Around Baseball 2015 Edition

[Hawk]

Inheriting a ****ty team? Say what?

He inherited a club that featured Tex, Chipper, Mac, Yunel, KJ, and Prado among others. Now the rotation wasn't fantastic outside of Smoltz and Hudson, but he had an entire offseason to fix that and only brought in JJ and a washed up Tom Glavine (who he wasted a 1st round pick on no less).

Not to mention, he inherited one of the best farms in baseball and when he left it was one of the worst.

The inherited rotation wasn't fantastic? That's like the understatement of the century.

Hudson
Smoltz (40 years old)
Buddy Carlyle
Chuck James
Kyle Davies

The best farms in baseball? You mean the one that had just traded 4 consensus Top 100 prospects?

 

[Carp]

So we've come up with 5 names, only two of whom are actually bad, within the past decade and a half. Eggscellent.

Oh, check out this gem:

Under Wren's direction this season, the Orioles began accumulating young talent at an unprecedented pace, stocking a depleted farm system that had not produced a home-grown, everyday player for the Orioles since Cal Ripken in 1982.

Wren made pitching his focus, acquiring Jason Johnson from Tampa Bay during spring training and getting four young pitchers in trades for Juan Guzman and Harold Baines in July and August. In the June draft, the Orioles held a record 11 of the first 50 picks, and chose pitchers with the first three. In the following weeks, Wren successfully signed the team's 13 highest draft picks.

---

Ring any bells?

Again, first two I thought of without googling. But it's worth noting that GM's do get run out and usually find new GM jobs. How good or bad they are is speculative. And considering GM'S generally keep their jobs for several seasons, I don't think a 15 year span is all that long.

And yet how exactly was the Orioles franchise changed under his campaign? They were worse off after he left than before he came on leaving them with major payroll liabilities from unwise spending. Ring any bells?

 

[BRule]

Where the hell did JD Martinez come from !?!?

I believe I read somewhere that someone in the Tigers system changed his approach/swing when they signed him after Houston ditched him and ever since then he's been a monster.

 

[gilesfan]

Carpe'd

 

[weso1]

I think it's just as possible to believe the Braves fired Wren because they didn't think he was fit to do the rebuild, as it is that he was fired because he didn't want to do the rebuild. I think the Braves wanted to bring Roy Clark et. al. back and they weren't going to do that with Wren at the helm. My guess is Wren probably didn't want to rebuild, but I don't think he would have stomped his feet and held his ground. Imo, he would have done the rebuild if JS and McGuirk wanted him to. I just think JS trusted Clark and his guys to do the rebuild more than they did Wren's guys.

And I think the Braves made the right decision both in deciding to rebuild and going with Roy Clark and his band of merry men.

 

[Hawk]

Again, first two I thought of without googling. But it's worth noting that GM's do get run out and usually find new GM jobs. How good or bad they are is speculative. And considering GM'S generally keep their jobs for several seasons, I don't think a 15 year span is all that long.

And yet how exactly was the Orioles franchise changed under his campaign? They were worse off after he left than before he came on leaving them with major payroll liabilities from unwise spending. Ring any bells?

No, it's not 'speculative' in the slightest. It's pretty easy to determine whether or not a GM was successful or not. Wren was -- that's not debatable, so I'm not quite sure why you are even wasting the breath.

The quote I sourced had nothing to do with Wren's performance as GM of the Orioles, but the eerie coincidence between his grand plan and the plan the Braves are currently attempting to execute.

 

[Carp]

The inherited rotation wasn't fantastic? That's like the understatement of the century.

Hudson

Smoltz (40 years old)

Buddy Carlyle

Chuck James

Kyle Davies

The best farms in baseball? You mean the one that had just traded 4 consensus Top 100 prospects?

No mention of the all star lineup he inherited? Again, he had an entire offseason to improve the rotation and brought in two pitchers, one of which was even older than Smoltz. The other was a rookie. What a great gameplan.

And despite the 1st Tex trade, we still were rated one of the better farms in the league. With players like Heyward, Hanson, Locke, Schafer, etc.

 

[yeezus]

So to clarify, who thinks Wren was a bad GM?
I don't.
Do good GMs/employees sometimes get let go?
Yup.
Should we have tried to go for it this year?
I have to question your sanity if you say "yes."

 

[yeezus]

And yeah, I think saying the team was ****ty when Wren got here is very untrue, and our farm wasn't terrible by any means. It's not like he resurrected a terrible organization.

 

[thewupk]

So to clarify, who thinks Wren was a bad GM?

I don't.

Do good GMs/employees sometimes get let go?

Yup.

Should we have tried to go for it this year?

I have to question your sanity if you say "yes."

Well the NL East is like the worst division in the league. One of the reasons given by the front office in the offseason was that the Nationals were just too strong to overcome. The same Nats team that's like .500 right now. As we can see anything can happen. Those posters saying we had no chance to beat out the Nats this year were wrong.

 

[gilesfan]

No mention of the all star lineup he inherited? Again, he had an entire offseason to improve the rotation and brought in two pitchers, one of which was even older than Smoltz. The other was a rookie. What a great gameplan.

And despite the 1st Tex trade, we still were rated one of the better farms in the league. With players like Heyward, Hanson, Locke, Schafer, etc.

Wren inherited a team with:

McCann
Tex (wanting to leave)
Chipper (35)
KJ

then:

Renteria (30)
Matt Diaz
Andruw Jones (30)
Francoeur
Prado
Escobar

With a pitching staff of:

Hudson
Smoltz (40)
Buddy Carlyle
Chuck James
Kyle Davies
Jo-Jo Reyes
Lance Cormier

Personally, I would assume it would be difficult to add 4 starting pitchers in 1 offseason.

 

[Hawk]

Should we have tried to go for it this year?
I have to question your sanity if you say "yes."

Acknowledging that Wren was a good GM ≠ Supporting 'going for it' in 2015.

 

[yeezus]

Acknowledging that Wren was a good GM ≠ Supporting 'going for it' in 2015.

Didn't say that was the case.

 

[Hawk]

Moves under the new ownership suggest the Braves will continue their commitment to player development. In the last year when draft-and-follows were in play, Atlanta signed seven, most notably lefthander Cole Rohrbough for $675,000. They dropped another $4.9 million on the draft and made a significant splash on the international market in July by signing Colombian righthander Julio Tehran for $850,000.

Wren also acted quickly to keep continuity in the player development and scouting departments, giving two-year contract extensions to scouting director Roy Clark, farm director Kurt Kemp and director of Latin American operations Johnny Almaraz. Clark, the game's longest-tenured scouting director, enters his 10th season in that position and his 19th overall with Atlanta.

As with the front office, the farm system also has gone through upheaval. The Braves used 18 rookies when they won the NL East in 2005, and they've continued to incorporate young talent the last two seasons. They also shipped five prospects to the Rangers for Mark Teixeira at the trading deadline, including the top three prospects on this list a year ago—catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, shortstop Elvis Andrus, lefthander Matt Harrison—and one of their most electric arms, righty Neftali Feliz.

Yet Atlanta hasn't gutted its system. They may not have as many big names, but the Braves still have plenty of promising lefthanded starters and sluggers with all-around games. The best of the young southpaws (Rohrbough, Jeff Locke, Steve Evarts and Chad Rodgers) were all products of the 2007 draft. The first three players the Braves signed out of the 2007 draft (outfielder Jason Heyward, third baseman Jon Gilmore and first baseman Freddie Freeman) added to their collection of athletes with power bats, which already included outfielders Jordan Schafer and Brandon Jones.

 

[Hawk]

Didn't say that was the case.

Well, you are the only one that he has brought up the 'going for it' argument in the context of this discussion (twice, actually), so I'm not sure exactly how else to take the comment.

 

[yeezus]

Well the NL East is like the worst division in the league. One of the reasons given by the front office in the offseason was that the Nationals were just too strong to overcome. The same Nats team that's like .500 right now. As we can see anything can happen. Those posters saying we had no chance to beat out the Nats this year were wrong.

I still don't hold it against them that they looked at what the Nats had and said "well, ****." Because we all did the same, and so did like, everyone in baseball. Their struggles are certainly crazier than ours were last year, and they've suffered a ton of super important injuries.

And we wouldn't be beating out the Mets this year, either. Our pitching has been way too weak to compete with them, AND we wouldn't have had the guy who has been by far our best pitcher if we kept the team in tact. So it would've been even worse.

I don't think going for it this year would've been wise at all, and I don't blame the FO for noping-out of that.

 

[Julio3000]

And yeah, I think saying the team was ****ty when Wren got here is very untrue, and our farm wasn't terrible by any means. It's not like he resurrected a terrible organization.

"****ty" is subjective, but it was a 72-win club.

Making starts for the 2008 Braves:

Jorge Campillo: 22
Jo-Jo Reyes: 25
Chuck James: 7
James Freaking Parr: 5

Yeah, that club was in great shape.

 

[yeezus]

Well, you are the only one that he has brought up the 'going for it' argument in the context of this discussion (twice, actually), so I'm not sure exactly how else to take the comment.

ok dude. i acknowledged wren's GM work in the same quote you referenced, so I'm not sure what to tell you.

 

[thewupk]

I still don't hold it against them that they looked at what the Nats had and said "well, ****." Because we all did the same, and so did like, everyone in baseball. Their struggles are certainly crazier than ours were last year, and they've suffered a ton of super important injuries.

And we wouldn't be beating out the Mets this year, either. Our pitching has been way too weak to compete with them, AND we wouldn't have had the guy who has been by far our best pitcher if we kept the team in tact. So it would've been even worse.

I don't think going for it this year would've been wise at all, and I don't blame the FO for noping-out of that.

It was a reasonable decision. But it's not like the Mets are world beaters either. And we could have traded Heyward for Miller and still gone for it.

 

[Hawk]

ok dude. i acknowledged wren's GM work in the same quote you referenced, so I'm not sure what to tell you.

And that's fine, so long as you are willing to reconcile that people can appreciate the new direction while still respecting the old one (even if it did intend to field a competitive team in 2015 .... *gasp*).