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

[zitothebrave]

Wren forced Clark out and put his own guys in. That's why the farm sucked under him. Now Clark is back and miraculously we are good at drafting again.

Actually that's not fair. When Wren took over the team after years of bad JS drafts and lots of trades our upper minors were decimated. Wren was forced to draft college players to fill the upper minors.

Even with that in the Wren years 08-14 we saw him draft major league players in Spruill, Kimbrel, Clemens, Oberholtzer, Hoover, Minor, Hale, Weber, Cunningham, Simmons, Gosselin, Terds, Shreve, Drury, Gattis, Gilmartin, Ahmed, Kubitza, Graham, Martin, La Stella, Cornely, Schlosser, Sims, Wood, Simmons the Reliever, Hursh, Caratini, Marksberry, and Povse (with some more potential to come) so something like 4 guys per draft to reach the majors which isn't that bad. The issue with Wren was some of his high upside guys wound up not being that much like Lipka, Davidson, and DeVall.

[Super]

He deserves credit for gattis/wood/simmons. Those were hi guys running the drafts at that point.

and those guys are more than balanced out by the horrendous 1st round selections.
the "picked later in the draft" is also a poor excuse. we recently got better guys later than some of his picks.
and also gotta toss in the thrown away pick to sign tom glavine.

[zitothebrave]

What “hurt our return on the Kimbrel trade” was the inane decision to bundle Upton and Kimbrel; that didn’t have to happen, and it diluted Kimbrel’s value—another error of the Hart regime.

Correct. I also don't think it diluted the Kimbrel return that much. As I recall the amount of money that changed hands was pretty meaningless. They took on 80 in contracts while shedding 24. So basically we saved about 22M or so in the trade. From trading Upton.

[zitothebrave]

and also gotta toss in the thrown away pick to sign tom glavine.

Be honest with yourself for a second. Doesn't that sound a lot more like a decision made by Cox/JS than one made by Wren as he never made a similar signing to that?

[Super]

I never accused him of being a good gm. He had good moments and I really believe he had pressures from JS and Cox to win now. I think hart and coppy had same pressure to win sooner than needed. I think both were bad gms. Hart coppy nut kicked us and that makes them infinitely worse.

meh, i don't really think the penalties will have a huge impact on the team moving forward.

[Super]

Be honest with yourself for a second. Doesn't that sound a lot more like a decision made by Cox/JS than one made by Wren as he never made a similar signing to that?

literally thought of that as i was posting it. it definitely does.
however if we're heaping praise for the lottery tickets in acuna and albies, i'm heaping shame for that one.

[clvclv]

Actually that's not fair. When Wren took over the team after years of bad JS drafts and lots of trades our upper minors were decimated. Wren was forced to draft college players to fill the upper minors.

Even with that in the Wren years 08-14 we saw him draft major league players in Spruill, Kimbrel, Clemens, Oberholtzer, Hoover, Minor, Hale, Weber, Cunningham, Simmons, Gosselin, Terds, Shreve, Drury, Gattis, Gilmartin, Ahmed, Kubitza, Graham, Martin, La Stella, Cornely, Schlosser, Sims, Wood, Simmons the Reliever, Hursh, Caratini, Marksberry, and Povse (with some more potential to come) so something like 4 guys per draft to reach the majors which isn't that bad. The issue with Wren was some of his high upside guys wound up not being that much like Lipka, Davidson, and DeVall.

To be fair, calling these guys "major league players" is being a bit generous. Sure they made it, but someone with a resume of drafting guys who made it for a cup of coffee won't necessarily get you an interview with a lot of teams. It's not fair to call Wren "awful" and say that he might not have done well with a rebuilding team (since he didn't get that chance), but it's also not unfair to say he didn't have the kind of draft record that people ought to stand up and take notice of either.

[Super]

i'd also add that wren being "forced" to draft guys to fill the upper minors is a wild amount of speculation.

[nsacpi]

one thing that gets left out of this discussion is draft position and number of high picks...i dont think the Wren drafts were great but some of that is mitigated by those considerations

[thewupk]

i'd also add that wren being "forced" to draft guys to fill the upper minors is a wild amount of speculation.

There is a lot of rampant speculation. But if your marching orders are to win then drafting high floor and nearly MLB ready guys is something you would do.

[Super]

one thing that gets left out of this discussion is draft position and number of high picks...i dont think the Wren drafts were great but some of that is mitigated by those considerations

touched on this. we've recently drafted better players at around the same spots or later than wren had.

[Super]

There is a lot of rampant speculation. But if your marching orders are to win then drafting high floor and nearly MLB ready guys is something you would do.

if only the guys he drafted had high floors.

[Knucksie]

Guess you were being sarcastic here.. But, seeing how I just joined this site last month, and I didn't read every single post when I did I join... and didn't read every single post in this thread...ohh well. Let it be sarcasm.

It's been a source of embarrassment to Braves fans that the Kimbrel trade keeps getting mentioned over at MLBTR also.

[zitothebrave]

To be fair, calling these guys "major league players" is being a bit generous. Sure they made it, but someone with a resume of drafting guys who made it for a cup of coffee won't necessarily get you an interview with a lot of teams. It's not fair to call Wren "awful" and say that he might not have done well with a rebuilding team (since he didn't get that chance), but it's also not unfair to say he didn't have the kind of draft record that people ought to stand up and take notice of either.

Look at the average draft class. Most don't turn out 2-3 mlb regulars for a team. It's the nature of the game. Wren fairly regularly got a major league regular in the draft. Sure they weren't always good. But they were regulars. He also should get praise because he drafted 2 legit All-Star level possibly borderline hall of fame players in Kimbrel and Simmons. Not many managers do that. Hell look at JS's tenure, in the 15 years or whatever who did he draft like that? McCann, Freeman, Heyward, and Millwood. I can't think of any other. We had some great international signings under him like Feliz, Andrus, Andruw, Furcal, etc. But this topic is specifically about the draft.

[clvclv]

one thing that gets left out of this discussion is draft position and number of high picks...i dont think the Wren drafts were great but some of that is mitigated by those considerations

When was the last time the Cardinals drafted well ahead of us? Or Boston or several other teams who didn't have systems that cratered and were required to start from scratch for that matter?

Again, I'm not saying he would've done a bad job had he been tasked with a rebuild, but there are several teams who won consistently during that time that picked late every year and did a better job.

[clvclv]

Look at the average draft class. Most don't turn out 2-3 mlb regulars for a team. It's the nature of the game. Wren fairly regularly got a major league regular in the draft. Sure they weren't always good. But they were regulars. He also should get praise because he drafted 2 legit All-Star level possibly borderline hall of fame players in Kimbrel and Simmons. Not many managers do that. Hell look at JS's tenure, in the 15 years or whatever who did he draft like that? McCann, Freeman, Heyward, and Millwood. I can't think of any other. We had some great international signings under him like Feliz, Andrus, Andruw, Furcal, etc. But this topic is specifically about the draft.

No one expects someone to come up with several pieces in every draft, but the only "regulars" from your list were Kimbrel (not sure you can count Closers as regulars - most aren't drafted to actually BE Closers), Gattis (not sure you can count DHs as regulars - most aren't drafted to actually BE DHs), Simmons, Minor (partial credit, but he was a Top 10 pick that most panned), and Wood.

Again, I'm not really "hating" on his draft record, but the rest of those guys turned into bench fodder, defensive specialists, and middle relievers - there aren't a lot of diamonds in the rough there....especially when you consider how well some of the other teams who consistently had later picks every year did during the same period.

[sturg33]

No one expects someone to come up with several pieces in every draft, but the only "regulars" from your list were Kimbrel (not sure you can count Closers as regulars - most aren't drafted to actually BE Closers), Gattis (not sure you can count DHs as regulars - most aren't drafted to actually BE DHs), Simmons, Minor (partial credit, but he was a Top 10 pick that most panned), and Wood.

Again, I'm not really "hating" on his draft record, but the rest of those guys turned into bench fodder, defensive specialists, and middle relievers - there aren't a lot of diamonds in the rough there....especially when you consider how well some of the other teams who consistently had later picks every year did during the same period.

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

[zitothebrave]

No one expects someone to come up with several pieces in every draft, but the only "regulars" from your list were Kimbrel (not sure you can count Closers as regulars - most aren't drafted to actually BE Closers), Gattis (not sure you can count DHs as regulars - most aren't drafted to actually BE DHs), Simmons, Minor (partial credit, but he was a Top 10 pick that most panned), and Wood.

Again, I'm not really "hating" on his draft record, but the rest of those guys turned into bench fodder, defensive specialists, and middle relievers - there aren't a lot of diamonds in the rough there....especially when you consider how well some of the other teams who consistently had later picks every year did during the same period.

What's important is that they made it. The odds of making the majors are incredibly slim. Something like the odds of a first round pick sticking around in the majors is less than 50%. That's across all picks including the highest picks.

[Southcack77]

This always seemed to be the crux of Jeff Wren's complaints about the Braves after his brother got the axe and was scapegoated. Frank was never allowed to tear everything down and start over. All he was allowed to do was to try to keep winning on a shoestring budget.

I'm not at all saying that I think Wren was a great GM. The Upton and Lowe contracts (mainly the 4th year on Lowe) and the Johnson and Uggla extensions make a solid case that Wren did a poor job managing available resources. But it's not really fair to judge the farm system he left given that he was under a mandate from above to win division titles with a less-than-competitive payroll. He pretty much had to use high draft picks on guys that appeared close to ML ready, rather than going after high upside guys who would require significant development.

The Braves would've been much better off had Schuerholz retired gracefully when his GM days were over.

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.

[Southcack77]

Look at the average draft class. Most don't turn out 2-3 mlb regulars for a team. It's the nature of the game. Wren fairly regularly got a major league regular in the draft. Sure they weren't always good. But they were regulars. He also should get praise because he drafted 2 legit All-Star level possibly borderline hall of fame players in Kimbrel and Simmons. Not many managers do that. Hell look at JS's tenure, in the 15 years or whatever who did he draft like that? McCann, Freeman, Heyward, and Millwood. I can't think of any other. We had some great international signings under him like Feliz, Andrus, Andruw, Furcal, etc. But this topic is specifically about the draft.

Borderline hall of fame?