McGuirk: Coppella Exit Like Cutting ‘Cancer’ To Move Ahead

[Southcack77]

This is amusing game of two sides playing "doesn't count" and making wild claims about things they have no evidence at all to support other than after the fact grumbling from a meathead brother.

The fact is the braves were NOT serious contenders under Wren, they did in fact crash out of the playoff hunt with the roster wren gutted the system and killed the payroll to obtain, and the need for a tear down was so obvious that an org that had gone 20 years without one bit the bullet.

And wren left one prospect of any caliber (and Peraza is by no means really good) at all that was within five years of the majors. Spin if you want, but that's how it ended up.

I don't know what you think you are accomplishing with this but I'm sure you have your reasons.

Coppy finished as a disaster because he was dishonest and a bad manager and his hubris undid a great deal of what he worked to accomplish. It's pretty evident that he didn't have what it takes to manage a organization.

If not for that, maybe he'd have succeeded but you certainly cannot compare his wins and losses vs wren's because they came into completely different situations.

I'll take wren if you make me choose, but let's stop buying wren's rehab tour silliness.

[clvclv]

Those guys have produced 65 WAR... they've been huge hits.

Which is 2 WAR less than Andruw produced on his on - so what?

I never said Wren's 5 best draft picks weren't good players, actually the opposite. He oversaw the choices of several good players, and I have said as much - while also stating that I think he was likely capable of handling a rebuild IF he'd have been asked to.

GMs - much like Presidents, Managers, and Head Coaches - are always given too much credit when things go right, and too much blame when they don't. The scouts find the players, the player development guys and assistant coaches do most of the development and molding of those players, the Managers and Head Coaches run the games, and the figureheads typically get the credit or blame.

That's just the way it is. Frank Wren didn't have a clue who Craig Kimbrel was and hadn't likely seen him pitch more than a handful of times before he relied on his surrogates' recommendations before he was drafted. The same can be said of JS, Coppy, AA, Theo, Cashman, and everyone else - they had really good people working under them whom they trusted, and rightfully so. Acting like ANY of them were the sole reason for the success (or failure) of their organizations is pretty funny.

[jpx7]

I’m just a big fan of Kyle Wren.

[jpx7]

Back on topic: it must be nice to wave away your own massive failure of leadership as simply an oopsie-whoopsie that had nothing to do with you ... you know, like toxic unrestricted mitosis in the body.

[thethe]

Back on topic: it must be nice to wave away your own massive failure of leadership as simply an oopsie-whoopsie that had nothing to do with you ... you know, like toxic unrestricted mitosis in the body.

What's the fun in staying on topic?

[DirkPiggler]

It's a convenient excuse after the fact for completely depleting a system.

But the bigger problem is the wren braves were nowhere near winning a World Series and weren't even a playoff team in the end and had no way of becoming one.

The Braves were set up to fail going forward, as they had no starting pitching and no money to bring any in. They were never going to be able to resign Heyward or the good Upton, had no one anywhere near ready to replace them, and had no prospect capital with which to buy future replacements. The team was a giant **** sandwich for sure. Wren deserves a fair share of the blame for that. Schuerholz deserves at least as much of that blame.

[Managuarantano's Volunteers]

Back on topic: it must be nice to wave away your own massive failure of leadership as simply an oopsie-whoopsie that had nothing to do with you ... you know, like toxic unrestricted mitosis in the body.

i hope mcguirk has learned that enabling a team cancer is a choice

[bravesfanMatt]

Win or lose I am glad in about 18 hours we finally have something meaningful to talk about for five months.

[TheBravos]

Last two GM’s had strengths and glaring weaknesses. We may finally have a well rounded GM. Time will tell, but I have a great feeling about AA.

[nsacpi]

worth keeping in mind also was the almost incredible run of bad luck with regards to a very promising group of pitchers: Hansen, Beachy, Medlen, Minor, Jurrjens. If a couple of them had not suffered injuries that drastically and prematurely curtailed their productivity, the conventional wisdom about that team not being built to win would look misplaced

[Tapate50]

worth keeping in mind also was the almost incredible run of bad luck with regards to a very promising group of pitchers: Hansen, Beachy, Medlen, Minor, Jurrjens. If a couple of them had not suffered injuries that drastically and prematurely curtailed their productivity, the conventional wisdom about that team not being built to win would look misplaced

Just an unbelievable run of ****ty luck with pitchers at that point. Goodness gracious

[zitothebrave]

Borderline hall of fame?

In the era of the closer, Kimbrel is already the 7th best fWAR and is one strong season which he's more than capable of from vaulting past Nen, Nathan, and Papelbon to be just behind a bit from Wagner, Hoffman and Rivera. Simmons is a wait and see. It depends on how long he can play and if he puts up an MVP level season or 2. He hinted at it last year.

[Southcack77]

worth keeping in mind also was the almost incredible run of bad luck with regards to a very promising group of pitchers: Hansen, Beachy, Medlen, Minor, Jurrjens. If a couple of them had not suffered injuries that drastically and prematurely curtailed their productivity, the conventional wisdom about that team not being built to win would look misplaced

And if they had lots of prospects in the system instead of none it would be different too.

Counterfactuals are ... counter-factual.

Also, Hansen, jurrjens, and Minor weren’t particularly good players to start with.

[Southcack77]

Kimbrell is probably ten more years of being an elite closer for a relevant team away from HOF consideration.

Any case that requires a player who hasn’t gotten (any? Many?) mvp votes to win two of them is pretty weak.

It wouldn’t necessarily require that in my view but he’d have to continue being an outstanding offensive SS, most likely, for a good long time anyway. And it’s more likely he won’t repeat it than he will imo. I offered a bet on this actually.

[thewupk]

And if they had lots of prospects in the system instead of none it would be different too.

Counterfactuals are ... counter-factual.

Also, Hansen, jurrjens, and Minor weren’t particularly good players to start with.

revisionist history to the extreme right here. the lack of pitching that everyone brings up is a direct result of pitchers getting injured one right after another. you say if they had a lot of prospects in the system that wouldn't have happened. they were those prospects.

[thethe]

worth keeping in mind also was the almost incredible run of bad luck with regards to a very promising group of pitchers: Hansen, Beachy, Medlen, Minor, Jurrjens. If a couple of them had not suffered injuries that drastically and prematurely curtailed their productivity, the conventional wisdom about that team not being built to win would look misplaced

And all of that talent was brought in by clark

[Southcack77]

revisionist history to the extreme right here. the lack of pitching that everyone brings up is a direct result of pitchers getting injured one right after another. you say if they had a lot of prospects in the system that wouldn't have happened. they were those prospects.

No, they were the players in the majors. There were no prospects to replace them.

As has been argued exhaustively here, pitchers are unreliable in health and performance and the Braves can’t afford to acquire them. Maybe having more than six in the organization would have been a good idea.

The revisionist history is pretending the Braves didn’t miss the playoffs with the ultimate Wren squad and wasn’t completely screwed going forward. If you want to pretend that was someone else’s fault that’s fine but it’s no different than pretending that Wren wasn’t responsible for Acuna or Albies.

[thewupk]

No, they were the players in the majors. There were no prospects to replace them.

As has been argued exhaustively here, pitchers are unreliable in health and performance and the Braves can’t afford to acquire them. Maybe having more than six in the organization would have been a good idea.

The revisionist history is pretending the Braves didn’t miss the playoffs with the ultimate Wren squad and wasn’t completely screwed going forward. If you want to pretend that was someone else’s fault that’s fine but it’s no different than pretending that Wren wasn’t responsible for Acuna or Albies.

Saying they weren't good players to start with is extreme revisionist history.

They Braves produced and lost due to injury Hanson, Minor, Beachy, Medlen, and Jurrjens over a 5 year period. Some of them they got more use of than others but that's a huge group of pitchers to actually make it and perform and then get nothing out of. Only Julio has escaped the injury bug from that era. Similarly if the Braves produce 5 quality starters out of the current group of prospects and then they all get hurt relatively early in their careers we will be saying the same thing now. Not many teams can overcome that. The Braves almost did but lost Medlen in 2014 and Minor had a hurt dick and both haven't been quality starters since. That would put a different spin going into 2015 with Medlen, Minor, Julio, and an upcoming Alex Wood in the rotation.

[Southcack77]

Saying they weren't good players to start with is extreme revisionist history.

They Braves produced and lost due to injury Hanson, Minor, Beachy, Medlen, and Jurrjens over a 5 year period. Some of them they got more use of than others but that's a huge group of pitchers to actually make it and perform and then get nothing out of. Only Julio has escaped the injury bug from that era. Similarly if the Braves produce 5 quality starters out of the current group of prospects and then they all get hurt relatively early in their careers we will be saying the same thing now. Not many teams can overcome that. The Braves almost did but lost Medlen in 2014 and Minor had a hurt dick and both haven't been quality starters since. That would put a different spin going into 2015 with Medlen, Minor, Julio, and an upcoming Alex Wood in the rotation.

I guess if the Braves had been able to have complete health amongst its thin rotation of mostly fourth and fifth starters it could have continued being a decent non contender for a couple more years.

It doesn’t matter. It didn’t happen and it’s nit an especially unusual or unexpected result t have pitching injuries. If we pretend that it doesn’t happen and it’s some bizarre quirk of fate, which it decidedly isn’t, we still don’t have much.

[thewupk]

I guess if the Braves had been able to have complete health amongst its thin rotation of mostly fourth and fifth starters it could have continued being a decent non contender for a couple more years.

It doesn’t matter. It didn’t happen and it’s nit an especially unusual or unexpected result t have pitching injuries. If we pret he that doesn’t happen and it’s some bizarre quirk if fate, which it decidedly isn’t we still don’t have much.

Yes because those guys were clearly all 4th and 5 starters. Were you even a Braves back during that time?