If Braves Miss Postseason, Gonzalez And Wren Gone?

57Brave said:
The Braves have won most games in the NL since 2011 . FG has been manager - I doubt he gets fired

Wren has put together the team that has won the most NL games since 2011 - I doubt he gets fired
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Tim Hudson is Tim Hudson and is having his won problems as we speak
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Dude, seriously, what is with your formatting? How many back slashes are needed? I must know.
 
Once people start talking like this, you better believe the idea is out there among those who matter. His days with the Braves are numbered.
 
mossy said:
What specifically has Fredi done wrong?

I'll give u the 8th inning no Kimbrel move, what else?
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For starters lineup construction in general. Last year our best offense was when Heywood/Justin/Freeman was the top of the batting order. What does he do this year? He bats BJ leadoff for half the year.
 
Hudson2 said:
Other than TP who would yall's pick for manager be?
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I'd actually fire Fredi right now and call Snitker up for the rest of the year. Deal with the actual decision after the playoffs. If Snitker has a successful September/October, could go a long way.
 
I would start interviews by asking them where they would bat BJ in the starting lineup. Any answer that isn't "he wouldn't be in the starting lineup" gets them off the potential manager list.
 
If Fredi goes then Wren needs to go. Wren's decisions have a much larger impact on whether we win or not than Fredi's do. Batting BJ leadoff is bad, but committing a quarter of our payroll to him and Uggla is way worse. Plus he just made a couple of boneheaded moves in extending Johnson and trading anything for Russell and Bonifacio.
 
...McGuirk gets that. But he rejects perceptions that the Braves have a detached ownership group that carries only about the numbers on a spreadsheet and that he and the organization haven’t set the bar high enough.

“I don’t agree. We hold ourselves to a high standard. We’re our own worst critics,” he said...

...He meets with the team’s owner, Liberty Media, once a year and that’s about the extent of the corporation’s contact with the team...

Ok Terry. We believe you. Liberty Media cares a lot.
 
keithlaw said:
If Fredi goes then Wren needs to go. Wren's decisions have a much larger impact on whether we win or not than Fredi's do. Batting BJ leadoff is bad, but committing a quarter of our payroll to him and Uggla is way worse. Plus he just made a couple of boneheaded moves in extending Johnson and trading anything for Russell and Bonifacio.
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This. I'm not a Fredi fan, but he's not the reason this team is up and down. That's on how this team was constructed. There are things that Fredi could have done to mitigate things, but overall, his bad bullpen management and line up construction are not the reasons this team is choppy. That's the term Terry McGuirk used to describe this team. Choppy. And he said he didn't understand why the team was choppy.

Q: You said the team is on an upward trend. Does that mean you’re satisfied with where they’re at?

A: Baseball is always going to be fits and starts. When I say linear, I think we apply a linear pressure upwards, but the results aren’t linear. This is a choppy team. It’s hard to understand. I thought I’d understand this team better in spring training than I do today. With six weeks to go, we’re still mildly in the hunt for everything. But I’m not comfortable with how far we’ve fallen behind the Nationals.
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Q: Why do you think they’ve been inconsistent?

A: In the spring, when we signed five or six young players to $280 million in contracts, we secured the nucleus of the team that we wanted to carry forward. I think sometimes we forget that we’re one of the youngest teams in baseball. They’re still learning the craft. They don’t really know everything they need to know to be stars. We’ve lost some stars over the last couple of years in Chipper (Jones) and (Tim) Hudson and (Brian) McCann. Those guys provided a lot of stability in the clubhouse. We’ve had other guys who weren’t stars but led. But we looked at this team as needing to originate with our youth.

Q: You’ve used words like choppy and uncomfortable. Did you have a higher expectation level and, if so, are you disappointed now?

A: I had a high expectation. I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed. The up-and-down performance was different than what I expected. But as I look back now — maybe not, given our youth. We bring up Tommy La Stella up, Dan Uggla goes out, now (Phil) Gosselin is here. You can see the change.
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Q: So let me come back to: What should the expectation level be? What if you don’t make the playoffs, or you make it but get bounced early again?

A: Those are fair things to ask. It’s fair to question accountability if we don’t perform. Sometimes you have to ask: What are your capabilities in a mid-market opportunity in baseball’s economic system? Baseball is getting further away from having economic parity. But our goal is championships. Most everybody who was there in ’95 from a management standpoint is here now. We know what it takes. We had the best team in baseball probably in ’96 and we should’ve won. But it takes a lot of special things coming together.

Q: In your mind, are jobs on the line if you don’t reach a certain level?

A: I don’t want to put absolutes on anything. With six weeks to go in the middle of the hunt, I wouldn’t say anything that would upset the direction and the performance of the team. Teams have a psyche and organizations have a direction and we’re totally focused right now on trying to make the playoffs. I don’t even want to say what we’ll do if we don’t make it. We’re evaluating in either case and we deserve to be judged on our evaluations. That’s not just my view. I turn to people like John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox to make decisions on some of these things.
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http://www.myajc.com/news/sports/ba...ebook_2014_braves_sfp#ccc4d7bc.3828699.735468

I do feel we sometimes forget how young this team is. Last year, the team set a record for the amount of WAR via players who were age 25 and younger.

I do find it interesting that he comments about being a mid market team in the economic structure of baseball. The way he talks about BJ Upton after that makes me think that he isn't satisfied with contracts like BJ and Dan have with their lack of production. He's essentially saying he wants to spend more money, but he wants to spend it wisely.

In the end, I don't think major moves will be made. I do think they will look hard to offload BJ's contract this offseason, but they are going to have to see how trading BJ will effect their chances of keeping Justin Upton long term.
 
Would be very surprised if either were fired.

Wren has had a few misses but a lot more wins. It's easy to sit here now and bash the BJ signing, but we got him at a time when we needed to sign a CF and that kind of contract was the market price. He was already an overpay, but no one saw the Mendoza line being renamed after him following two seasons.

Before Uggla was acquired, everyone talked about how badly we needed a right-handed power bat and how that would have helped in 2010. Had our lineup stayed healthy that year and we had one, I think we could have made a serious run at the World Series. Despite a two-month slump, he hit 36 homers in 2011. Nobody could have know he would crash and burn like that.

Lowe and KK, especially, are probably worse, but we were desperate for pitching.

So with that in mind, if Wren had more flexibility to the point where an emergency signing of Ervin didn't put us over budget, I think he would put a WS contender on the field.

I'm willing to give him another shot.

As for Fredi, I'm done. Last night's failure to recognize that you have to try your damn best to win every close game you can was the final straw for me.

Several have suggested Terry Pendleton or even bringing back Ned Yost, and I'd probably be OK with that. But I'd like to go outside the organization.

Ones that immediately come to mind for consideration, if I could pick anyone: Joe Maddon, Bob Melvin, Clint Hurdle.

Some of you trolls might go look at those guys and nitpick, but I've got to believe any one of them pinch hits Heyward last night, and to me, that's an immediate upgrade.
 
If Fredi has lost the respect of the clubhouse or the faith of the FO, he needs to go. If Wren has lost the faith of JS, he'll be gone.

All things considered, I think both Wren and Fredi have done a good pretty job keeping this very young team in playoff contention after losing so many of our veterans and so much of our pitching staff to injuries. Wren probably should've tried harder to keep Huddy.

I want to see Walker and Fletch gone more than Fredi and Wren. Maybe they aren't the problem but they definitely aren't the solution.
 
sturg33 said:
This is the same team as last year who won 96 games.
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Our starters are the same for the most part, but our bench is garbage and our bullpen has regressed heavily. This years team is very similar to the Nats last year in that regard and we'll likely end up with a similar record.
 
If Liberty Media cared about wins and losses both McGuirk and Fredi would be escorted out of the building the day after the season ends.
 
bravesnumberone said:
Would be very surprised if either were fired.

Wren has had a few misses but a lot more wins. It's easy to sit here now and bash the BJ signing, but we got him at a time when we needed to sign a CF and that kind of contract was the market price. He was already an overpay, but no one saw the Mendoza line being renamed after him following two seasons.

Before Uggla was acquired, everyone talked about how badly we needed a right-handed power bat and how that would have helped in 2010. Had our lineup stayed healthy that year and we had one, I think we could have made a serious run at the World Series. Despite a two-month slump, he hit 36 homers in 2011. Nobody could have know he would crash and burn like that.

Lowe and KK, especially, are probably worse, but we were desperate for pitching.

So with that in mind, if Wren had more flexibility to the point where an emergency signing of Ervin didn't put us over budget, I think he would put a WS contender on the field.

I'm willing to give him another shot.

As for Fredi, I'm done. Last night's failure to recognize that you have to try your damn best to win every close game you can was the final straw for me.

Several have suggested Terry Pendleton or even bringing back Ned Yost, and I'd probably be OK with that. But I'd like to go outside the organization.

Ones that immediately come to mind for consideration, if I could pick anyone: Joe Maddon, Bob Melvin, Clint Hurdle.

Some of you trolls might go look at those guys and nitpick, but I've got to believe any one of them pinch hits Heyward last night, and to me, that's an immediate upgrade.
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Every time Wren has given out a big contract to bring in someone from outside the organization, it's blown up in his face. It happens so consistently that I think its a problem with our evaluation process rather than just bad luck.
 
I think Wren has done a great job overall. How do you project that BJ was going to suddenly suck so bad? Same for Uggla. I was pretty excited about both moves when they happened. And as bad as those were, the signing of Santana was just as huge to the good-- especially with the rash of injuries to our pitching. Further, I think he doesn't get enough credit for locking up all of the young talent and getting Justin.

Now Freddi, I know most bash him, and he does things I don't understand, but I don't think he is as awful as a lot of you think. The Kimbrel thing last year in the playoffs not withstanding.
 
Hulavol said:
I think Wren has done a great job overall. How do you project that BJ was going to suddenly suck so bad? Same for Uggla. I was pretty excited about both moves when they happened. And as bad as those were, the signing of Santana was just as huge to the good-- especially with the rash of injuries to our pitching. Further, I think he doesn't get enough credit for locking up all of the young talent and getting Justin.

Now Freddi, I know most bash him, and he does things I don't understand, but I don't think he is as awful as a lot of you think. The Kimbrel thing last year in the playoffs not withstanding.
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A solid case could be made for why extending Uggla was extremely risky and it basically had entirely to do with his age. He was entering his 31 year old season, and 2B usually don't age kindly. Much less power hitters often don't age kindly. But he was fresh off a fantastic year, probably the best of his career and you have to wonder why the sudden collapse and maybe PEDs were involved.

BJ no one saw. Even myself a BJ detractor didn't see him sucking up the joint this bad. I figured he'd be about what we've got from him defensively, and slightly above average offensively. Not total ass island. Anyone who said they thought BJ would suck this bad is a liar.

Frank hasn't made a truly bad trade yet either. His worst trade was thte Tex Dump or the Raffy dump.
 
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