Frank Wren's Tenure

It's pretty incredible to think just how solid those past teams could of been with a guy like Jace at second and a markakis to man RF. (Throw Jason to CF)

Those two additions of solid hitters with great OBP would of made those teams so much better.

The past is the past, but I really love where we are headed.
 
zitothebrave said:
We would have. But I'm a firm believer in a bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush. Rather win now than have a better prospect of winning later. Imagine if enough of our prospects fail. Are we better off? Baseball as a mid-market team you have small windows to win. You need to ustilize them while you can. I think the Braves are hoping to be the Rays, but the Rays sucked for a really long time to build up a stable of MLB talent. And when we extended Julio we eliminated ourselves from that ocmparison cause they would have traded Julio.
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Not a bad point, but if you look at the Rays (and I do think they'll fade) they are constantly stockpiling. Whenever they trade a veteran, they seem to insist that a young pitcher comes in return. Wren was going the opposite direction with the 3-for-1s, 4-for-1s, and 5-for-2s. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn't. But the more important bottom line is that we continued to lose depth of fungible replacement position players and pitchers in that process. That led to the all-or-nothing situation that the franchise found itself in going into 2015. I agree that the process could have been forestalled for a season, but we were going to have to do a re-build at some juncture.
 
weso1 said:
Harang - 1.9 WAR
Justin - 2.2 WAR
Rasmus - 1.0 WAR
Heyward - .9 WAR
Kimbrel - .1 WAR
Gattis - .2 WAR
=6.3 WAR

vs.

Miller - 3.1 WAR
Maybin - .7 WAR
Mukaki - 1.2 WAR
Peterson - 1.3 WAR
Gomes/KJ - .3 WAR (kind of hard to figure because Fredi, but I think a straight platoon here would could net us .5 WAR)
Catcher - 0 WAR
= 6.6 WAR

Sure you can make some assumptions about changing scenery and all that, but Upton changed scenery just like the rest of the guys and his having a good season. I would argue that the player most likely to decline dramatically is Harang. I could also argue that we could have just signed Harang anyway. I mean you could have just added him to the team we had now without impacting our future in any way.

So really in your scenario I would just say we should have signed Harang. Had we added him to the team we have right now, well now there's the significant upgrade. As for the bullpen. Had we truly tried to be competitive we could have traded for Papelbon without impacting the future.

So had we added both of those guys we'd have added 3.0 WAR on top of the 6.6 WAR that was already added.

So now it looks like this:

Current team with weso1's additions and good farm system: 9.6 WAR

Zito's team with horrible farm system: 6.3 WAR
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That's using rWAR

Using fWAR

Maybin 1.3
Mukaki 1.3
Gomes/KJ 0.1

Jason 0.9
Justin 1.9
Rasmus 1.3

2B I won't calculat ecause as 50 pound said, Peraza would liekly be up and who knows how he would do. C I wouldn't calculate cause douchebag would still get PT and he's been the only positive at C.

Harang 1.3

Miller - 1.5
Cahill - -0.1
Stults - -0.4

Again nothing I said is really wrong, and while change of scenario doesn't hurt everyone it does hurt some. Considering Heyward has never stunk for a full season before. If he does stink this year, change of scenery likely was a cause. Not the cause, but one of the factors. I do think he turns it around mind you and produces a quality season. Something or someone is causing him to press and his BB rate is way below his career norm. THat won't stay the same, could be a year long fluke, but flukes don't factor into projection. Samething with Kimbrel.

We didn't sign Harang because we opted for Cahill who we were hoping would rebound and be a trade candidate. Instead of taking Harang who we would have used in hope of repeating or coming close to last year. Roger fixed something in him, cause he's still rocking.
 
50PoundHead said:
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Not a bad point, but if you look at the Rays (and I do think they'll fade) they are constantly stockpiling. Whenever they trade a veteran, they seem to insist that a young pitcher comes in return. Wren was going the opposite direction with the 3-for-1s, 4-for-1s, and 5-for-2s. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn't. But the more important bottom line is that we continued to lose depth of fungible replacement position players and pitchers in that process. That led to the all-or-nothing situation that the franchise found itself in going into 2015. I agree that the process could have been forestalled for a season, but we were going to have to do a re-build at some juncture.
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No I agree, I don't think Wren was building the Rays way, but I think the current Braves group isn't either. Wren was looking to capitalize on guys like Heyward, Freeman, McCann, etc. when they were here. He wanted to supplement them with relatively inexpensive good players. My contention is basically the Braves are in an inbetween era right now. If they wanted to rebuild, Julio should have been the first to go this offseason. Investing long term in pitching is what teams who are winning do. If you're gonna build yourself on a churn and burn then you invest in position players (Freeman and Simmons) and then keep on trading out players before FA, pitchers, position players, whomever.
 
zitothebrave said:
No I agree, I don't think Wren was building the Rays way, but I think the current Braves group isn't either. Wren was looking to capitalize on guys like Heyward, Freeman, McCann, etc. when they were here. He wanted to supplement them with relatively inexpensive good players. My contention is basically the Braves are in an inbetween era right now. If they wanted to rebuild, Julio should have been the first to go this offseason. Investing long term in pitching is what teams who are winning do. If you're gonna build yourself on a churn and burn then you invest in position players (Freeman and Simmons) and then keep on trading out players before FA, pitchers, position players, whomever.
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The problem is that Lowe, Kawakami, Uggla, and Melvin Upton, Jr., weren't relatively inexpensive.
 
50PoundHead said:
The problem is that Lowe, Kawakami, Uggla, and Melvin Upton, Jr., weren't relatively inexpensive.
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Lowe, Uggla and BJ weren't supposed to be compliments, they were supposed to be quality players. Kawakami was probably a good example of expensive supplement, but he wasn't a terrible pitcher. Slightly overpaid, but he basically was phased out because he wasn't as good as Hanson, Hudson, Beachy, Jurrjens, and we were paying Lowe troo much and he wasn't next on the pecking order because of Minor, Julio and Delgado. Kawakami was the one thing Wren did I didn't get. Because we had a pitchign issue in 2008. A bad one, Our rotation was Jurrjens (good) Campillo (lol) Hudson (TJ) Jo-Jo Reyes (lol) Hampton (lol) and Morton Morton didn't get mediocre until a massive mechanics overhaul that likely will lead to injury but who cares.

So we were going into 2009 with Jurrjens as the lone MLB vet SP. I didn't hate the Lowe signing or Kawakami signing, I loved the Vazquez trade. But with Hanson, Medlen, and not too far off Julio in the minors, we shouldn't have taking all 3 pitchers on.
 
zitothebrave said:
That's using rWAR

Using fWAR

Maybin 1.3
Mukaki 1.3
Gomes/KJ 0.1

Jason 0.9
Justin 1.9
Rasmus 1.3

2B I won't calculat ecause as 50 pound said, Peraza would liekly be up and who knows how he would do. C I wouldn't calculate cause douchebag would still get PT and he's been the only positive at C.

Harang 1.3

Miller - 1.5
Cahill - -0.1
Stults - -0.4

Again nothing I said is really wrong, and while change of scenario doesn't hurt everyone it does hurt some. Considering Heyward has never stunk for a full season before. If he does stink this year, change of scenery likely was a cause. Not the cause, but one of the factors. I do think he turns it around mind you and produces a quality season. Something or someone is causing him to press and his BB rate is way below his career norm. THat won't stay the same, could be a year long fluke, but flukes don't factor into projection. Samething with Kimbrel.

We didn't sign Harang because we opted for Cahill who we were hoping would rebound and be a trade candidate. Instead of taking Harang who we would have used in hope of repeating or coming close to last year. Roger fixed something in him, cause he's still rocking.
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You can't just write off Jace's 1.3 WAR. My argument is that even with the trades, it turns out that the team has at least been as good as it would have been if the trades weren't made. Plus it could've been better without giving up anything. They didn't sign Harang, because he wanted 2 years and the Braves thought that was too high risk. It really didn't have anything to do with the rebuild. But you can just take Harang out of it and instead just say they should have held onto Wandy over Stultz. Add Papelbon as I said, who is off the books after 16 and affordable for us because of the Kimbrel deal and suddenly you've got a team that's better than what you proposed and we still have all those prospects.
 
weso1 said:
You can't just write off Jace's 1.3 WAR. My argument is that even with the trades, it turns out that the team has at least been as good as it would have been if the trades weren't made. Plus it could've been better without giving up anything. They didn't sign Harang, because he wanted 2 years and the Braves thought that was too high risk. It really didn't have anything to do with the rebuild. But you can just take Harang out of it and instead just say they should have held onto Wandy over Stultz. Add Papelbon as I said, who is off the books after 16 and affordable for us because of the Kimbrel deal and suddenly you've got a team that's better than what you proposed and we still have all those prospects.
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I'm not writing off Jace. I'm not comparing him because the person who'd likely be our 2B now isn't in the majors so there's no number reference. I acknowledged Peterson is better.

And you do realize that right now we've basically got best case scenario going on? Only worst case scenario we've got is Julio. Miller is massively outpitching his peripherals, Simmons has bounced back, Freeman has remained Freddie, Maybin is healthy and productive, Markakis is producing his best offensive year since 2012, KJ is having his best offensive season since 2010. Everything is going right except Gomes and Julio. Even then Gomes has been on a slide for some time so it's hardly shocking. If I'm betting on a team's performance over a season, I'll gladly bet that Jason is better over the next 90 games or whatever than Maybin. It's just the way their careers have been. We've had so much bounce our way, it's the opposite of last year where injuries piled up and so on so forth. Our only pitching injury of significance has been Minor. Nothing compared to last year when we lost both Medlen and Beachy before the season started.

You can stick with your team, I'll stick with mine, I will take ability over a 70 game sample 10 times out of 10.
 
zitothebrave said:
I'm not writing off Jace. I'm not comparing him because the person who'd likely be our 2B now isn't in the majors so there's no number reference. I acknowledged Peterson is better.

And you do realize that right now we've basically got best case scenario going on? Only worst case scenario we've got is Julio. Miller is massively outpitching his peripherals, Simmons has bounced back, Freeman has remained Freddie, Maybin is healthy and productive, Markakis is producing his best offensive year since 2012, KJ is having his best offensive season since 2010. Everything is going right except Gomes and Julio. Even then Gomes has been on a slide for some time so it's hardly shocking. If I'm betting on a team's performance over a season, I'll gladly bet that Jason is better over the next 90 games or whatever than Maybin. It's just the way their careers have been. We've had so much bounce our way, it's the opposite of last year where injuries piled up and so on so forth. Our only pitching injury of significance has been Minor. Nothing compared to last year when we lost both Medlen and Beachy before the season started.

You can stick with your team, I'll stick with mine, I will take ability over a 70 game sample 10 times out of 10.
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Harang is due to fall off a cliff any day now, which is where a huge chunk of your WAR is. Rasmus is likely to lose value as well, so it works both ways. You picked guys to be on your team specifically because they are having career or close to career years. Heyward/Kimbrel are likely to improve, but even significant improvement isn't enough to get us more than a .500 team. Keep in mind the team that I came up with has produced over 3 WAR better than your proposal. So even with significant improvement from your guys and drop off from my guys you are talking maybe at best a 3 WAR positive difference on your part going forward? Not close to being good enough to get us to the playoffs. That's best case scenario for you. Based on all the evidence we have at this time, it is much more likely than not that Hart/JS made the right decision to sell these guys.
 
I'm really confused how some could think that the sell off wasn't the right move. Are we still going under the assumption that we are going to outbid the teams that will be interested in Heyward/Upton?
 
I think it's funny how some people are down on Miller because he's outpitching his peripherals. It's like because he's not as good as he's pitching, people act like he's bad.

Right now, Miller has a FIP of 3.34. If I told you going into this season that Miller was going to put up an ERA of 3.34, you'd be thrilled! Right now he has a better FIP than Matt Harvey, Jon Lester, and Cole Hamels. He's only a hair behind Bumgarner. His ERA is due for a correction but he's been very good.
 
zitothebrave said:
Lowe, Uggla and BJ weren't supposed to be compliments, they were supposed to be quality players. Kawakami was probably a good example of expensive supplement, but he wasn't a terrible pitcher. Slightly overpaid, but he basically was phased out because he wasn't as good as Hanson, Hudson, Beachy, Jurrjens, and we were paying Lowe troo much and he wasn't next on the pecking order because of Minor, Julio and Delgado. Kawakami was the one thing Wren did I didn't get. Because we had a pitchign issue in 2008. A bad one, Our rotation was Jurrjens (good) Campillo (lol) Hudson (TJ) Jo-Jo Reyes (lol) Hampton (lol) and Morton Morton didn't get mediocre until a massive mechanics overhaul that likely will lead to injury but who cares.

So we were going into 2009 with Jurrjens as the lone MLB vet SP. I didn't hate the Lowe signing or Kawakami signing, I loved the Vazquez trade. But with Hanson, Medlen, and not too far off Julio in the minors, we shouldn't have taking all 3 pitchers on.
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I loved the Vazquez move, one of Wren's best. I was ok with the Lowe move, yes, we overpaid, but we needed to upgrade pitching and he was a stable innings eater that would be a good bridge for some of the young talented pitchers that were on the cusp of the majors. Burnett was Wren's target and guy, and I often wonder what if and how he would have perfomed in a low key environment like Atl. I hated the KK move, it was redundant and didn't need to be made with so much talent close to the major league level, that's why I was advocating a 1 year deal on Randy Wolff to help bridge that gap and fill a need for 2009 but not hamper us financially in the future.
 
thethe said:
I'm really confused how some could think that the sell off wasn't the right move. Are we still going under the assumption that we are going to outbid the teams that will be interested in Heyward/Upton?
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Because it's tough to say good bye to one of the all-time great offenses, on paper, and in some minds.
 
striker42 said:
I think it's funny how some people are down on Miller because he's outpitching his peripherals. It's like because he's not as good as he's pitching, people act like he's bad.

Right now, Miller has a FIP of 3.34. If I told you going into this season that Miller was going to put up an ERA of 3.34, you'd be thrilled! Right now he has a better FIP than Matt Harvey, Jon Lester, and Cole Hamels. He's only a hair behind Bumgarner. His ERA is due for a correction but he's been very good.
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Also: Actual results of past performances do not matter, because FIP.
 
All these metrics are incredibly valuable and need to be considered in all discussions. However, I think we lose sight of the fact that when you are watching the players a substantial amount you can interpret stats In a different way. When I watch Miller pitch I am surprised when hr struggles. That to me means more than his FIP. I feel this is sustainable because I don't see him getting squared up and see his nasty stuff that he locates well.
 
thethe said:
I'm really confused how some could think that the sell off wasn't the right move. Are we still going under the assumption that we are going to outbid the teams that will be interested in Heyward/Upton?
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It's been hashed and rehashed enough times that you really have no excuse to be confused.
 
sturg33 said:
Note that Frank Wren never would have been able to find a suiter for Heyward/Upton/Gattis/Kimbrel.

Only this powerhouse FO could have.
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I have no doubt that Wren could have made some excellent trades. He has a long history of being very good at that.

But you and I both have to question whether or not a guy on the hot seat would have the capacity to undertake a massive rebuild with his job on the line. Even suspenders understood the enormous backlash that was destined to happen that he convinced his friend to fall on the sword so that Coppy avoid bloodying his hands. Politics matter even if they shouldn't.
 
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