KB21
Where's My Cup of Coffee?
I agree. The combo of the Wainright for JD Drew trade and the Tex trade really set this franchise back during that time span.
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I agree. The combo of the Wainright for JD Drew trade and the Tex trade really set this franchise back during that time span.
AUTiger7222
Called Up to the Major Leagues
The Braves offense in 2007, even with as bad as Andruw was doing, was still pretty good before the Tex trade but the Braves struggle to win consistently because of the starting pitching after Smoltz and Hudson. Just think if the Braves had had Wainwright to form a deadly trio. They might have made the playoffs that year and done some damage. That;s one of the reasons the Drew trade was far worse than the Tex trade.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
I loved Chuck James back in the day as someone who found him amusing and loved that he got results in the minors. Vut he was smoke and mirrors. His first half ERA was solid, but his FIP clearly painted the picture of a guy who was getting lucky (first half FIP of 5.08) Second half numbers produced the same basic K rate better BB rate and insane homer rate.
As far as starters rumored on the bloc. Jon Garland, Javy Vazquez (with Jermaine Dye if you want to add offense)
No one pitcher would have been better for us than teixeira, though who knows
Some guys traded in the 07 offseason who may have been available include Garza and Haren who may have been had for what we dangled for Tex (never would know)
Bottom line is that we didn't win the division, we traded the whole farm to address one need as well. Teixeira playing the best 2 months of baseball he played has little to do with what the trade sucked so hard. It was clear to most that we needed pitching. We had 2 stars, one of them super old. After that some 4s 5s or worse.
So to answer your Rex question probably not one but maybe we throw Salty to Chicago with some other stuff and get Javy and Garland. And who knows how things shake out from there. What I do know is we had 35 srarts from Buddy Carlyle, Jo Jo Reyes and Mark Redmond, all known turds. James crushed his peripherals to have a modest ERA, Davies was shot (to my dismay) from his injuries. Our closer was Bob Wickman, we had 2 of our most used relievers as Tyler Yates and Oscar Villarreal. If you build a BP of our 7 most used relievers you get (with ERA)
Wickman - 3.92
Moylan - 1.80
Villarreal - 4.24
Raffy - 3.00
Yates 5.18
In the end the terrible trade of that year was trading LaRoche.Would have been a slightly worse team in 2007 with him and without Tex, Mahay and Gonzalez, but it would have kept the farm in tact and we could have made different adjustments. Like imagine we trade for Dan Haren.
We were not gonna win games throwing out Jo-Jo Reyes and Buddy Carlyle, they're total bums. What team wins with bums like them?
AUTiger7222
Called Up to the Major Leagues
All the more reason the Adam Wainwright for J.D. Drew trade was so bad. It set in motion a number of terrible moves that led the the Braves demise and made them enter a 4 or 5 year rebuilding project. Yes without Drew the Braves don't win the division in 2004, but that's more a product of how terrible the NL East was in those years instead of how good the Braves were.
The LaRoche trade was bad because you don't trade a starting position player for a setup man. Especially when the Braves had a major revoling door at 1B and LaRoche had just had a monster 2006 season. That being said, JS couldn't have predicted Mike Gonzalez going down to Tommy John surgery in May of 2007.
You can even go back one step before the Drew trade and say that not keeping Sheffield set in motion that list of terrible trades that led to the Braves demise.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
JD Drew was fantastic for his year here, better than what we got out of Tex and we didn't have the system we had before.
I wouldn't have done the trade in retrospect, but I wasn't repulsed by the trade like I was with Tex for 2 main reasons.
1. We only gave up 1 high end prospect, not 3. 2. I thought we had an outside chance of keeping Drew, knew he was gonna sign for a lot but Tex was gonna be a 100+ Million player.
I give JS and Wren some leniency on a bad deal because they made so many great ones, but JS's last trade was horrific, and if he didn't pull the Huddy Heist the end of his tenure as Braves GM would have been way different.
I wouldn't have done the trade in retrospect, but I wasn't repulsed by the trade like I was with Tex for 2 main reasons.
1. We only gave up 1 high end prospect, not 3. 2. I thought we had an outside chance of keeping Drew, knew he was gonna sign for a lot but Tex was gonna be a 100+ Million player.
I give JS and Wren some leniency on a bad deal because they made so many great ones, but JS's last trade was horrific, and if he didn't pull the Huddy Heist the end of his tenure as Braves GM would have been way different.
Millwood1Hitter
Anytime Now Frankie...
The arrogance of JS at the end of his tenure cost us dearly, starting with the inability to initiate and keep into contact with Sheffield when he hit FA.
After the Maddux/Millwood debacle, in which JS cornered himself into with previous acquisitions, JS was out to prove that he could build competitive teams and keep the streak alive without dealing with agents.
While Drew was phenomenal during his year here, as well as Tex, the thought was that there was a possibility that we'd be able to retain their services because of having local ties to Georgia. When push came to shove, JS and the organization never kept dialogue and even attempt to keep the 2.
And JS also became a reactionist GM. The Gonzalez for Laroche trade was just stupid, since Laroche was our first viable productive 1b since Galarraga, an area that was patched with the likes of Rico Brogna, Ken Caminiti, and finally settling on 93 year old Julio until Laroche came along. But the organization was the only ones that had any faith in Thormon, despite the fact that many scouting services and times I seem him I knew he had major holes in his swing and would struggle against big league pitching. Somehow, though, Thormon left this organization thinking and yearning for Klesko, which he was not.
But back to JS reactionary ways, we had huge problems in the pen, starting with the Reitsma Kolb Wickman days. I'm not going to hash this out in detail because just thinking about it makes me wanna puke. JS stole Soriano from the Ms giving us a viable dominant late inning reliever option. We got our closer, and didn't need Gonzalez, we could have filled the back end of the pen with lesser options which this organization had proven to throughout the years. Instead JS went got rebuilding and reloading the pen and leaving 1b a bigger hole than was in the past which was a precursor to the Tex trade.
After the Maddux/Millwood debacle, in which JS cornered himself into with previous acquisitions, JS was out to prove that he could build competitive teams and keep the streak alive without dealing with agents.
While Drew was phenomenal during his year here, as well as Tex, the thought was that there was a possibility that we'd be able to retain their services because of having local ties to Georgia. When push came to shove, JS and the organization never kept dialogue and even attempt to keep the 2.
And JS also became a reactionist GM. The Gonzalez for Laroche trade was just stupid, since Laroche was our first viable productive 1b since Galarraga, an area that was patched with the likes of Rico Brogna, Ken Caminiti, and finally settling on 93 year old Julio until Laroche came along. But the organization was the only ones that had any faith in Thormon, despite the fact that many scouting services and times I seem him I knew he had major holes in his swing and would struggle against big league pitching. Somehow, though, Thormon left this organization thinking and yearning for Klesko, which he was not.
But back to JS reactionary ways, we had huge problems in the pen, starting with the Reitsma Kolb Wickman days. I'm not going to hash this out in detail because just thinking about it makes me wanna puke. JS stole Soriano from the Ms giving us a viable dominant late inning reliever option. We got our closer, and didn't need Gonzalez, we could have filled the back end of the pen with lesser options which this organization had proven to throughout the years. Instead JS went got rebuilding and reloading the pen and leaving 1b a bigger hole than was in the past which was a precursor to the Tex trade.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
We have a winner. Schuerholz actually pursues Sheffield instead of whining about the economics of baseball and we don't have to make the Drew trade.
PS--Chuck James is reason 1 through 8 as to why minor league numbers can be extremely misleading, especially for non-power pitchers.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
That was a terrible rade. But the logic was simple, we had to get a major league 1B back cause that's what Bobby wanted as I recall it.