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

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.

I understand why the mantra exists in the first place. It would be impossible to sell your fan base on something intangible when the tangible product on the field is so atrocious (oh and you also managed to purge the team of all of your fan-favorite players).

I do think its likely we are much better in 2017. I just don't envision the playoffs being a sensible goal by that point.
 
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.

The Swisher trade is forgivable. There was never a chance we could have salvaged that situation. I am still optimistic about how that ends up.

The Olivera trade is troubling. He needs to take massive steps this next season. We can't afford for him to take a similar progression path as other call ups.
 
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.

I think the difference between us and those teams you mentioned is we had some incredible assets to trade that I don't recall those teams trading. As I've said before, I've never seen a team unload as much young talent as we have. That should - at the very least - accelerate the re-build faster than previous models.

Having said all of that, we're gonna need to hit on those players we acquired... and the (very early) returns are not leaving me feeling completely assured. I would have liked to have seen better performances from Folty and Wisler... And the other guys are either more depth related or further away. I also am very unsure on Olivera, if for nothing else but his health
 
I think the difference between us and those teams you mentioned is we had some incredible assets to trade that I don't recall those teams trading. As I've said before, I've never seen a team unload as much young talent as we have. That should - at the very least - accelerate the re-build faster than previous models.

Having said all of that, we're gonna need to hit on those players we acquired... and the (very early) returns are not leaving me feeling completely assured. I would have liked to have seen better performances from Folty and Wisler... And the other guys are either more depth related or further away. I also am very unsure on Olivera, if for nothing else but his health

The dumb part was one of the key players we acquired was Rio Ruiz, a highly touted 3B prospect. He did struggle this year, but regardless we went and sent Wood and Peraza to bring back Olivera, a 3B. So a major return in 2 trades for us were 3B. Which is pretty dumb.
 
I think the difference between us and those teams you mentioned is we had some incredible assets to trade that I don't recall those teams trading. As I've said before, I've never seen a team unload as much young talent as we have. That should - at the very least - accelerate the re-build faster than previous models.

Having said all of that, we're gonna need to hit on those players we acquired... and the (very early) returns are not leaving me feeling completely assured. I would have liked to have seen better performances from Folty and Wisler... And the other guys are either more depth related or further away. I also am very unsure on Olivera, if for nothing else but his health

BTW to compare asset trades. We traded Wood a young controllable lefty and had to give up Peraza to get Olivera a 30 year old with no major league appearances, The Cubs traded Samardzija who only had 1 more year of control and was in the midst of a career year and Hammel, got back Addison Russell. Strailey (who was traded for Fowler) and McKinnney who was really good and gave cash considerations. THat's what we should have been looking to do. Move players give teams who don't have the budget money and get back great prospects.
 
The guy has been in about 5 games, give him a break....

The Swisher trade is forgivable. There was never a chance we could have salvaged that situation. I am still optimistic about how that ends up.

The Olivera trade is troubling. He needs to take massive steps this next season. We can't afford for him to take a similar progression path as other call ups.
 
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.

The Royals and Pirates went through several rebuilding phases that kept failing for about 25+ years. The whole point of all the trades was to shorten the rebuilding time. If we kept them all and let Justin and Heywood walk in free agency then we were looking at a 5-6 year rebuilding phase.
 
The Royals and Pirates went through several rebuilding phases that kept failing for about 25+ years. The whole point of all the trades was to shorten the rebuilding time. If we kept them all and let Justin and Heywood walk in free agency then we were looking at a 5-6 year rebuilding phase.

5-6 years (counting 2015) still seems about right with this team in its current form.
 
It makes no sense to bring Fredi back next year. Yes, it's going to be a lost season competitively but not developmentally. We HAVE to bring in a manager we trust and have confidence in developing our young talent. It's not about wins and losses...it's about development. And we're seeing the complete opposite of that this year. We need someone who can help grow our young guys and it has to start this offseason
 
The Royals and Pirates went through several rebuilding phases that kept failing for about 25+ years. The whole point of all the trades was to shorten the rebuilding time. If we kept them all and let Justin and Heywood walk in free agency then we were looking at a 5-6 year rebuilding phase.

Potentially. I'm sure people said when we let Drew and Sheff walk we'd be in a super long rebuild phase as well. Winning happens when you have talented players. The more talented players the more tickets to the lottery you have. It's pretty simple. I'd rather have gone for it this year myself. Granted we may not have done much, but considering how poorly the Nats played this year, we may have been able to win the division with the right moves.

Suppose if you would, that instead of selling, we reinvested. Our estimated payroll is about 105M this year. We had some wiggle room.We could have made deals. Let's pretend we still make the Bossman and Kimbrel trade. That frees up about 9M this year. Assume we sign Grilli to offset the loss of Kimbrel (obviously Grilli got hurt) we free up still 4M or so. Looking at the FA SP market, with about 15M to play with we could have signed Burnett and Harang or Colby Lewis. Those 2 would have helped sure up the rotation a bit. Also assume the TLS trade happens as well.

Offensively we'd have a lineup something like

RF - Jason
CF - Maybin
1B - Freddie
LF - Justin
C - Gattis
2B - Gosselin
3B - Johnson (replaced by Uribe)
SS - Simmons

Rotation
Wood
Julio
Burnett
Harang
Battle for 5th spot with our prospects

Pen featuring Grilli, Walden, and Viz

Of course the injury risks are real. And we could be in a similar boat with that team. Or we could be way better. You build the best team possible to start the season and go from there. We did not do that this year and were still kind of in the race. Imagine if we did build the best possible team, maybe the Mets don't go on a buying spree at the deadline, maybe the Nats start selling off pieces. Who knows.

All I do know is we punted this year hard in hopes of a fast turn around. If that doesn't happen, we'll have a lot of rightfully bitchy fans.
 
Potentially. I'm sure people said when we let Drew and Sheff walk we'd be in a super long rebuild phase as well. Winning happens when you have talented players. The more talented players the more tickets to the lottery you have. It's pretty simple. I'd rather have gone for it this year myself. Granted we may not have done much, but considering how poorly the Nats played this year, we may have been able to win the division with the right moves.

Suppose if you would, that instead of selling, we reinvested. Our estimated payroll is about 105M this year. We had some wiggle room.We could have made deals. Let's pretend we still make the Bossman and Kimbrel trade. That frees up about 9M this year. Assume we sign Grilli to offset the loss of Kimbrel (obviously Grilli got hurt) we free up still 4M or so. Looking at the FA SP market, with about 15M to play with we could have signed Burnett and Harang or Colby Lewis. Those 2 would have helped sure up the rotation a bit. Also assume the TLS trade happens as well.

Offensively we'd have a lineup something like

RF - Jason
CF - Maybin
1B - Freddie
LF - Justin
C - Gattis
2B - Gosselin
3B - Johnson (replaced by Uribe)
SS - Simmons

Rotation
Wood
Julio
Burnett
Harang
Battle for 5th spot with our prospects

Pen featuring Grilli, Walden, and Viz

Of course the injury risks are real. And we could be in a similar boat with that team. Or we could be way better. You build the best team possible to start the season and go from there. We did not do that this year and were still kind of in the race. Imagine if we did build the best possible team, maybe the Mets don't go on a buying spree at the deadline, maybe the Nats start selling off pieces. Who knows.

All I do know is we punted this year hard in hopes of a fast turn around. If that doesn't happen, we'll have a lot of rightfully bitchy fans.

I was actually in favor of going for it all this year by signing some backloaded contracts and trading for some more rental players that we could get more draft picks from and then going into an Astros type rebuilding. I think that is the best course of action to build a winning team but I have seen the Astros rebuilding first hand kill the interest in the team here in Houston. Even now that they are back to winning the city as a whole really doesnt care.

5-6 years (counting 2015) still seems about right with this team in its current form.

I want to see what they do this offseason before I make any conclusions about how long its going to take.
 
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.

I have. How many times this past month have we been down several runs by the fourth or fifth inning? Fredi's exit is way overdue.
 
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