McGuirk: Coppella Exit Like Cutting ‘Cancer’ To Move Ahead

50PoundHead said:
Agree 100%. There's a risk/reward calculation for most players below the top tier and Kemp was horribly mismanaged in Atlanta. Phillies managed a guy like Burrell well, which is what Kemp basically has become. For whatever reason, Snitker refused to pull the trigger on late-game defensive adjustments.

zeets, sorry. Respect your opinion, but people act as though Upton was the only option. I throw Span out there as a low-cost option, but the Braves' need for the RH bat was real. The problem I always thought with Wren's approach is that he never thought outside the box that much. If you have the kind of talent base the Braves had during much of Wren's tenure, he wasn't very creative in filling in around the base. His solution always seemed to be "go out and get a marquee (or just below the marquee) guy." He didn't think about platoons. I'm not a huge analytics guy, but the Braves' paucity of knowledge in trying to fill around their first-team players was fairly obvious during Wren's tenure. At least to me. And Melvin simply did a face plant and looking at his marginal OBP during his time in Tampa, there were signs that he was a bigger risk than advertised.
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I totally agree. I've been shading towards a defense of Wren, but that's only because (a) I think he was unduly shamed/excoriated on personality grounds by the remaining FO post-dismissal (and then replaced with truly terrible personalities ...), and (b) because I think a lot of his moves were logical based on the contingencies he was handed, even if at times sort of rote and uncreative. I still think his was a solidly C-grade tenure—it's just the unfair labeling (by some) as a colossal failure that chafes me.

By contrast, I think the just-ousted was a grade below (solidly D-grade), because they cashed out a lot of highly bankable assets, and for the most part only tendered a mix of extremely volatile assets (over-focused on pitching prospects—especially hyper-talented guys with a key wart, like Newcomb, Toussaint, Gohara, Fried) and misidentified and/or needlessly-near-MLB fringey guys (Wisler, the Petersons—Olivera even falls into this category, his subsequent total collapse notwithstanding). The hubris and chicanery that marked their ignominious ouster doesn't even factor into that D-grade; add said embarrassment, and I'm tempted to grade them out to an F—but the draft results do look promising, so I'll resist that.

I also understand that context and temperament and posture aren't absent to these grades. I absolutely loathed the smugness with which Hart was swept in: trumpeting "Braves Way" this and good ol' boy that; acting as if rebuilding would be super easy if you just held fast to the right 1980s-era principles; and as if (somewhat dissonantly) the glory of the 1990s was just within reach, right around the corner, and sure to return right on time for a crass move to the suburbs. Meanwhile, I felt like Wren came in with a tough mandate (win now, but also win more—and do it with a minor-league system that had already begun to decline precipitously in the final few Schuerholz years), and I felt like he went out with an even rawer deal (how could I know my handpicked successor, whom I actively oversaw, was deviating from our beloved BravesWay™?!).

And, you know, I freely and happily admit that those factors—of context and temperament and posture—affect my calculus: I'm a fan, I don't have to be 100% fair. And if you want to say that each of the past two FOs were equally bad, it doesn't really bother me that much—though I think it's a bit rich coming from those (and you certainly don't number among them, 50) who were aggressively foggy about the Hart-era missteps until it was impossible not to admit them in his scandal-ridden wake. Either way, I think we can all agree, going forward, that it'd be nice to even get a solid B-grade performance from AA, given the preceding decade.
 
50PoundHead said:
Agree 100%. There's a risk/reward calculation for most players below the top tier and Kemp was horribly mismanaged in Atlanta. Phillies managed a guy like Burrell well, which is what Kemp basically has become. For whatever reason, Snitker refused to pull the trigger on late-game defensive adjustments.

zeets, sorry. Respect your opinion, but people act as though Upton was the only option. I throw Span out there as a low-cost option, but the Braves' need for the RH bat was real. The problem I always thought with Wren's approach is that he never thought outside the box that much. If you have the kind of talent base the Braves had during much of Wren's tenure, he wasn't very creative in filling in around the base. His solution always seemed to be "go out and get a marquee (or just below the marquee) guy." He didn't think about platoons. I'm not a huge analytics guy, but the Braves' paucity of knowledge in trying to fill around their first-team players was fairly obvious during Wren's tenure. At least to me. And Melvin simply did a face plant and looking at his marginal OBP during his time in Tampa, there were signs that he was a bigger risk than advertised.
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Not to mention that going out and signing aging free agents (or extending aging players) to big money deals is exactly the sort of move that would be ridiculed around these parts.

Particularly for a player that wasn’t getting on base at even a .300 clip.

Wren was usually looking to make splashes with big names and that’s a singularly bad strategy when those big names are aging players whose don’t figure to age well.

For someone who created relatively little success in comparison to the past who left the te in such bad straits it’s a little odd to read star heads trying to defend him. It wasn’t an especially smart approach and it wasn’t especially successful and other gyms in similar spots managed to retool with better success and didn’t dry out the franchise in the process.

But sure, he didn’t get the Braves kicked out of the international market for four years so kudos there
 
Braves Way is marketing talk that probably appeals to some Braves fans, I guess, when they’re not mad.

I get that it comes off smug and I don’t like it much either, but I’m not sure it actually means anything beyond a farm centric approach and a sense of organizational professionalism (no drama) that was largely absent from Wren and Coppy/Hart tenures.
 
Southcack77 said:
Not to mention that going out and signing aging free agents (or extending aging players) to big money deals is exactly the sort of move that would be ridiculed around these parts.

Particularly for a player that wasn’t getting on base at even a .300 clip.

Wren was usually looking to make splashes with big names and that’s a singularly bad strategy when those big names are aging players whose don’t figure to age well.

For someone who created relatively little success in comparison to the past who left the te in such bad straits it’s a little odd to read star heads trying to defend him. It wasn’t an especially smart approach and it wasn’t especially successful and other gyms in similar spots managed to retool with better success and didn’t dry out the franchise in the process.

But sure, he didn’t get the Braves kicked out of the international market for four years so kudos there
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28 is aging now?
 
zitothebrave said:
Generally fair, but others with his body type didn't fall that hard. Though there's a very real chance they used roids to stay on so that skews the projection.
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also he reached the majors late...that another indicator for early aging...a third one is not being athletic relative to other players
 
Derek Lowe signed to 4 year deal at 36.

Kawakami to three year deal at 34.

Uggla to five year deal at 31.

Upton a defense/power/speed guy with k and obp problems already showing up, but only 28 for sure. He wasn’t destined to age well.
 
Southcack77 said:
Derek Lowe signed to 4 year deal at 36.

Kawakami to three year deal at 34.

Uggla to five year deal at 31.

Upton a defense/power/speed guy with k and obp problems already showing up, but only 28 for sure. He wasn’t destined to age well.
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Kawakami wasn't bad in and of itself. It was bad in the scope of the offseason where we also brought in Lowe, Glavine, and Vazquez. With top prospect Hanson, young talent Jurrjens, and an inevitable return of Hudson it was one too many FA signings. If Bobby and JS made him sign Glavine, then he shouldn't have brought in Kawakami. Kawakami wasn't that bad. And the first years of Lowe weren't bad if not a bit of hard luck (seems like Cox would leave him out just an inning too long sometimes) as his FIP was pretty solid over that time but his ERA was higher every year, sometimes much higher (1st and 3rd year) his fWAR for the first 3 years was 6.8 which isn't that bad. I mean it wasn't a great signing but it's basically the value we signed him for.

Upton was hardly destined not to age well. No one agreed with you on that regard. He was in great physical shape. His K rate was bad but hardly legendarily bad. He was a 10/25 BB/K would put him as kind of similar to Jonny Gomes, Colby Rasmus, his Brother, Dan Uggla, and Mike Cameron. Of those players, none of them were flaming out at 29. Some of them got better and had career years in their 29/30 seasons (Uggla, Cameron, Upton the younger) Now would Bossman have been worth it at the end of his contract. Certainly not. But if you honestly try to sell me on the concept that you predicted BJ Upton would go from Yunel Escobar to Rey Ordonez, you're talking out of an orifice I don't care to hear from.
 
zitothebrave said:
Kawakami wasn't bad in and of itself. It was bad in the scope of the offseason where we also brought in Lowe, Glavine, and Vazquez. With top prospect Hanson, young talent Jurrjens, and an inevitable return of Hudson it was one too many FA signings. If Bobby and JS made him sign Glavine, then he shouldn't have brought in Kawakami. Kawakami wasn't that bad. And the first years of Lowe weren't bad if not a bit of hard luck (seems like Cox would leave him out just an inning too long sometimes) as his FIP was pretty solid over that time but his ERA was higher every year, sometimes much higher (1st and 3rd year) his fWAR for the first 3 years was 6.8 which isn't that bad. I mean it wasn't a great signing but it's basically the value we signed him for.

Upton was hardly destined not to age well. No one agreed with you on that regard. He was in great physical shape. His K rate was bad but hardly legendarily bad. He was a 10/25 BB/K would put him as kind of similar to Jonny Gomes, Colby Rasmus, his Brother, Dan Uggla, and Mike Cameron. Of those players, none of them were flaming out at 29. Some of them got better and had career years in their 29/30 seasons (Uggla, Cameron, Upton the younger) Now would Bossman have been worth it at the end of his contract. Certainly not. But if you honestly try to sell me on the concept that you predicted BJ Upton would go from Yunel Escobar to Rey Ordonez, you're talking out of an orifice I don't care to hear from.
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i hated signing Melvin because he didn’t get on base. I really don’t care for power that doesn’t get in base. Don’t enjoy watching it. I thought he needed a bounce back to justify the signing and paying top dollar for that seemed foolish.

I personally did not object to Lowe or Kawakami. Or Vazquez.

I didn’t see the point in Glavine but shrugged it off.

I didn’t hate every Wren move.

I just object to the idea he did a particularly good job.
 
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