Is it time to start giving Fredi credit?

I look at Washington and Davey Johnson.

Then I look at Atlanta and Fredi G.

Our manager is laid back, but our guys seem to be bought him to Fredi and love playing for him. Hes TOO laid back at times and doesnt make good decisions sometimes, but hes doing a great job managing this team.
 
nsacpi said:
I pick on Fredi some for bullpen management, but other than that I think he is a good manager. He is patient with slumping hitters, but after a couple months he starts to reduce their playing time. That approach seems about right to me. He's been good in terms of recognizing the value of young players like Gattis and Terdoslavich.

As far as the pen goes, my only real complaint this year was the overuse of Gearrin in the first couple months of the season. I was impressed this last series the way he got the platoon matchups in our favor by using Carpenter and Ayala in some high-leverage situations. Having the second lefty in the pen is going to help him.

And I love the current lineup. I'm a little undecided there whether to congratulate Fredi or ask him why it took so long.
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I actually think Gonzalez does a good job with the bullpen. He rides the hot hand and I suppose one could argue that he does that a bit too much, but Gonzalez, like Cox, realizes that a win in May is equal to a win in September. I think the other thing that needs to be remembered is that our starters haven't been going deep into games consistently and that is causing as much wear and tear on the bullpen as Gonzalez' usage patterns.

As for Gearrin, he was the hot hand for a couple of weeks and sidearmers supposedly do not need as much rest as other pitchers. Gearrin is probably a AAAA guy and I think Gonzalez just wanted to use him until he got "solved," which was likely to happen.

I think we need another arm in the pen. Getting Downs helped and maybe Wood moves back out to the bullpen in the post-season (if we are there). But unless Ayala shows he's to be trusted, I think another RHP would help.

As for line-up construction, given the nature of the players on the team, there's no obvious lead-off hitter and it was bound to be trial-and-error to find the right mix at the top of the line-up. He's managed through some tough injuries and ton of underperformance early. If for nothing else, he deserves credit for that.
 
He has an underrated sense of humor. His comments in spring training about Pastornicky and Schafer missing the first few optional days was pretty funny. Except a lot of people got all worked up taking it seriously. More recently his comment that he "succumbed" to pressure to move Heyward to leadoff was pretty sly and funny.
 
I'm just happy the lineup is finally looking good. I can't complain with the results.
 
Outside of bullpen management at times, no problem with Fredi.

Like how he rests Luis and Walden last night.

Unfortunately Kimbrel isn't available tonight though...
 
sturg33 said:
It is not time to give him credit. He's a fool.

We're winning because we are loaded and our division sucks. A competent manager has us probably 3 -5 more wins right now.

This is a man who once publicly stated he would rather have Phillies players than Braves players in his lineup.

He calls out his players in the media.

He is a moron with bullpen management.

He batted our very wost hitter (well second worst) leadoff most of the year. When he didn't, he put our worst hitter there (Upton). Just because he finally did something sensible by changing it doesn't mean anything to me. He should have done it to begin with!

He manages games based on getting his closer saves, rather than putting us in best position to win.

He bunts all the time - when anyone with a brain should know you should almost NEVER bunt unless it is a pitcher at the plate. He is bunting Jason Heward.

I can't speak for his leadership abilities - it's possible that the players love him. But I can only judge him on what I see and we would be a lot better if we moved on. Now, I'll get blasted here because people refuse to join the 21st century but bottom line is - a competent manage gets us to the playoffs 2 years ago. Also - in that wild card game, the smartest decisions is to make it a full bullpen game - but a manager like Fredi would never do something like that bc thats "not how it's done"
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Or because people realize that the thing you mentioned aren't all that important when it comes to a manager.

And he doesn't call out his players in the media, and he never said he'd rather have the Phillies players than the Braves players. Stop the hyperbole.
 
Fans of the team always think they are smarter than the manager without full access to data that fans do not get. Every manager obviously makes mistakes, its impossible not to in a 162 game season.

Fredi is fine. He's probably not a great manager and he's certainly not bad. My biggest beef with him is that he doesn't stick up for his players and keep them from getting tossed.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Or because people realize that the thing you mentioned aren't all that important when it comes to a manager.

And he doesn't call out his players in the media, and he never said he'd rather have the Phillies players than the Braves players. Stop the hyperbole.
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I believe it was before 2 seasons ago. During spring training, a reporter asked him how he thinks he stacks up against the Phillies. Then he started saying "Well, I'll take Mac, x, y, and z. Obviously they have Victorino, Rollins, and Utley etc."

He did a comparrison and chose 3 or 4 phillies players over his own guys.
 
sturg33 said:
I believe it was before 2 seasons ago. During spring training, a reporter asked him how he thinks he stacks up against the Phillies. Then he started saying "Well, I'll take Mac, x, y, and z. Obviously they have Victorino, Rollins, and Utley etc."

He did a comparrison and chose 3 or 4 phillies players over his own guys.
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I know exactly what you're talking about, and yes he did a comparison between the two teams and it was probably something he shouldn't have done in front of the media. However, the point he was trying to make was that the Braves were just as good as the Phillies, which was admirable.
 
sturg33 said:
I believe it was before 2 seasons ago. During spring training, a reporter asked him how he thinks he stacks up against the Phillies. Then he started saying "Well, I'll take Mac, x, y, and z. Obviously they have Victorino, Rollins, and Utley etc."

He did a comparrison and chose 3 or 4 phillies players over his own guys.
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Well, I would of took Utley, Rollins, Vic over our options at those spots 3-4 years ago too.

So....
 
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