If Braves Miss Postseason, Gonzalez And Wren Gone?

McCann hit a walk off HR today.

Mix one or two of those in during the season -Gattis off the bench ---
we're having a different conversation.
(I understand why he left and still think it was the right move)

Another confounding situation to me is the love for McDowell.
What was a strength a couple years ago was the organizational depth of starting pitchers. Jurgens,Hanson,Medlen,Minor,Gilmartin,Teheran,Delgado, Beachy.
Out of those 8 all there is to show is Teheran,Wood and Ryan Doumit

If I were a young pitcher the last person I'd want to throw for would be McDowell
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I for one think the top level coaching staff needs dismantling. TP, McD, Walker,Tosca Fletcher.
FG is only as good as the advise he gets. IF he fights too hard let him go too

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Not Snidtker -- remember Eddie Haas ? He was hired to replace Joe Torre for pretty much the same reasons people are yelling for FG's head.
That didnt go well at all
 
Gonzalez needs to go because

1. This is the 2nd collapse while he has been the manager

2. The atrocious was he handles the bullpen. I would place blame for the Venters injury squarely on his shoulders. Let's not forget that Linebrink blames Freddi for ending his career. Leaving kimbrel in the bullpen was inexcusable ( bobby regularly used to bring his closer in for more then 1 inning). Finally his use of Varvaro these last two years is stupid. Anthony is a very good long reliever but he is not good in pressure situations. It seems more often then not every time he uses Varvaro in pressure situations he gives up runs. When used in long relief he was as good as Christian Martinez.

3. Line up construction is less then ideal.

Wren on the other hand needs to stay but there are strikes against him.

1. Wren is primarily responsible for the current offense he thought that there would be enough power to somewhat offset the strikeouts. Last year it basically worked but this year it hasn't.

2. BJ signing. I had no problem with signing him by its self, it's the years and the dollars signing a .250 hitter to 15 mil a year was not the smartest move.

3. Uggla's extension (not the trade)

4. Giving Lowe that 4th year.

But there is a lot more then wren has done to make the braves better especially through trades and his bullpen construction (although Freddy never used the pen right)
 
Well if you're counting trades we also have part of Justin Upton and Walden. Can't believe we got Walden for Hanson.

The Braves have had issues of pitchers with inefficient mechanics, Hanson, Beachy, and Medlen fit that bill for sure. Don't know if McDowell could actually fit that. I guess with the last 2 that's the risk of converting primarily college position players to pitchers.
 
57Brave said:
McCann hit a walk off HR today.

Mix one or two of those in during the season -Gattis off the bench ---

we're having a different conversation.

(I understand why he left and still think it was the right move)

Another confounding situation to me is the love for McDowell.

What was a strength a couple years ago was the organizational depth of starting pitchers. Jurgens,Hanson,Medlen,Minor,Gilmartin,Teheran,Delgado, Beachy.

Out of those 8 all there is to show is Teheran,Wood and Ryan Doumit

If I were a young pitcher the last person I'd want to throw for would be McDowell

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I for one think the top level coaching staff needs dismantling. TP, McD, Walker,Tosca Fletcher.

FG is only as good as the advise he gets. IF he fights too hard let him go too
Click to expand...

Again I do not understand the McDowell hate he has done a great job since taking over for Leo. We just

gave him more money to keep him away from Philly just this offseason. Fredi is the problem not McDowell
 
jcc03004 said:
Gonzalez needs to go because...... Finally his use of Varvaro these last two years is stupid. Anthony is a very good long reliever but he is not good in pressure situations. It seems more often then not every time he uses Varvaro in pressure situations he gives up runs. When used in long relief he was as good as Christian Martinez.
Click to expand...
??? Varvaro stepped up bigtime this year. He was the only lefty Fredi could count on for over a month after Avilan went sour and he has earned every bit of his promotion. Fredi had no choice but to use him and it is one of the few things that Fredi cannot be criticized for, imo.
 
Runnin said:
??? Varvaro stepped up bigtime this year. He was the only lefty Fredi could count on for over a month after Avilan went sour and he has earned every bit of his promotion. Fredi had no choice but to use him and it is one of the few things that Fredi cannot be criticized for, imo.
Click to expand...

Didn't realize Varvarro was a lefty.
 
people complain about fredi doing things similar to bobby cox....yet want TP as manager?? wtf

here's an interesting note for the superstitious..
pendleton was with the braves from 91-94, and back in 96. the one year he wasn't there, they won it all

he's been a braves coach since 2002....haven't won a playoff series since.
 
Didn't realize the Braves won the World Series in 1996.

And, good grief I think Dalyn needs to post that correlation /= causation meme in this thread.
 
I know fans think their team should win every year, but is it really realistic to expect this team to make the post-season? We're a mid-market team with middling payroll and we lost 2 of our starters in spring training. Somehow Wren patched the rotation back together and got us off to a good start. It's the offense and the on-field performance that has been the biggest letdown.
 
Yes its 100% fair. As a midmarket team our window is pretty small. Very real chance we won't have Julio, Minor, Wood, Kimbrel, Santana, Walden, Jason, Justin, Freddie, and Gattis all on the same team for too much longer so you have to take advantage of those windows.

ANd offensively we haven't been a let down. Aside from Chris Johnson who everyone knew was in for some major regression, and our bench which is highly static even if we had the exact same personnel. Jason has basically been where he was last year, Freddie is basically where he was last year, Justin is much improved, Gattis has performed on par with McCann. Simmons slipped slightly, but Justin's improvement wipes out basically the differnece between Simmons, Freddie, and Jason. Bossman has also significantly improved. And we've had a drop at 2B. While our 2B has been much better lately, Uggla was total ass, Pastor was total ass and Pena wasn't good. It wasn't until TLS came up that our 2B offense got going anywhere.
 
Z's above critique leaves out the catcher position. Gattis behind the plate was a gamble with mixed results.

I look at the number of mix ups, PB's and WP's and see much room for improvement .
Please don't see this as a knock on Gattis as a player but the fact is he had very very little experience at high baseball levels behind the plate. I think it has shown.

It is pretty much taken for granted he will be traded to the AL - but I'm not so sure they trust Bethencourt's offense - or we would have seen more of him. Kinda like Jackie Bradley Jr in BoSox. Tremendous defender but his lack of offense leaves the door open for others.

Really wonder why they haven't given Bethencourt more time. He is really not doing anything at the AAA level that he couldn't at the MLB level. 'Cept getting worn out
 
If we miss the playoffs, I think Gonzalez is gone. Whether he deserves it or not is another question. He's not that great a manager, but he's not a total dolt either. I think there needs to be a scapegoat and Fredi is that guy. Then all eyes turn to Wren.

Z, you're not noted for your optimism, but I see your description as a "glass 3/4 full" synopsis regarding our offensive performance. Gattis missed considerable time again this year and his bat was missed during that period. Simmons is way down. Chris Johnson is way down. Uggla shouldn't have been on the team. Upton the Elder is improved, but is still terrible. Just a very spotty team offensively. I thought Doumit would do more than he has, but the bench is what it is and there's not much on it.

That said, the bullpen has been inconsistent as well so our underperformance has been the sum of a number of things.

57 gets bonus points for the Eddie Haas reference. Who do we get if Fredi goes? Dave Bristol is still alive and is only 81.

I'm not ready to throw in the towel. September schedule looks doable. Giants are similar to us in the offensive department, but have the more consistent rotation. I'm not sold on St. Louis either. So we can get there and who knows what happens in October. I thought this was probably a high-80's win team and that's still possible.

PS--I think McDowell has done more with less than most pitching coaches could have.
 
zitothebrave said:
ANd offensively we haven't been a let down.
Click to expand...
As a team, the only thing that matters, we have been a big disappointment, significantly worse than last year.

2014 so far
23rd in BA.
20th in OBP.
25th in SLG.
24th in OPS.
4th in SO. (Not the good way.)
25th in Runs.

*And just for something positive, in 2013 we were 24th in SB. So far this year we're a respectable 15th.
2013
20th in BA.
13th in OBP
11th in SLG.
12th in OPS.
3rd in SO. (Not much change there.)
13th in Runs.
 
As far as Wren - I'm no sure what constitutes a "good" GM. Cashman in NY has an old team and no farm system. We would have to take off our shoes to count the number of bad FA contracts he's given out.
Dombrowski has no farm system left, paying Prince Fielder and now has David Price but that is a dressed up and no where to go situation. And, Miggy- Scherzer is leaving.
Billy Beane -- puhlease. I find him and his public reputation too cute by half
Rueban Amaro Jr - nuf said
The Rizzo guy in Washington has an od team and 2 young prima donnas

Get my point - no one out there is lighting it up.
The supposed favorites / boy genius' are guys that run mid market teams that compete every year.
Braves already have one of them
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To my minbd all of the moves Wren has made and gets panned for were very logical at the time they were made.
I don't recall one that at the time I did a double take and thought what was that all about.

Actually there is one he didnt make that I thought was brilliant. AJ Burnett.
When Deririck Lowe came here he was like Harang. A veteran innings eater.
Like Lowe or not, he was that
 
57, I agree on your basic GM analysis. No guy is perfect and I always thought that Schuerholz benefited from a fat wallet. Where Wren has failed and the ones you mention haven't is that he has paid out enormous sums for guys to either not play or to play somewhere else. My other on-going issue with him is that I don't believe he has ever had a blueprint of what he has wanted to do and stick with that plan over an extended period of time. I thought that up until the last few years of his tenure, Schuerholz had a plan and stuck with it. Granted, Schuerholz appeared to get a lot dumber (or at least a lot more erratic) once the "lousy economics of baseball" collided with ownership that was less willing to open up the safe.

Wren didn't inherit an ideal situation, but he started throwing money around right away and if this team is, as it is now contended, a mid-market team, you simply can't do that.
 
Fire Fredi and Walker today! Hire Chipper to coach hitting or something. We need his leadership bad!!!!! I would even love for him to be the manager.
 
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