster. Bull****.

I agree with your characterization of the press conference, though. Schuerholz was a hell of a GM when he had a relative Yankees/Tigers payroll. Hell, I'm pretty sure you, me and 50 other guys who post on this site could put together a pretty nice team with a $180m budget.

[Perfect Cell]

The Teixera trade didnt just set back the Braves five years, It made the Rangers competetive way sooner too. It was a disaster of a trade and worse than anything Wren ever did.


Wren was still not good though. His history in Baltimore was bad (which was what i argued when he was first put in place) i remember his current detractors saying it was the Orioles owners fault and not his... funny how that changed.


How Wren handled stuff like the Smoltzie thing was in poor class. Hes not an awful GM but hes not a good one either. We are better off without him

[BlackwaterPark]

Different priorities. Remember that we drafted Heyward early because we sucked in 2006. Or we drafted Minor early cause we sucked in 08.

Wren had a core in place and was trying to fill in the rest with big league pieces. If BJ and Uggla produced even 2/3 of their career norms frank is still GM likely.

Exactly right here. If Uggla and BJ are normal, we would have won 100 games every year.

[BlackwaterPark]

The Teixera trade didnt just set back the Braves five years, It made the Rangers competetive way sooner too. It was a disaster of a trade and worse than anything Wren ever did.


Wren was still not good though. His history in Baltimore was bad (which was what i argued when he was first put in place) i remember his current detractors saying it was the Orioles owners fault and not his... funny how that changed.


How Wren handled stuff like the Smoltzie thing was in poor class. Hes not an awful GM but hes not a good one either. We are better off without him

Pretty sure the Rangers trade was all on Scherholz.

[Knucksie]

I do agree that JS is getting revisionist history. He is acting like the Braves way is some magic thing. He's not talking about the Texiera trade or the JD drew trade. He missed on plenty of guys.

[Russ2dollas]

can we agree that extending CJ was a fireable offense on its own?

I will be very interested to see if Hart takes his BJ/Uggla money and sinks into a big FA. If he does, that is his legacy. The more I think about it the more I think teams should stay out of big time free agency. Contracts more than 3 years are a bad thing 95% of the time.