GDT 6/17. Padres game 4

Super said:
when all a team needs is 3 players and 0 pitchers, let me know.
it's kind of crazy how little young ML talent was on the roster when wren departed. even crazier the complete lack of pitching pretty much anywhere in the organization.
who were the young, controllable ML assets when wren was fired? simmons, gattis, wood and ..?
i would hesitate to say any org that is devoid of any pitching at all is set up nicely for a rebuild.
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i would also argue that we had an unbelievable run of bad luck with starting pitching getting hurt or failing to reach their potential: Jurrjens, Hanson, Medlen, Beachy, Minor. There is always attrition with pitching. But I don't think any team would survive that run of luck. Imagine if Bumgarner, Cain and Lincecum had similar premature ends to their careers due to injury.
 
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Super said:
this a bad argument every time it's made.
soroka was drafted in the last 1st. better pick than any of the pitchers wren drafted.
our picks after the 1st round have been better than most of wren's picks in the 1st.
he drafted poorly.

it's also fairly telling that the best thing wren "did" (the int'l market) is the part that the GM likely has the least direct control over.
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you can always cherry pick a few picks here and there that turned out unusually well or badly...but I think any assessment has to look at where the team has been picking...that makes a yuge difference
 
nsacpi said:
good point

our top pick in in 2014 was #32, in 2013 #31, in 2012 #21, in 2010 #28, and in 2009 #35

the expected return in those spots is much lower than the top 10 picks we have been enjoying the last few years...people overlook that
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It should be pointed out that the Braves picked low in the draft for just about all of J.S.'s career and never reached a place where they needed to dissolve the major league roster.

And the expectation for J.S. was to win every year as well.

Wren had a fair amount of talent in the pipeline when he took over. To be fair to Wren, he has some terrible luck with the pitching. And while I disliked some of the signings that turned out to be disasters he probably didn't deserve for all of them to go so disastrously. That was probably pretty unlucky.
 
Super said:
soroka was drafted in the last 1st. better pick than any of the pitchers wren drafted.
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btw Soroka was the #28 pick in 2015...Alex Wood was the #85 pick in 2012

as I said you can always cherry pick...not a good way to answer the question of whether a team drafted well or not

but draft position definitely is an important factor to control for...here is a study that shows in graphical form how quickly expected value drops off within the first round...

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/38198/prospectus-feature-draft-value-calculator/

if your first two picks are #5 and #45, you should expect a lot more than if your first two picks are #35 and #75
 
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Southcack77 said:
It should be pointed out that the Braves picked low in the draft for just about all of J.S.'s career and never reached a place where they needed to dissolve the major league roster.

And the expectation for J.S. was to win every year as well.

Wren had a fair amount of talent in the pipeline when he took over. To be fair to Wren, he has some terrible luck with the pitching. And while I disliked some of the signings that turned out to be disasters he probably didn't deserve for all of them to go so disastrously. That was probably pretty unlucky.
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You conveniently forgot to mention that JS had a payroll in the Top 5 almost his entire tenure as GM, and Top 10 right up to the end.

The moment they stopped being a Top 10 payroll, they stopped winning divisions. JS stepped down as GM at that time and Wren took over with a payroll dead in the middle of the pack.

This revisionist history is laughable, as if JS and Wren were at all dealing with the similar circumstances. JS operated with one of the largest payrolls in baseball, Wren...not so much.
 
Southcack77 said:
It should be pointed out that the Braves picked low in the draft for just about all of J.S.'s career and never reached a place where they needed to dissolve the major league roster.

And the expectation for J.S. was to win every year as well.

Wren had a fair amount of talent in the pipeline when he took over. To be fair to Wren, he has some terrible luck with the pitching. And while I disliked some of the signings that turned out to be disasters he probably didn't deserve for all of them to go so disastrously. That was probably pretty unlucky.
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one difference though is the compensation system was different in the JS era, so we often had extra picks in the early rounds.

for example in 2001 we picked Macay McBride, Josh Burrus, and Richard Lewis with first round or supplemental first round picks...a spectacularly poor draft...we also had 2 second round picks that year

in 2006 we took Cody Johnson, Corey Rasmus and Steven Evarts with first round or supplemental first round picks.
 
Super said:
this a bad argument every time it's made.
soroka was drafted in the last 1st. better pick than any of the pitchers wren drafted.
our picks after the 1st round have been better than most of wren's picks in the 1st.
he drafted poorly.

it's also fairly telling that the best thing wren "did" (the int'l market) is the part that the GM likely has the least direct control over.
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Using this logic, Wren's drafting of Simmons in the 2nd was better than all of Coppys picks therefore Wren was a better drafter
 
JS also had five HOF caliber players for a majority of his tenure. Some of which he inherited and another because he had big checks he could write. JS constently left glaring holes in his teams.
 
the Simmons and Wood picks alone will make the Wren year drafts look averagish...Simmons has generated 20.8 WAR so far and the book is not quite closed on the pre-free angency eligibility period of his career. The book on Wood wont close until the end of the 2019 season and he is at 12.9.

I'm not saying the Wren drafts were great. But after you control for draft position they were not bad.
 
nsacpi said:
the Simmons and Wood picks alone will make the Wren year drafts look averagish...Simmons has generated 20.8 WAR so far and the book is not quite closed on the pre-free angency eligibility period of his career. The book on Wood wont close until the end of the 2019 season and he is at 12.9.

I'm not saying the Wren drafts were great. But after you control for draft position they were not bad.
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Let's not forget Craig Kimbrel, who provided 14.3 fWAR in his pre-free agent years.

And Gattis who is trending towards 9fWAR in pre free agent years.
 
nsacpi said:
good point

our top pick in in 2014 was #32, in 2013 #31, in 2012 #21, in 2010 #28, and in 2009 #35

the expected return in those spots is much lower than the top 10 picks we have been enjoying the last few years...people overlook that
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Wren's drafts were terrible.

Our drafts the last 3 years, and this year look better than any draft Wren ever had. I dont get the people who think Wren is a reason for the Braves becoming good again.
 
People seem to focus solely on the stats put up by players acquired or traded by a GM. They seem to forget that the GM is far more than just the guy who constructs the roster. The GM is responsible for managing the organization as a whole. There's a whole side to the job that's business and management of people and if a GM isn't good at that, it's a problem.

When Wren was fired you had people within the organization speaking up about how much they hated working for Wren. It's something we should have seen coming considering how the scouting department hemorrhaged talent under Wren. I would say that this played as big a role in Wren's demise as his struggles to keep the pipe filled with talent.

Interestingly, Hart and Coppy were probably more hated than Wren. People working for the Braves were apparently terrified to say anything that could even be construed as expressing a difference of opinion from the brass. DOB was on Olney's podcast after Coppy got fired saying he was shocked at the number of people coming out of the woodwork thrilled that Coppy was going down.

One thing anyone who has worked in any business can see is that if your managers don't know how to handle their subordinates, the talent will go elsewhere and you'll be left with the dregs that can't find anywhere better.
 
striker42 said:
People seem to focus solely on the stats put up by players acquired or traded by a GM. They seem to forget that the GM is far more than just the guy who constructs the roster. The GM is responsible for managing the organization as a whole. There's a whole side to the job that's business and management of people and if a GM isn't good at that, it's a problem.

When Wren was fired you had people within the organization speaking up about how much they hated working for Wren. It's something we should have seen coming considering how the scouting department hemorrhaged talent under Wren. I would say that this played as big a role in Wren's demise as his struggles to keep the pipe filled with talent.

Interestingly, Hart and Coppy were probably more hated than Wren. People working for the Braves were apparently terrified to say anything that could even be construed as expressing a difference of opinion from the brass. DOB was on Olney's podcast after Coppy got fired saying he was shocked at the number of people coming out of the woodwork thrilled that Coppy was going down.

One thing anyone who has worked in any business can see is that if your managers don't know how to handle their subordinates, the talent will go elsewhere and you'll be left with the dregs that can't find anywhere better.
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I agree there was a large degree of dysfunctionality in both regimes. A good manager encourages an honest airing of differing views. It is a basic quality that often is missing.
 
Should Lopez be fined for hit on Suzuki?

There's some evidence that he did it on purpose. If you look at his swing finish after the hit when Flowers was in there you can see how he held the bat straight out at the end of his swing. Compared to the hit on Suzuki it's completely different. Maybe he was trying to be extra careful after the hit, but he's a catcher and knows the difference. On the Suzuki hit he really released his wrist and let the bat fly back hard.
 
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