Rosenthal: Braves players frustrated with Fredi; he has "lost the clubhouse"

[dak]

One theory on why the Braves extended manager Fredi Gonzalez through next season is that they wanted him to serve as a one-year bridge to the opening of their new ballpark in 2017. Once Gonzalez completed that task, the team could thank him for his services, then enter the new park with a more heralded manager.
Such an idea makes sense, considering that '16 probably is a lost cause for the Braves, anyway. But I've been hearing all season that players are frustrated with Gonzalez, that he essentially has lost the clubhouse. If that is the case, why should president of baseball operations John Hart wait to make a change? And why did he give Gonzalez an extension in the first place?
Obviously, Gonzalez is not to blame for the team's collapse --€“ Hart and assistant GM John Coppolella left him with precious few competent major leaguers after parting in July with Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson, and then with Jim Johnson, Alex Wood and Luis Avilan, plus top prospect Jose Peraza.
On the other hand, the Braves had a minus-101 run differential during their 1-19 stretch entering Monday; the 1939 Athletics were the only other team since 1900 to be outscored by 100 or more runs over a 20-game span, according to research by Keith Costas of MLB Network.
If the youngsters are not improving and the veterans are disenchanted, shouldn't the Braves at least examine whether Gonzalez is part of the problem?
Coppolella, in an interview Saturday with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said it was “unfair” to judge Gonzalez and pitching coach Roger McDowell, but declined to say definitively that both would be back.
The Braves talk about becoming the next Royals, the next Pirates, the next Astros, the next Cubs. All of that is fine, but with their trades they essentially purchased one tech stock after another. Some will hit, some will not, but lots of luck if the plan is to compete by '17. And if the manager is doing more harm than good.

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/w...senthal-090815

[Chico]

Very interesting...

[sturg33]

Hart needs to admit the mistake a just fire him.

There is really no defense of Fredi anymore.

3 second half meltdowns speaks for itself

[Runnin]

That's a very odd thing for Rosenthal to come out of the blue with, especially without backing it up with some specifics. Odd and vague.

I haven't seen any evidence that the guys weren't playing hard for him, not this year. Not yet.

[50PoundHead]

No, I'm not Ken Rosenthal, but it appears he reads my posts.

The 2017 mantra has always been a little thin for me. It is going to take longer than two years to re-build. It took the Cubs longer. It took the Royals longer. It took the Pirates longer. It will take us longer.

[sturg33]

I seem to recall Rosenthal (maybe it was another one of the big national writers) speculating many months ago that Fredi had fallen out of favor with Hart.

But then he got extented so..

[weso1]

You know Bobby is trying as hard as he can to keep Fredi on as manager.

[dak]

Hart needs to admit the mistake a just fire him.

Our best hope is probably for Fredi to be re-assigned after the season. Special Assistant to the GM in charge or scouting Cuba . . . or something like that. That would allow the FO to save a little face.

Absent that, I will not be surprised to see the FO do something minor with the coaching staff after the season. For example, firing Bo Porter and replacing with "their guy" instead of "Fredi's guy".

[Millwood1Hitter]

I seem to recall Rosenthal (maybe it was another one of the big national writers) speculating many months ago that Fredi had fallen out of favor with Hart.

But then he got extented so..

He did fall out of favor with Hart, but the problem is, Hart is bi-polar. He even said it, one day he wakes up and he likes what he did, the next day he regrets it wondering what he could have done differently, what he should have done differently. Hart explains in the interview that he doesn't want to discuss Fredi, only the next day to announce he's extended.

I was on board with the tear down and rebuild, but so far, I'm getting more and more discouraged and worried about the direction of this club going forward and what exactly the plan is, but there are so many things that just aren't adding up and making much sense. And all this FO talk coming out of one side of the mouth and out the other just leaves me baffled, WTF IS GOING ON IN THERE?

[yeezus]

Yikes, hope it gets strong enough to hit the FO hard, forcing them to make a change.

[zitothebrave]

If the thought process was to keep Fredi on to eventually bring on a higher profile manager, that's dumb. The smarter move would have been to bring in someone new and untested and see how they handle someone losing, you could find a heck of a manager orstill go with the route you wanted to go, but not waste 2 years paying for a turdball.

[50PoundHead]

He did fall out of favor with Hart, but the problem is, Hart is bi-polar. He even said it, one day he wakes up and he likes what he did, the next day he regrets it wondering what he could have done differently, what he should have done differently. Hart explains in the interview that he doesn't want to discuss Fredi, only the next day to announce he's extended.

I was on board with the tear down and rebuild, but so far, I'm getting more and more discouraged and worried about the direction of this club going forward and what exactly the plan is, but there are so many things that just aren't adding up and making much sense. And all this FO talk coming out of one side of the mouth and out the other just leaves me baffled, WTF IS GOING ON IN THERE?

I'm a bit baffled by the seemingly sideways steps taken relatively recently (the Olivera trade, the Swisher trade).

In fairness to Gonzalez, the trade of Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe, while hardly earth-shattering, really took two solid veteran cogs out of the machinery. That and the total collapse of the bullpen through trades and injuries are really at the core of the last three weeks of laughingstock baseball.

[Dalyn]

[Millwood1Hitter]

I'm a bit baffled by the seemingly sideways steps taken relatively recently (the Olivera trade, the Swisher trade).

In fairness to Gonzalez, the trade of Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe, while hardly earth-shattering, really took two solid veteran cogs out of the machinery. That and the total collapse of the bullpen through trades and injuries are really at the core of the last three weeks of laughingstock baseball.

I'm not going to disagree with that at all, especially with the second statement.

I think I've been on record many times that I was in favor of tearing it down and rebuilding as the status quo wasn't working, and initially was in favor of most of the moves. I'm also on record as saying I didn't care about this year, lose as many games as possible to get a good pick. I'm also on record that I think Fredi is the worst manager in the game, and already has been given way to many chances to prove himself.

But everything since the Fredi extension stinks and is baffling. The Fredi extension, the Olivera trade, getting little back for KJ and Uribe as well as not trading Grilli & Maybin when we had the chance when they had peak value is not a run of good luck or decesion making.

The most disturbing thing is what exactly is the plan, now, going foward? We we're all told about the mystical build for the new stadium. Well where we stand today, that ain't happening unless some major things change and we spend some significant money this offseason overpaying in the FA or trade market. That's probably not going to happen and not smart. While the low minors look great with some really good talent that is a long ways away, if we're going to try to compete in the short term there really is nothing there. Where is our Gant and Justice, or Avery, Glavine, and Smoltz? Besides the old standby's in Simmons & Freeman, there isn't much there to look forward to and fill in the gaps. Is the talent just not there that we acquired, or is it a development issue or something else, that's really what it comes down to at this point in time and that needs to be determined and changed. There's talent there, but so far it's not equating to anything that looks promsing for a building block.

[Runnin]

You know Bobby is trying as hard as he can to keep Fredi on as manager.

We don't know any such thing. Stop feeding the fire of ignorant speculation that ALWAYS assumes screwy.

BC is a class act and would not overstep his bounds.

[zitothebrave]

I think the only prayer the Braves have is to make a big splash signing each of the next 2 years. Looking at th emarket currently that owuld mean bringing in this year one of Price, Heyward, or Justin, and next year bringing in one of Strasburg or Gomez, maybe Neil Walker.

So lets say we go for Heyward and Strasburg, obviosuly it would cost big bucks. Super big bucks, but it would revamp the team. Just guessing on where we could be in 2017

CF - Smith
2B - Albies
RF - Heyward
1B - Freddie
LF - Peterson/Davidson
3B - Olivera
SS - Simmons
C - Bethancourt

There's obviously issues. Relying heavily on prospects developing. If they fail to develop we don't have much depth to fix those holes (which is why trading Peraza for Olivera was retarded, especially after getting back Rio Ruiz this offseason) But we can hope for the best. At the worst we'll have 2 guys who can perform at a high clip in Jason and Freddie, which is more than we can say for this seaosn

Rotation
Strasburg
Miller
pick of the stable of young arms

Another idea to make a splash is to use those young arms to get guys like LuCroy or Frasier in here. Of course after that Boner Olivera trade, doesn't make sense for Frasier.

[dak]

David O'Brien ‏@DOBrienAJC 9m9 minutes ago
When u lose this much, there's always frustration. If FO thinks it's true Fredi "lost the clubhouse" then no excuse not to fire him. BUT...

David O'Brien ‏@DOBrienAJC 7m7 minutes ago
But if front office thinks it's just frustration boiling over in off-record comments, and those players don't tell FO directly, diff.story.

[MadduxFanII]

My thing with Fredi has always been that the front office has preached accountability ever since canning Wren. The Braves won 190 games over two years with teams Wren assembled, but 2014 was a disaster, and he had to be held accountable. The front office was committed to accountability.

And yet...how has Fredi been held accountable for anything that's happened during his tenure? How has anyone associated with the organization signaled that Fredi is expected to actually perform? I don't blame him too terribly much for the collapse this year- we simply don't have a competitive team any more. But this is the third time such a thing has happened to a Fredi Gonzalez-managed team, and at some point you should be able to look at him and say, "Whether any specific loss can be blamed on any specific move Fredi made, the larger picture is a disaster, and the manager has to be held accountable for on-field results." And it seems like there's a reluctance to actually do that with Fredi.

[Julio3000]

My thing with Fredi has always been that the front office has preached accountability ever since canning Wren. The Braves won 190 games over two years with teams Wren assembled, but 2014 was a disaster, and he had to be held accountable. The front office was committed to accountability.

And yet...how has Fredi been held accountable for anything that's happened during his tenure? How has anyone associated with the organization signaled that Fredi is expected to actually perform? I don't blame him too terribly much for the collapse this year- we simply don't have a competitive team any more. But this is the third time such a thing has happened to a Fredi Gonzalez-managed team, and at some point you should be able to look at him and say, "Whether any specific loss can be blamed on any specific move Fredi made, the larger picture is a disaster, and the manager has to be held accountable for on-field results." And it seems like there's a reluctance to actually do that with Fredi.

Agreed, re: the preaching of accountability.

The extent makes even less sense in this light.

[smootness]

But everything since the Fredi extension stinks and is baffling. The Fredi extension, the Olivera trade, getting little back for KJ and Uribe as well as not trading Grilli & Maybin when we had the chance when they had peak value is not a run of good luck or decesion making.

This is a mixed bag of criticisms. Some are legitimate, but some definitely aren't.

The Fredi extension, IMO, is being overblown. If you were going to get rid of him, it had to be done before this year. You can't sell off all your assets, then fire the manager for the team stinking. You just can't.

The Olivera trade is one I've been critical of. And you can certainly argue we should have traded Maybin, but I don't think that one was ever a slam dunk, especially with Mallex still a question mark.

But the rest is just crazy. The criticism some have put forward (maybe just you? I don't remember) for the KJ/Uribe deal is ridiculous. We turned a FA nobody wanted and an old 3B we got for the doo doo platter into a potentially legitimate pitching prospect in Gant. That trade has the potential to be an absolute steal in a couple years; it is not a bad deal under any lens. We were never getting much of anything for those two.

And Grilli? We were poised to trade him, and he went down right before it was time to pull the trigger. That was very unfortunate timing but how on earth can you fault the FO for that?