How aggressive would you expect AA to be after all the penalties of the Coppy Era?
Shanks Article
- Thread starter bravesfanforlife88
- Start date
How aggressive would you expect AA to be after all the penalties of the Coppy Era?
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
AA's greatest moves have been the trades NOT made for players like Archer and Realmuto, plus the two long-term deals with Albies and Acuna. Those two things set the Braves up for a very long competitive window. Not sure if Coppy would have taken a similar path. He showed a certain impulsiveness and hyperactivity that resulted in some really bad moves, so I tend to think he would not have been as disciplined as AA.
Coppy also made good trades. the bad may cancel out the good, but the Justin Upton trade is paying huge dividends right now. the Heyward trade was great, not only for the year they got out of Miller but also for what Miller was flipped for. i have a hard time blaming Kimbrel completely on him, as Melvin's contract was so bad for a negative player who wanted out. he didn't make any disastrous FA/extension signings like Lowe, Kawakami, Upton, Chris Johnson - kept the LT payroll clean. that plus the drafts producing more depth for the organization brings his and Wren's tenures even in my mind. Wren would be an utter disaster with how the team/org was left if he weren't credited for when the organization got lucky and hit the Powerball Lottery with Albies and Acuña. but i've gone over this and i'm not doing it again - swearing it off for good this time.
there was/is plenty of trade fodder in the minors. AA hasn't needed to be aggressive is the point, i think.
Coppy did a good job rebuilding the farm. Could someone else have done it better with the assets he traded away? Maybe, but, we know the farm is in good shape and has churned out a few good players already from the Coppy years. But, Coppy also made two of the worst trades in Braves history. Simmons and Olivera. The Kimbrell trade isn't far behind them.
AA drafts are still TBD. 2018 is behind the 8 ball since we failed to sign Stewart, but Dean, Harris, and Vodnik have shown some promise. Graffanino has the pedigree to be a major leaguer. 2019 could be real treat with all the late round talent we were able to sign.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
I want to address the bold point first.
That's not true. While the 2007 draft would produce Heyward and Freeman, the top prospects from that year are kind of meh.
1 Was Schafer, somewhat of an upside but hardly a supreme talent.
2 was Heyward, great prospect, but by this point he had 48 Plate Appearances and was already number 2.
3. Jair Jurrjens - Wren acquired via trade
4. Brandon Jones
5. Gorkys Hernandez - Wren acquired via trade
6. Brent Lillibridge
7. Rohrbough
8. Locke
9. Hanson
10. Julio
While the bottom has talent, Keep in mind going into 2008 Jeff Locke had not pitched above ROokie Ball, Hanson was just starting to break though, and Julio was 17 and never pitched in the majors. That's not a top prospect list. 2 of them were just drafted/signed and hadn't played much if at all. 2 of them we acquired by Wren. That's not a good farm. If he still had Feliz, Salty, Andrus and Harrison (aka the top 4 prospects in 2007) and it's not like the 2008 braves were filled with kids, of quality players under 28, the braves pickins were thin, McCann, Johnson, Teixeira, Escobar, Prado, Jurrjens, and that's about that. Yes there were lots of people we were sold as being great like Francoeur, Boyer, Parr and Blanco, but honestly they're all meh for the most part. Morton wound up being quite good recently, but that has no effect on the BRaves as they didn't value him.
Wren won so many trades it wasn't funny. The onyl ones you'd argue he lost were Teixeira and Escobar. Both by many reports the negative aspects were forced by old guard. As the rumor was the BRaves wanted a MLB first baseman back in the Teixeira trade. But to me both of these trades still fall on the failure of the first Tex trade. If that trade doesn't happen, Escobar is dealt when his value is high and not for another Short Stop because Andrus would take over as our starting Short Stop. Salty and McCann would likely form a 1B/C platoon until Freeman was ready. Feliz would have made our bullpen one of the best in baseball in the 2010s, and Matt Harrison was a solid starter.
Anyway, that's my rant about that weird myth that the Braves farm was fine when Wren took over.
And it wasn't Wren that traded away that depth. It was JS, in 2007 he let go Davies, Ledezma, and Startup as well. They also traded Marte and Max Ramirez in 2006. Which I'm not against any of those trades. But JS was basically taking AAAA guys and turning them into MLB players, which is fine, but that's why our depth was diminished.
Wren was a master of trading MLB pieces, Adam LaRoche was acquired back from Kotchman, McLouth trade utilized some AAAA prospects, Melky, Viz and Dunn were acquired for Vazquez, Dunn and Infante were used for Uggla, Michael Bourn trade involved some depth trading, but by then the minors were mostly restocked, the lone big prospect trade he made was the Upton trade. but honestly that still held a lot of the trade Value in a major league player (Prado) Wren was a master of trades and his trades almost all made the Braves better, except the 2 I pointed out above.
Contracts were a bit of a problem, but none of them were panned at the time. Everyone thought the Uggla contract was a Bargain. Everyone thought the Upton contract was fair. The reason the Upton contract is looked back negatively was because the CF market shifted from what was expected. Everyone expected the Twins to trade SPan or Revere, not both and that shook the market up. Of course patience would have paid off, but Patience ****ed the BRaves in the Lowe signing where they were working on a number of other deals then Lowe basically said he would only sign for the Braves over the Mets if we gave him more money. And it's not like the Braves were immune to bad contracts in the past.
And no trade Wren made is anywhere near as bad as either Olivera trade.
Coppy drafted and signed well, but his trades except for the Heyward train were nothing to write home about. Sure we did well, but when you're trading Heyward, Simmons, Kimbrel, Gattis, and Justin Upton you should be getting back talent. It's only a fool that cannot get back talent for that level of talent and Coppy wasn't handcuffed with "we need an MLB ready player" on almost any of those trades as it was a clear rebuild. He wasn't a bad GM aside from cheating and being banned from baseball, but he wasn't a wunderkind either. He was a good GM who made a couple of great moves but ultimately will be defined as the guy who traded for all the pitchers who already had Tommy John Surgery. A risky move which has paid off for some and not for others.
If we were going to be bad anyways, there was no point in needing to dump the Upton money. The issue is he was patient about the rebuild. Many of the trades he made during his early days to replenish the farm was aimed prospects who were close to ML ready. He even called it "retooling" instead of rebuilding. It's the same mindset that eventually led to the Olivera trade.
Southcack77
Well-known member
That did not really affect my expectation for Alex's aggressiveness.
A lot of new GMs would have been aggressive regardless of the circumstances and quite possibly have stepped all over the advantages that they did have. I'm looking at you San Diego.
they're the ones who give snide anonymous quotes about other GMs caring more about long term stability and flexibility than winning.
Southcack77
Well-known member
Sometimes trades work, sometimes they don't. That's the expectation of making trades.
It's easy to sit back and talk about trading for position players as the less risky strategy. Except, the Braves had a void of pitching prospects. And it wasn't a secret to the world that position players are better bets. It's why clubs are reluctant to trade high ceiling position players.
when you have limited value in what you are trading, high value prospects aren't necessarily available to you.
Someone else might have been able to do a better job at tearing things down than Coppy. But under the circumstances, I think it was done competently. I think Alex's success despite making no ground shaking moves speaks to that.
Was coming here to say this. Anyone remember the reports of us being willing to include Ozzie for Quintana?!
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
My gripe with Coppy wasn't most of his sell picks. I honestly woudln't even gripe that much about the Kimbrel/Upton trade off. It was the Simmons trade and the Olivera trades.
But I will gripe for a second about the Upton/Kimbrel trade. Because let's talk dollars in and dollars out. Upton was owed about 47M over the next 3 years with the option, Kimbrel owed at most 46 years with his option being exercised. So when we talk about positives and negatives, Upton was a clear negative, all his contract value was a negative as he had a negative WAR. But Kimbrel had a huge value as a 2.5-3 WAR closer. for about 12M a year holds HUGE value. We took back 15M from Maybin and 8M for quentin. So we basically traded Kimbrel and saving 23M for Wisler, a mediocre CF a Competitive Balance Pick and a mediocre talent in Paroubeck.Which isn't a horrible trade. But it wouldn't have been the trade I would have made, I would rather have cut Upton.
But it's the Olivera trade. Where we traded quality prospects/young players in Peraza and Wood for him. Wood ironically is the best pitcher the Braves have drafted since Wainwright. Peraza was a key piece in the Todd Frasier, but beyond that, it wasn't like we had a star coming in at 2B. Sure Ozzie was on the way, but we traded for Brandon Phillips before 2017. Then we traded Olivera to take on MORE MONEY and the mediocre Matt Kemp. Like they would have done better just letting Olivera rot in the minors. Though ironically AA turned Kemp into decent pieces in McCarthy and Culberson, it still would be money I"m sure AA would have rather have had to spend money on a bench player or vet starter rather than have to work a crazy deal.
That's some revisionist theory. Schafer was a top 20 prospect heading into 2008. Quibble about his actual talent level all you want. He was considered a great prospect in 2008. Heyward was also a top 50 prospect. And Lillibridge and Jones were Top 100. That's four top 100 prospects that he himself inherited, not to mention a bevy of other talented kids on their way up. The cupboard was not bare, no matter how you want to spin it. In fact, BA ranked us 8th pre-season 2008 among farm systems.
And the on-field talent he inherited included Mac, Tex, Escobar, Renteria, Chipper, KJ, Hudson, Gonzalez, and Soriano, plus some decent role player guys like Prado (at the time a role player), Frenchy, and Blanco . Not the 27 Yankees, but enough of a core to build a winner, paired with a good farm and some savvy FA signings. And to Wren's credit, he did build a winner with that
Wren made some good value trades, though several of them didn't work out as intended. McLouth was lauded at the time as a great value trade, but he quickly busted. Uggla trade, again, was lauded for the value, but he quickly became a liability, while Infante would go on to roughly double Uggla's WAR over the same time frame as Uggla's contract. But I won't fault him for Uggla, as it certainly seemed like a steal at the time. Vazquez, Upton, JJ, and Bourn were all great trades that worked out. I have a hard time giving him credit for the Kotchman/LaRoche swap being that he's the one that traded away Tex for Kotchman in the 1st place. And the Angels used the Tex comp pick to draft some player named Trout.
Let's also remember that Wren gave up a 1st round pick to sign a 41 year old Tom Glavine that had just posted a 4.4 ERA the year prior. I think this gets overlooked, but it's one of the 5 worst moves of the Wren era for me.
Also, I don't recall anyone thinking the Upton contract was "fair." I recall most thinking Bourn would end up with the higher contract given he had been the more valuable player. Upton represented the highest FA contract we had ever given out (still is).
I'm not trying to make Wren out to be worse than Coppy. He wasn't. But Wren certainly drafted worse than Coppy and left the farm far worse than when he arrived, with not much hope of competing past 2015 when J-Up and Heyward were heading out of town. It was time to tear it down and considering Wren's failure's at building the farm, I feel confident in saying he was not a good choice moving forward.
Conversely, Coppy the left the major league team far worse than when he arrived, but managed to rebuild the farm. Again, it's debatable whether someone else could have done a better job with the resources available to trade away and the high draft picks we had, but we have to go by the result we have (which is good overall). But his impatience on letting the rebuild take it's course naturally ended up with 2 truly horrific trades and a 3rd one that was nearly as bad. And the rules breaking thing was totes bad too.
Last edited:
MadduxFanII
Swallowed by Mark Bowman
I think it's kind of amusing that we're six years out from the end of the Wren regime and we still haven't heard any details of Wren's terrible behavior. I can buy that the guy was an asshole, but at some point I'd like to hear something more concrete than "he didn't listen to the scouts as much as he should have."
and led to winning the division in 2018 instead of for the first time this year?
Fried took some early lumps and worked out to be a solid #2 now. i'm happy a younger pitcher wasn't targeted.
Not sure if you're remembering the trade correctly. Fried came over from the J-Up trade. And Fried wasn't a guy that was close to the majors. I actually liked this trade quite a bit at the time (and obviously I love it now). The main trades that were quite terrible where guys close to the majors were targeted were the Simmons, Kimbrell, and Olivera trades.
And the moves Coppy made that were bad (Kimbrell, Simmons, and Olivera) largely had no affect on us winning the division in 2018. Newk certainly was a part of that, but being that Simmons was still under the same contract and posted a 6.2 bWAR in 2018, I'm comfortable saying we'd have had a better chance in 2018 with Simba than with Newk.
Last edited:
Southcack77
Well-known member
The only thing I can say about the Oliveira trade is that the Braves were obviously very high on him for some reason. I agree with the sentiment that trading for a 29 year old guy, no matter how good, reflected a desire for a quick rebuild. If he'd been what they thought, that trade would have worked out better but arguably still have been wrong. That's to me the worst trade Coppy made.
I think the Kemp trade was fine. Oliveira was dead money. They took on about 8 million more a year to get a player with some production. They were eventually able to spin him off for dead money they could clear earlier, which gave them some flexibility to add to the club. the big mistake was Oliveira. I don't think unwinding that mistake made it any worse.
lol, none of those trades are that impressive except maybe Bourn. what on earth about those trades you listed is "masterful"? also, must be nice to blame everything bad on the old guard and give credit for everything good to Wren. you should be his agent. if he gets to shed credit for both Tex trades, the "old guard" gets to claim Albies and Acuña. and FWIW, when Wren traded for Upton, he traded a guy who had just put 4.5 fWAR. obviously Upton's upside was much higher and i think everyone would say it was worth the gamble, but Prado was a good player and went on to put up more very solid seasons, albeit outside of Arizona.
the farm system was solid and the team already had talent. Wren acquired very little of the teams that won for those years. most of the pieces were in place. he did provide several completely useless 1st round picks to suplement, tho, and he did make poor FA signings in attempts to supplement, which is a big reason why those teams never went anywhere.
more complete dismissal of Wren's glaring shortcomings. "it's not his fault every single long-term deal he signed players to didn't work out." that's absurd! come on. of course he should take blame for that. it wasn't a one time mistake: it was every single contract! there were pieces in place for him and he fumbled the ball over and over and did a horrible job supplementing a talented team between his poor foresight and poor 1st rounders.
Heyward had one year left on his deal before becoming a FA and commanding a lot of money.
Upton had one year left on his deal before becoming a FA and commanding a lot of money.
Those two years turned into a great year of Shelby Miller, Dansby Swanson, Ender, Max Fried, and i believe Austin Riley. That is hard to pull off not matter who it is you're dealing. Those are great trades. if you seriously get to sit there and pimp the Nate McLouth deal, you cannot sit there and dismiss those ones. your bias is showing bigly.
Coppy was FAR from a wunderkind. he and Wren were roughly equals: pretty average GMs. they both made huge mistakes that handcuffed the team.
Southcack77
Well-known member
To be fair, the team Coppy left won the division the next season. He inherited a team with talent but was coming off a losing season. Most of the talent that was traded away had relatively little remaining control.
I do think in retrospect that Coppy should have traded Teheran rather than extend him, but Teheran was a contributor of sorts for Anthopolous. I would have been ok with trading Teheran, but didn't see the sense in selling low.
Last edited:
the team wasn't far from competing, tho. that's the point here. and yeah i know when Fried came over, my point there was Coppy wasn't targeting all almost-ready guys. Fried was a big gamble with great stuff and it's working out now.
Newcomb made his ML debut the year before the Braves won the division in 2018. so, while the trade was a mistake, and many called it one at the time, i don't think it was a mistake because they targeted a guy close to the majors; Newcomb *did* put up 1.9 fWAR that year while making 30 starts, so he helped a division winning club. again, still a mistake, but not a mistake because of proximity to the majors. Braves also desperately needed pitching, and we know why: Wren.
great breakdown of the Braves farm when Wren arrived.
this move above, however...as critical as i am of Wren, even i give him a pass on this one. it smells way, way too much like the Johns forced that signing because Glavine was Glavine. we'll never know, but my hunch is that was not Wren's decision.