Article breaking down Wren's tenure

E

Enscheff

Well-known member
There is a very good article over on Talking Chop that breaks down pretty much every move Wren made as GM of the Braves. When listed like this it is clear he was a VERY solid GM that was able to get the Braves back in the playoffs quickly after JS pretty much gutted the team in his last ditch effort to make a playoff push with the Tex trade.

http://www.talkingchop.com/2014/9/26/6848977/frank-wrens-tenure-in-atlanta-a-deep-dive

I do find the suggestion that Wren basically had no say in giving Fredi the manager job since Bobby hand picked him already very interesting. I wonder just how much more success this team may have had with a manager picked by Wren that he may have had a better working relationship with.

Here is the bullet list from the article (I added a * to particularly good moves). I think I lot of people forget just how good moves like the trades for JJ, Vaz, Bourn, Uggla (not extension), Jup and signings like Harang, Santana, and a number of BP reclamation projects really were. Some of them verged on brilliant, to be perfectly honest.

Bad decisions:
• Uggla’s extension
• Chris Johnson’s extension
• Releasing Juan Francisco
• Trading Teixeira for Casey Kotchman
• Signing Garret Anderson

Bad Outcomes:
• BJ Upton’s contract
• Derek Lowe’s contract
• Trading for Ryan Doumit
• DFA of Kelly Johnson
• Signing Chad Durbin

Good Decisions:
• Trading for Jair Jurrjens*
• Trading for Omar Infante
• Signing Rafael Soriano
• Signing Matt Diaz
• Signing Eric O’Flaherty
• Signing David Ross
• Trading for Javier Vazquez*
• Trading Javier Vazquez
• Trading for Adam LaRoche
• Signing Eric Hinske
• Trading for Rick Ankiel
• Signing Billy Wagner
• Trading for Derick Lee
• Trading for Dan Uggla*
• Trading for Juan Francisco
• Trading for Paul Maholm and Reed Johnson
• Trading for Michael Bourn*
• Trading for Justin Upton*
• Extending core guys besides Johnson
• Signing Aaron Harang*
• Signing Ervin Santana*
 
I think the main issue that led to his firing was the sense that he and Manno were not working well with some of the other key parts of the front office and scouting and development departments. He didn't have the support of the organization when he tried to fire Fredi and undoubtedly was actively opposed by Bobby on that one. Small group politics was his downfall. It is difficult to judge as an outsider whether the issues about him and Manno fitting in and being able to work with others were serious enough to warrant his firing.
 
I still disagree that letting go of Francisco was "bad." The guy can't play defense and can't really hit either. He had a good month or two this year but he's not a good player. That was a nothing move.
 
A lot of those good decisions are really at the margins (Diaz, Hinske, R. Johnson, Ankiel, Lee) so it's difficult to me to give him a big plus on those.

He was at his best in the trade market and he pulled off some very good trades.

No mention of Kawakami?

Nice to see that the guys over at Talking Chop still think Kelly Johnson is a future Hall of Famer. I suppose he could have been traded instead of non-tendered (he wasn't DFA'd), but he's become a journeyman.

yeezus, only problem I have with the way Francisco's departure was handled is that they got nothing of note for him after giving up a projectable arm in Hoover (who may or may not turn out to be a solid big league contributor). But I agree with your basic assessment of Francisco.
 
yeezus said:
I still disagree that letting go of Francisco was "bad." The guy can't play defense and can't really hit either. He had a good month or two this year but he's not a good player. That was a nothing move.
Click to expand...

It was a very bad move. Juan Fran was the bench bat. When we cut him we were carrying 5 outfielders with both Schafer and Reed Johnson on the bench who can't play anywhere but the bench. I supported starting CJ cause you go with the hot hand. That said I don't think Fredi could have successfully utilized Juan Fran.

Look at CJ and Juan Fran as a platoon animal this year.

El Juan Chubbard (I heart that name) had a 123 wRC+ against righties and a 9 wRC+ against lefties. Johnson has a 182 wRC+ vs LHP and 58 vs RHP. Defensively it's at worst a push with the 2 of them as well. Again, don't think Frediot could have utilized them (see using CJ as a defensive replacement and ignoring pitchers with nasty reverse splits)
 
One point, I have always wondered why Billy Wagner signed a one year deal with the option year and then almost immediately said one and done, maybe the friction between Bobby and Frank? Had Bobby announced 2010 was it before Wagner signed?
 
50PoundHead said:
Nice to see that the guys over at Talking Chop still think Kelly Johnson is a future Hall of Famer. I suppose he could have been traded instead of non-tendered (he wasn't DFA'd), but he's become a journeyman..
Click to expand...

KJ is hardly a future HOFer. But the way he was treated by the Braves everyone knew he'd be a non-tender, no one was biting on him. He was too talented and for the **** we had in LF that year (Melky, Hinske, and Diaz) maybe if we didn't cut KJ, we could have not taken Melky back in the Yankees trade and got a prospect and never had that whole Melky experiment.
 
50PoundHead said:
A lot of those good decisions are really at the margins (Diaz, Hinske, R. Johnson, Ankiel, Lee) so it's difficult to me to give him a big plus on those.

He was at his best in the trade market and he pulled off some very good trades.

No mention of Kawakami?

Nice to see that the guys over at Talking Chop still think Kelly Johnson is a future Hall of Famer. I suppose he could have been traded instead of non-tendered (he wasn't DFA'd), but he's become a journeyman.

yeezus, only problem I have with the way Francisco's departure was handled is that they got nothing of note for him after giving up a projectable arm in Hoover (who may or may not turn out to be a solid big league contributor). But I agree with your basic assessment of Francisco.
Click to expand...

If the author is going to count the marginal moves that worked out, he also needs to count the ones that didn't (like Proctor).
 
zitothebrave said:
KJ is hardly a future HOFer. But the way he was treated by the Braves everyone knew he'd be a non-tender, no one was biting on him. He was too talented and for the **** we had in LF that year (Melky, Hinske, and Diaz) maybe if we didn't cut KJ, we could have not taken Melky back in the Yankees trade and got a prospect and never had that whole Melky experiment.
Click to expand...

And yet, somehow, Cabrera's and Johnson's career WAR is exactly the same as I write this (17.1).
 
Jeez, I hate to rehash this old ****, but giving up KJ for nothing seemed dumb at the time and dumb in retrospect. The guy was not Mike Mordecai or Ed Giovanola. He had value.

Not that it's a big deal in the long term, but still . . .
 
50PoundHead said:
And yet, somehow, Cabrera's and Johnson's career WAR is exactly the same as I write this (17.1).
Click to expand...

fWAR has Melky at 11.7 and KJ at 16.9. According to both fWAR and rWAR the bulk of his WAR came from his 2 years after he left the Braves, including the one where he was suspended for PEDs.
 
nsacpi said:
I think the main issue that led to his firing was the sense that he and Manno were not working well with some of the other key parts of the front office and scouting and development departments. He didn't have the support of the organization when he tried to fire Fredi and undoubtedly was actively opposed by Bobby on that one. Small group politics was his downfall. It is difficult to judge as an outsider whether the issues about him and Manno fitting in and being able to work with others were serious enough to warrant his firing.
Click to expand...

I think in the end Wren's ultimate downfall was due to attendance/money. The fact of the matter was that attendance is in decline and interest in the Braves is becoming more apathetic. When that happens the guy in charge of making moves for the team has to go. I think Wren is a good GM. A top ten GM because of his ability to make trades whilest keeping his best homegrown talent. That's impressive right there. I mean we got Justin Upton for almost nothing. Even his trades that didn't work out in the end were great on paper.

Well, I'll say Wren had two downfalls. His horrible free agent signings and what I mentioned in the paragraph above.
 
VirginiaBrave said:
One point, I have always wondered why Billy Wagner signed a one year deal with the option year and then almost immediately said one and done, maybe the friction between Bobby and Frank? Had Bobby announced 2010 was it before Wagner signed?
Click to expand...

Think it was strictly that he wanted to be managed by Cox. Side benefit was that he was the ideal mentor to Kimbrel & Venters.
 
Rick Ankiel was ****ing horrible! Yeah, he hit a home run in the post season. blah. He was still horrible.

Gave up Tim Collins who is still pitching well in the playoff bound KC pen, Gregor Blanco who is playing 144 games a year for the playoff bound giants in a position of incredible need and would have prevented the BJ disaster had he been given the job and not traded, and Jesse Chavez who is currently in the playoff bound Oakland pen. Yes, Farnsworth was included in the deal coming to Atl too, but **** that. This was a terrible trade. How different would things look today with a cheap yet servicable Blanco in center and Collins in the bullpen. Rick Ankiel who had three hits in his entire Atlanta was a good trade...LOL!
 
2 I will disagree with are Javier Vazquez* actually not the trade, but that he didn't trade him when his value was at his peak after numbers everyone knew were unsustainable, we got much less by waiting till he fell off.

The other is Uggla, while again I won't disagree with the actual trade what I do disagree with is the haste at which they extended him when they had time to see how it played out in Atlanta.
 
Vasquez was interesting.

He pitched the best year ever in his career for us... he was a guy Bobby ALWAYS wanted on his staff, and Bobby & Bravos were a match that Javy always wanted.

When he retired he said the only team he'd play for is Atlanta. I'm amazed that we let him go like that, and I'm also amazed and can only think what if, we had acquired him in his younger prime years instead of the Yankees. Might have lived up to his potential.
 
Enscheff said:
There is a very good article over on Talking Chop that breaks down pretty much every move Wren made as GM of the Braves. When listed like this it is clear he was a VERY solid GM that was able to get the Braves back in the playoffs quickly after JS pretty much gutted the team in his last ditch effort to make a playoff push with the Tex trade.

http://www.talkingchop.com/2014/9/26/6848977/frank-wrens-tenure-in-atlanta-a-deep-dive

I do find the suggestion that Wren basically had no say in giving Fredi the manager job since Bobby hand picked him already very interesting. I wonder just how much more success this team may have had with a manager picked by Wren that he may have had a better working relationship with.

Here is the bullet list from the article (I added a * to particularly good moves). I think I lot of people forget just how good moves like the trades for JJ, Vaz, Bourn, Uggla (not extension), Jup and signings like Harang, Santana, and a number of BP reclamation projects really were. Some of them verged on brilliant, to be perfectly honest.

Bad decisions:

• Uggla’s extension

• Chris Johnson’s extension

• Releasing Juan Francisco

• Trading Teixeira for Casey Kotchman

• Signing Garret Anderson

Bad Outcomes:

• BJ Upton’s contract

• Derek Lowe’s contract

• Trading for Ryan Doumit

• DFA of Kelly Johnson

• Signing Chad Durbin

Good Decisions:

• Trading for Jair Jurrjens*

• Trading for Omar Infante

• Signing Rafael Soriano

• Signing Matt Diaz

• Signing Eric O’Flaherty

• Signing David Ross

• Trading for Javier Vazquez*

• Trading Javier Vazquez

• Trading for Adam LaRoche

• Signing Eric Hinske

• Trading for Rick Ankiel

• Signing Billy Wagner

• Trading for Derick Lee

• Trading for Dan Uggla*

• Trading for Juan Francisco

• Trading for Paul Maholm and Reed Johnson

• Trading for Michael Bourn*

• Trading for Justin Upton*

• Extending core guys besides Johnson

• Signing Aaron Harang*

• Signing Ervin Santana*
Click to expand...

Why was Durbin a bad move? He had almost a career year while in ATL?
 
jcc03004 said:
Why was Durbin a bad move? He had almost a career year while in ATL?
Click to expand...

Because having Chad Durbin's almost-career year still means you have Chad Durbin.

I checked out his B-R page and was entertained by his top 5 comps:

1) Tanyon Sturtze

The Rays used him as a starter for a couple of years. He was durable, pitching 224 innings in 2002. He didn't miss bats—he led the league in hits allowed. He apparently tried to avoid giving up hits by instead giving up walks. He also led the league in BB.

2) Albie Lopez

Cried a little.

3) Jorge Sosa

Jorge, mi amigo, you may never have cracked league average before or since, but we'll always have 2005.

4) Jason Grimsley

Crawled through an HVAC duct to steal Albert Belle's corked bat from a locked room in Comiskey Park. Was suspended by MLB for drug use. Admitted to using steroids, HGH, and amphetamines. Note that his career highlights don't include any actual on-field performances.

5) Chad Gaudin

This is the guy whom I thought that Chad Durbin was, most of the time.
 
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