AA's Failure

[Julio3000]

I’m generally fine with AA, although his off-season is certainly fair game for criticism.

What’s really dampened my enthusiasm for the franchise is the ownership and upper-echelon management. This has simmered for years of being a line-item on the balance sheet of a big corporation, but came to a boil for me over the course of the last few years—the move to Cobb County, the international signing goat rodeo, and the continued kicking of the can down the road as to when they’re going to start putting money into the product on the field.

I think last year’s success papered over a lot of cracks, and to a degree inoculated management against criticism. I could very well be wrong, and hope that I am, but right now it feels like we’re going to burn another couple of years of cheap service time while paying down Battery debt.

 

[Enscheff]

Some of it is semantics. As I understand it your complaint with AA is not about risk aversion but about the discount rate for future season wins.

As I understand it, other posters (striker for one) have a beef with AA being risk averse. In some cases the posts that you responded to were directed more to him than anyone else. Some of his arguments seem confused. For example, take this sentence:

"It's the fact that AA was willing to go into the season with huge holes in the lineup rather than take a risk or two."

Seems to me he is simultaneously criticizing AA for taking risks with young pitchers and injury prone pitchers (in earlier posts) and taking risks with holes in the lineup while urging him to take a risk or two.

Is that semantics? Not really. It is logic. Or lack thereof.

I think we can cut through some of this confusion by being honest in acknowledging that ANY plan for building a team involves taking risks. Maybe the disagreement with what AA did has to do with the particular risks he took. But any alternative to be put forward also has risks. Is it really riskiness or risk aversion that is the basis for the complaints about what AA did?

Striker very clearly used “risk” in the same sense I use it...risking future wins to buy current wins. He claimed AA left holes in the roster rather than risking future assets to fill them.

Again, arguing what folks mean when they say “risk” is just arguing semantics. It is pretty clear we are talking about risking future wins in an attempt to buy current wins.

AA doesn’t want to risk Anderson becoming the next Syndergaard, or risk tying cash up into the next Kemp, so we are stuck watching value purchases. I think it’s clear AA put too high a premium on potential future wins, and I call it being risk averse. Call it whatever you want, but the idea is pretty clear and consistent throughout the entire discussion among several people.

Arguing over what term is being used isn’t advancing the discussion at all, and when discussions move into arguing over semantics is when I typically just bow out.

 

[nsacpi]

Striker very clearly used “risk” in the same sense I use it...risking future wins to buy current wins. He claimed AA left holes in the roster rather than risking future assets to fill them.

Again, arguing what folks mean when they say “risk” is just arguing semantics. It is pretty clear we are talking about risking future wins in an attempt to buy current wins.

AA doesn’t want to risk Anderson becoming the next Syndergaard, or risk tying cash up into the next Kemp, so we are stuck watching value purchases. I think it’s clear AA put too high a premium on potential future wins, and I call it being risk averse.

Arguing over what term is being used isn’t advancing the discussion at all, and when discussions move into arguing over semantics is when I typically just bow out.

ok...as I understand then you and striker are criticizing him for not being willing to trade future wins for 2019 wins...is that fair

 

[striker42]

Some of it is semantics. As I understand it your complaint with AA is not about risk aversion but about the discount rate for future season wins.

As I understand it, other posters (striker for one) have a beef with AA being risk averse. In some cases the posts that you responded to were directed more to him than anyone else. Some of his arguments seem confused. For example, take this sentence:

"It's the fact that AA was willing to go into the season with huge holes in the lineup rather than take a risk or two."

Seems to me he is simultaneously criticizing AA for taking risks with young pitchers and injury prone pitchers (in earlier posts) and taking risks with holes in the lineup while urging him to take a risk or two.

Is that semantics? Not really. It is logic. Or lack thereof.

I think we can cut through some of this confusion by being honest in acknowledging that ANY plan for building a team involves taking risks. Maybe the disagreement with what AA did has to do with the particular risks he took. But any alternative to be put forward also has risks. Is it really riskiness or risk aversion that is the basis for the complaints about what AA did?

Whenever a GM makes a move, there's the risk that they're making things worse. It's that risk that AA appears averse to. AA has been so hesitant to make a move that might be overpaying, he ends up with an end result that is likely worse than if he had just taken the risks.

Imagine a squirrel caught in the middle of the highway. It doesn't know whether to dash left or right. Either direction carries risk. Being so afraid of the danger presented by left or right, the squirrel stays where it is and gets run over. The fear of running into a worse situation led to a guaranteed bad situation. That's the problem we're talking about.

 

[nsacpi]

Whenever a GM makes a move, there's the risk that they're making things worse. It's that risk that AA appears averse to. AA has been so hesitant to make a move that might be overpaying, he ends up with an end result that is likely worse than if he had just taken the risks.

Imagine a squirrel caught in the middle of the highway. It doesn't know whether to dash left or right. Either direction carries risk. Being so afraid of the danger presented by left or right, the squirrel stays where it is and gets run over. The fear of running into a worse situation led to a guaranteed bad situation. That's the problem we're talking about.

so your criticism is deer (or squirrel) in headlights syndrome...or paralysis due to past trauma from his tenure in Toronto

 

[Enscheff]

ok...as I understand then you and striker are criticizing him for not being willing to trade future wins for 2019 wins...is that fair

That’s literally what everyone has been criticizing him for over the last 10 pages. The contextual meaning of “risk” has been well established for weeks and months as this discussion has dragged on. Questioning what everyone is talking about seems a bit silly now.

The only variation from anyone in the entire discussion is how many future wins he should have cashed in for 2019 wins.

 

[striker42]

so your criticism is deer (or squirrel) in headlights syndrome...or paralysis due to past trauma from his tenure in Toronto

eh, more being paralyzed by the prospect of overpaying and costing us future wins. The status quo is a bad roster (squirrel in the middle of the road). Signing a starter is to the left but that way might be overpaying and costing us future wins. To the right is trading for an OF, but what if the trade doesn't pan out and it ends up hurting us?

In the end he stays with the status quo and gets run over.

 

[Southcack77]

eh, more being paralyzed by the prospect of overpaying and costing us future wins. The status quo is a bad roster (squirrel in the middle of the road). Signing a starter is to the left but that way might be overpaying and costing us future wins. To the right is trading for an OF, but what if the trade doesn't pan out and it ends up hurting us?

In the end he stays with the status quo and gets run over.

I do not know why you folks need the decision to have been a result of psychological damage or maximizing bonuses, or toadying to his superiors.

What's wrong with it being his dispassionate analysis of what was best for the baseball team?

You still get to disagree with that, but I guess it isn't really as satisfying as alleging a character flaw?

 

[nsacpi]

I do not know why you folks need the decision to have been a result of psychological damage or maximizing bonuses, or toadying to his superiors.

What's wrong with it being his dispassionate analysis of what was best for the baseball team?

You still get to disagree with that, but I guess it isn't really as satisfying as alleging a character flaw?

the pseudo-psychoanalytical and conspiratorial angles are more in tune with our zeitgeist

 

[striker42]

I do not know why you folks need the decision to have been a result of psychological damage or maximizing bonuses, or toadying to his superiors.

What's wrong with it being his dispassionate analysis of what was best for the baseball team?

You still get to disagree with that, but I guess it isn't really as satisfying as alleging a character flaw?

Honestly, it's far more generous to AA to attribute his failure to fix certain holes on aversion to risking future wins or just a hesitancy to commit and limit his options. If he honestly believes this is the best possible team, the problem is far worse than any of us think.

 

[nsacpi]

Honestly, it's far more generous to AA to attribute his failure to fix certain holes on aversion to risking future wins or just a hesitancy to commit and limit his options. If he honestly believes this is the best possible team, the problem is far worse than any of us think.

that's mighty generous of you to spin it that way

alternative possibility: he sees no urgency to cash in 2020 or 2021 wins for 2019 wins and prefers to increase the win total over the entire horizon

 

[CyYoung31]

I do not know why you folks need the decision to have been a result of psychological damage or maximizing bonuses, or toadying to his superiors.

What's wrong with it being his dispassionate analysis of what was best for the baseball team?

You still get to disagree with that, but I guess it isn't really as satisfying as alleging a character flaw?

This.

 

[Hudson2]

that's mighty generous of you to spin it that way

alternative possibility: he sees no urgency to cash in 2020 or 2021 wins for 2019 wins and prefers to increase the win total over the entire horizon

That’s the double edged sword here. You don’t keep putting off wins to the next year then the next. FF will be needing another contract and all the young guys will be getting more expensive. The future isn’t guaranteed so play for now and try to trade as little of the future away as possible. We don’t know what prospects will pan out and which ones will make it so it’s a gamble. 2019 should have been a year to slowly start pushing in your chips to win now and that just didn’t happen. And if guys like Anderson, Wright, Touki, Riley etc have a really down year then we have taken an even bigger step back bc we have less capital to trade. And a few of those guys will flame out unfortunately.

 

[thewupk]

this got quiet after the Braves 8-0 win

 

[striker42]

that's mighty generous of you to spin it that way

alternative possibility: he sees no urgency to cash in 2020 or 2021 wins for 2019 wins and prefers to increase the win total over the entire horizon

That would be an extremely bad decision. The window is open and there's no guarantee it's going to stay open. You don't delay when your team is good enough to compete. Especially not when you're a mid-market team like Atlanta who can't lengthen their window by spending huge amounts of cash. His hesitancy to fill holes could end up costing us a year in our window of competition. That's a huge problem.

 

[bravesfanMatt]

this got quiet after the Braves 8-0 win

It’s sort of went quiet before the win to be honest. But unfortunately even that win last night has the stench of cubs ineptness slathered all over it. To me that game feels like it could’ve been very different if we played a team who had their crap together

 

[nsacpi]

Cubs are a good team going through a bad stretch. There are probably several Cubs equivalents to this thread. They had a quiet off-season too.

 

[thewupk]

It’s sort of went quiet before the win to be honest. But unfortunately even that win last night has the stench of cubs ineptness slathered all over it. To me that game feels like it could’ve been very different if we played a team who had their crap together

Braves had some help but they will score runs. To me the biggest issue with the Cubs last night was them letting Newk get away with his terrible control yet again. A 9 BB/9 with a 429 BABIP and 0 runs? Cubs let him off the hook a lot.

 

[bravesfanMatt]

Braves had some help but they will score runs. To me the biggest issue with the Cubs last night was them letting Newk get away with his terrible control yet again. A 9 BB/9 with a 429 BABIP and 0 runs? Cubs let him off the hook a lot.

Many will look and laugh at the defense. And rightfully so. But I 100% agree with you. Not slapping Newk around last night would have pissed me off more than the crappy D if I were a smelly cubs fan. There were guys who bailed him out by swinging at pitches out of the zone. Newk was far worse than his final line indicates.

 

[striker42]

this got quiet after the Braves 8-0 win

For me, the results of the early season aren't really a factor. The season could not have started yet and this thread would still work. The issue is the roster, not the record. Shane Carle and Luke Jackson taking up legitimate pen spots, rookies starting our second and third games of the season, failure to upgrade the OF, etc.

The team could end up winning the division and it wouldn't make the offseason good. This roster could have been much better.