Rosenthal Argues That Wren Wasn't a Drooling Moron

sturg33 said:
Did we get a pick? I thought we didn't
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The second part of the trade that included Victor Reyes is when the acquisition of the pick was announced.

Looks like I doubled up on thethe's post.

Rosenthal is really trotting out a tired argument. Look at the team we fielded in Rome last year. Lynchburg had Peraza and Sims and a collection of retreads, many from other organizations.

Rosenthal fails to finish his thought on the J. Upton trade. A team can make trades like that if: (1) they have the resources to re-sign the established player they traded prospects for, or (2) have a stream of players ready to take over if/when the established player leaves. Braves had neither.

I don't know if the current maneuvers will prove to be a better approach or not, but in Rosenthal's words, the Wren regime wasn't "so bad," it wasn't "so good" either.
 
CyYoung31 said:
To be fair, Justin had 3 more years on his contract when we traded for him.
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That's true, but the fact still remains that you have to either retain or replace him. I'm not criticizing the trade. It was a good trade. But I think my basic point is still valid. If the farm system had been in better shape, we would have had someone ready to replace J. Upton when his contract was up provided we couldn't retain him. Of the guys we traded in that deal, only Drury may come back to really haunt us (and that is no sure thing). I really appreciate Prado as a player, but he's not J. Upton.
 
Blaming Wren is cop out. I hated the smugness of the presser b/c those old guys acted like they were perfect IMO. Who did the Texeria trade....not Wren.

Wren had bad drafts. By all accounts he got luck on Minor. Minor was going to be like other Wren picks but he picked up some life and mpg on his fastball that we didn't know was going to happen.

I will go read the article, but how did we not win the JUp trade? Only argument I have for not winning is the CJ extension. But the production we got out of Jup and CJ (one year) was worth what we gave up. I know Prado did some things and Ahmed is starting at SS, but no big deal. Then we traded JUp and got more value in return.

Would it really take a lot for the package we got from the Pads to be equal or better than what the Diamondbacks got? Ahmed has a leg up b/c he's a SS, but he wasn't going to play there with Simmons and won't hit enough to be 2B or 3B.
 
I personally thought Wren was an average to above-average GM when looking at his full body of work at the end of last season. Didn't like the Uggla or CJ extensions, but I actually didn't think the BJ signing was a bad choice at the time (ducks tomato) given the other aging vets that were alternatives. There were a lot of deals that Wren made in his tenure that I thought were quite good. More hits than misses for sure.

Once the info became public on his micro-management and how that style was affecting our ability to retain off-the-field talent, I became much more accepting of the decision to fire Wren. I can also appreciate now just how much we were behind-the-curve on the international strategy.

Wren tends to be scape-goated too often for my liking, but he rightly bears accountability for many of the failings of this organization during his tenure. Overall, I think Wren and Liberty Media get too much blame, and JS / McGuirk don't get enough.
 
Braves get: 2 years of J UP (2.4, 3.3 WAR), Chris Johnson (2.4, -1.3, contract), Max Fried (lottery ticket pitcher), J Peterson (at least as good as Ahmed), D Peterson (maybe), Mallex Smith (speed that might never get on base), international bonus slot (small chance of something)

Dbacks get: Prado (2.8, 1.3), Delgado (bust, ok in bp), Ahmed (sss OPS 0.500), Drury (maybe), Northcraft (prob not), Peter Obrien (from Yankees in Prado trade), player to be named (from Yankees in Prado trade)

We won, right? If Fried is a good 4 or better we easily win. Or if Smith or D Peterson ever become a major league regular we easily win.
 
dak said:
I personally thought Wren was an average to above-average GM when looking at his full body of work at the end of last season. Didn't like the Uggla or CJ extensions, but I actually didn't think the BJ signing was a bad choice at the time (ducks tomato) given the other aging vets that were alternatives. There were a lot of deals that Wren made in his tenure that I thought were quite good. More hits than misses for sure.

Once the info became public on his micro-management and how that style was affecting our ability to retain off-the-field talent, I became much more accepting of the decision to fire Wren. I can also appreciate now just how much we were behind-the-curve on the international strategy.

Wren tends to be scape-goated too often for my liking, but he rightly bears accountability for many of the failings of this organization during his tenure. Overall, I think Wren and Liberty Media get too much blame, and JS / McGuirk don't get enough.
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If wren never used money on a FA and let someone else draft then he'd be pretty good......also not pissing off your bosses and everyone around you.
 
dak said:
I personally thought Wren was an average to above-average GM when looking at his full body of work at the end of last season. Didn't like the Uggla or CJ extensions, but I actually didn't think the BJ signing was a bad choice at the time (ducks tomato) given the other aging vets that were alternatives. There were a lot of deals that Wren made in his tenure that I thought were quite good. More hits than misses for sure.

Once the info became public on his micro-management and how that style was affecting our ability to retain off-the-field talent, I became much more accepting of the decision to fire Wren. I can also appreciate now just how much we were behind-the-curve on the international strategy.

Wren tends to be scape-goated too often for my liking, but he rightly bears accountability for many of the failings of this organization during his tenure. Overall, I think Wren and Liberty Media get too much blame, and JS / McGuirk don't get enough.
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Well said dak.
 
You can't blame Wren for everything. JS deserves just as much blame. The Braves have made moves out of panic a lot since 2004. We had no business trading the talent we did for two guys in Drew and Tex, because they were guys that we knew we had zero chance to resign. What is on Frank is the knee jerk over pays for KK, Lowe, and Melvin. To me Uggla is not included because he produced his first year and a half here. But, that said I am glad Frank is gone, because he was a band aid guy and this thing needed to be reset. The Kimbrel trade accelerates things a bit as well might be a contender for a deep run as soon as next year.
 
I liked what Wren did for the most part. The Uggla deal is his most damning mistake. Not only did we give up big money to re-sign Uggla but we gave up a better player in Infante. We could have simply gave Infante the 2B job and signed him to the ridiculously cheap deal the Marlins did and had better production for 1/4th the price. Dunn would have been a welcome addition to the pen too. The sad part is that a lot of people predicted Uggla's demise, both on offense and defense. A lot of teams would only trade for him if he agreed to move to 3B. With the BJ Upton deal you could say he overpayed but there was no way to predict such a massive falloff from a former #1 overall draft pick. Those 2 moves literally cost us a championship window. The 2013 team could have won 110 if those 2 performed up to their career averages before coming to the Braves.
 
I wasn't that big a Wren fan because I didn't think that he had a long-term blueprint for the team (and I think that showed by the end of his tenure), but JS isn't blameless. His last few years were brutal. Further, I think JS did look over Wren's shoulder to some extent and I think that pressure led to a couple of ill-advised moves.

But we were coming to the crossroads and I think a valid argument could be made that we should have pushed it one more year through 2015 and then look to re-build, but we were getting ready to hit a wall. There's enough blame to go around, but Wren was sitting in the big chair and that's usually where most of the blame lands, deserved or not.

I think something that isn't mentioned, but probably should be, is how effective (or ineffective) our minor league instructional staff may be. We seem to have some difficulty get our "tools" guys to progress. I could be totally wrong, but it sure seems that way.

PS--Rosenthal, like most everyone else, neglects to mention the extra $800 K we netted in international signing pool money in the La Stella deal.
 
He did some good things, he did some bad things. He's gone and is a part of the past. I say we look forward to the future (which I feel is very bright)
 
Russ2dollas said:
Blaming Wren is cop out. I hated the smugness of the presser b/c those old guys acted like they were perfect IMO. Who did the Texeria trade....not Wren.

Wren had bad drafts. By all accounts he got luck on Minor. Minor was going to be like other Wren picks but he picked up some life and mpg on his fastball that we didn't know was going to happen.

I will go read the article, but how did we not win the JUp trade? Only argument I have for not winning is the CJ extension. But the production we got out of Jup and CJ (one year) was worth what we gave up. I know Prado did some things and Ahmed is starting at SS, but no big deal. Then we traded JUp and got more value in return.

Would it really take a lot for the package we got from the Pads to be equal or better than what the Diamondbacks got? Ahmed has a leg up b/c he's a SS, but he wasn't going to play there with Simmons and won't hit enough to be 2B or 3B.
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Wren did the Tex trade part 2. Which was, imo, even worse than the first trade.
 
Wren just wasn't good enough not to get fired when the team needed a change. It's that simple. Certainly made some good moves, but I just can't get over the CJ contract. That alone is cause enough to get fired. It's almost like he wanted to get fired with that debacle.

As for JS. He clearly has no tact and that just is what is. That might be part of what made him such a great GM though. I personally don't care too much about that, but I can see why some of you bleeding hearts might care. Bobby clearly hated Wren. Who knows why.
 
Because Wren was a micro manager and the Braves historically empowered their employees. From what you read it was Wren's way or no way.
 
thethe said:
Because Wren was a micro manager and the Braves historically empowered their employees. From what you read it was Wren's way or no way.
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Which is ironic because some of the same things were said about Leo... who was only Bobby's right hand man for almost two decades.

I think the Braves love guys who micromanage and have egos. There are strengths and qualities to people like that in this line of work. They use what they can get out of those guys, then when they're sent off they're bad mouthed.

JS didn't exactly build a great farm his last half decade here. McCann was the only Brave that was worth a damn. Francoeur turned into a bust (and we know he's the model for "Braves Way"), etc. Again, we lucked out on drafting Heyward and Freeman back to back because we had good draft slots that year, same with Minor.
 
Heywood said:
Which is ironic because some of the same things were said about Leo... who was only Bobby's right hand man for almost two decades.

I think the Braves love guys who micromanage and have egos. There are strengths and qualities to people like that in this line of work. They use what they can get out of those guys, then when they're sent off they're bad mouthed.

JS didn't exactly build a great farm his last half decade here. McCann was the only Brave that was worth a damn. Francoeur turned into a bust (and we know he's the model for "Braves Way"), etc. Again, we lucked out on drafting Heyward and Freeman back to back because we had good draft slots that year, same with Minor.
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Not sure lucky. Heyward we really liked and tried to hide it so we could get him. We got him a 14...nothing says we couldn't have gotten him later. Freeman was the 78th pick....could have gotten him a lot of year. Minor was luck. That was not a good pick. They did not know he was going to pick up velocity. Minor was in the low floor/high ceiling college arms that Wren did.
 
I stand corrected, Prado was the only other one besides McCann that was worth a damn.

But even then, nobody expected Prado to have the career he's had now. We all thought he'd just Wilson Betemit ended up being. Not a starter but a super utility guy. Prado exceeded Betemit's career.
 
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