Why in Keith Lockhart's name did John Boland Schuerholz Jr trade Jermaine Dye away?

Mrs. Meta

Mrs. Meta

Well-known member
I was definitely following the Braves back then, but I still don't understand this trade, even retroactively. I have a horribly bad feeling that the trade was made just to get a lefty in the lineup in the form of Michael tucker.

And honestly? For the suspenders overall, between this trade, the David Justice trade, and gutting our farm for Mark Teixeira, it's hard for me to look back on his tenure with much positivity.

I would appreciate any perspective on the career of what I presume was a Hall of Fame General manager.
 
I was 13 years old at the time of the trade, but I think there might have been a sense that Dye was a really raw young player who wouldn't have the chance to fully develop on a stacked roster with World Series aspirations every year. Tucker was older, a bit more polished, a bit more seasoned. And not for nothing, but Dye was unplayably bad for Kansas City in 1997 and 1998, while Tucker actually had a pretty nice season for us in 1997.

I don't know when exactly it happened, but at a certain point during his tenure in Atlanta Schuerholz flipped a switch and got really veteran obsessed. That was most obvious from 2002-2005, when he was running around doing everything he could to keep the division streak going like he was a third century Roman Emperor dashing from one side of the empire to another in order to deal with whatever crisis was threatening to burn down the whole edifice that day. He started looking at young players mostly as chips with which to acquire veterans, and it's kind of a miracle it worked as well as it did for as long as it did.
 
Mrs. Meta said:
I was definitely following the Braves back then, but I still don't understand this trade, even retroactively. I have a horribly bad feeling that the trade was made just to get a lefty in the lineup in the form of Michael tucker.

And honestly? For the suspenders overall, between this trade, the David Justice trade, and gutting our farm for Mark Teixeira, it's hard for me to look back on his tenure with much positivity.

I would appreciate any perspective on the career of what I presume was a Hall of Fame General manager.
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You have a hard time finding anything positive about the front office that relievers a decade and a half of division titles? Seriously?
 
Mrs. Meta said:
I was definitely following the Braves back then, but I still don't understand this trade, even retroactively. I have a horribly bad feeling that the trade was made just to get a lefty in the lineup in the form of Michael tucker.

And honestly? For the suspenders overall, between this trade, the David Justice trade, and gutting our farm for Mark Teixeira, it's hard for me to look back on his tenure with much positivity.

I would appreciate any perspective on the career of what I presume was a Hall of Fame General manager.
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Eh the Dye trade wasn't that bad. We wound up trading essentially for team controlled years (if my calculations are right) 12.2 rWAR and Neifi Perez (who had a -2.2 rWAR for KC) I won't go into what Colorado got in the trade because it's irrelevant. Lockhart gave us during our control years of him (I'm assuming when his salary went down that was a FA contract) 2.8 rWAR nad Tucker gave us 3.5. So we didn't really lose that much. And we gained a ton early in the contract when we were still competing for World Series. Tucker was then part of a bigger trade to get Boone and Remlinger, Remlinger's 4 years in Atlanta were rock solid, 7.6 rWAR for a reliever, Boone obviously sucked for us but was spun off on a different trade.

Overall, we didn't lose that much in that trade. Would have been nice to have Dye in 99 and 00. But it was nice having Tucker in 97 and 98.

David Justice Trade that's an all time **** trade. The Braves put too many chips into their pitching. We gave up an amazing player in Justice who I tihnk we win thewhole thing in 97 if we have. And we lost our speedy guy in Grissom to bring in Lofton and Embree, both were fine but both were basicalyl 1 season players. Justice was a great hitter who clearly was undervalued by the brass.

Instead of pinpointing everything lets look at JS wins in trades

OF Vince Moore, RHP Donnie Elliott, OF Melvin Nieves for Fred McGriff - an all time win trade.

LHP Dan Meyer, RHP Juan Cruz, OF Charles Thomas for Tim Hudson - Super clear win

His past is checkered. He bet on trading yougn players for established vets a lot. Some times it paid off sometimes it bit us in the ass.

I personally think JS Is overrated. He inherited a great Royals team anda great Braves team .The best thing he did was got Bobby back in the dugout. Cox had much more to do with our success in the 90s and 00s than JS ever did. You cannot convince me otherwise.
 
zitothebrave said:
Eh the Dye trade wasn't that bad. We wound up trading essentially for team controlled years (if my calculations are right) 12.2 rWAR and Neifi Perez (who had a -2.2 rWAR for KC) I won't go into what Colorado got in the trade because it's irrelevant. Lockhart gave us during our control years of him (I'm assuming when his salary went down that was a FA contract) 2.8 rWAR nad Tucker gave us 3.5. So we didn't really lose that much. And we gained a ton early in the contract when we were still competing for World Series. Tucker was then part of a bigger trade to get Boone and Remlinger, Remlinger's 4 years in Atlanta were rock solid, 7.6 rWAR for a reliever, Boone obviously sucked for us but was spun off on a different trade.

Overall, we didn't lose that much in that trade. Would have been nice to have Dye in 99 and 00. But it was nice having Tucker in 97 and 98.

David Justice Trade that's an all time **** trade. The Braves put too many chips into their pitching. We gave up an amazing player in Justice who I tihnk we win thewhole thing in 97 if we have. And we lost our speedy guy in Grissom to bring in Lofton and Embree, both were fine but both were basicalyl 1 season players. Justice was a great hitter who clearly was undervalued by the brass.

Instead of pinpointing everything lets look at JS wins in trades

OF Vince Moore, RHP Donnie Elliott, OF Melvin Nieves for Fred McGriff - an all time win trade.

LHP Dan Meyer, RHP Juan Cruz, OF Charles Thomas for Tim Hudson - Super clear win

His past is checkered. He bet on trading yougn players for established vets a lot. Some times it paid off sometimes it bit us in the ass.

I personally think JS Is overrated. He inherited a great Royals team anda great Braves team .The best thing he did was got Bobby back in the dugout. Cox had much more to do with our success in the 90s and 00s than JS ever did. You cannot convince me otherwise.
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100% correct.
 
JS's biggest wins were often not who he traded for but who he didn't trade. There aren't a ton of players he traded away that came back and bit him.

I'll also say the Tex trade wasn't bad. We were due two first rounders before Wren traded Tex away.
 
striker42 said:
JS's biggest wins were often not who he traded for but who he didn't trade. There aren't a ton of players he traded away that came back and bit him.

I'll also say the Tex trade wasn't bad. We were due two first rounders before Wren traded Tex away.
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Tex trade was all time ****. We were not a good team, we should have been rebuilding and traded 2 legit blue chip prospects. Rangers got Andrus for 17 rWAR on a rookie deal, add in another 8.7 for Feliz, and Harrison had 9 rWAR. If we were close to competing fine that's something but we weren't. Yes I know we weren't that far back int he standings but it was because of the Phillies and Mets underpeforming.

You're right the followup trade was much worse. But that was another trade JS and Bobby pushed for. What makes it saltier was bobby pushing Escobar out.

Anyway, it was a horrible trade, made worse by a second trade.
 
zitothebrave said:
Tex trade was all time ****. We were not a good team, we should have been rebuilding and traded 2 legit blue chip prospects. Rangers got Andrus for 17 rWAR on a rookie deal, add in another 8.7 for Feliz, and Harrison had 9 rWAR. If we were close to competing fine that's something but we weren't. Yes I know we weren't that far back int he standings but it was because of the Phillies and Mets underpeforming.

You're right the followup trade was much worse. But that was another trade JS and Bobby pushed for. What makes it saltier was bobby pushing Escobar out.

Anyway, it was a horrible trade, made worse by a second trade.
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I personally do not care about the Tex trade. The worst thing they gave up was Andrus and that's neither a big deal historically or a position where the Braves struggled afterwards.

Maybe you don't make the trade, but the value of the return has always been inflated simply because some of those guys made relatively minor contributions to a WS champ and the Braves botched the return on Tex.
 
Also the Braves roster pre-JS wasn't playoff caliber.

He made the moves that got them there and the moves that sustained it for 14 years an unprecedented feat.

That's pretty incredible by any objective standard, but so sorry he finally traded away a player or two that the fan base regretted 15 years in.
 
Waino for 1 season of Drew was also a bit painful to look back on.

JS mostly succeeded off the arms of Glavine/Maddux/Smoltz and the Jones brothers. Sure, he deserves credit for getting/keeping that core, but he wasn’t exactly making masterful moves. He was a good GM, but by no means at the level of AA who is quite possibly the best GM in the sport.
 
JS also continued to influence the construction of the roster well after he become a dinosaur. That hurt the team more than most are willing to admit. Flushing that brain trust down the toilet when AA was hired was the best thing that happened to this team in a long time.
 
Southcack77 said:
I personally do not care about the Tex trade. The worst thing they gave up was Andrus and that's neither a big deal historically or a position where the Braves struggled afterwards.

Maybe you don't make the trade, but the value of the return has always been inflated simply because some of those guys made relatively minor contributions to a WS champ and the Braves botched the return on Tex.
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The reality is that we could have spun those players for other players. We could have used Salty to trade for someone else.
 
The goal of keeping the division streak alive a couple more years kept them from rebuilding, and cost a lot of players and resources that would have been helpful in the rebuild.
 
Enscheff said:
JS also continued to influence the construction of the roster well after he become a dinosaur. That hurt the team more than most are willing to admit. Flushing that brain trust down the toilet when AA was hired was the best thing that happened to this team in a long time.
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For sure. People point to the Tex trade back but the scuttlebutt was bobby wanted an MLB proven first basement. Can you imagine we would have been better had we just committed to selling out.
 
I think eventually committing to a rebuild ended up being a nice recharge for the fans but wasn't anything the org had patience for.

The Braves continued to draft well though and were mostly good at choosing what to throw and what to keep.

The problem was the Tex trade was the team wasn't good enough to win after it. If they had been legit then it was ok. But think the theory was just to ride the two starters and slug the rest which isnt always too different from current situation. Wouldn't advise trading for more bats though.
 
Enscheff said:
Waino for 1 season of Drew was also a bit painful to look back on.

JS mostly succeeded off the arms of Glavine/Maddux/Smoltz and the Jones brothers. Sure, he deserves credit for getting/keeping that core, but he wasn’t exactly making masterful moves. He was a good GM, but by no means at the level of AA who is quite possibly the best GM in the sport.
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JS isn’t even responsible for Glavine/Smoltz/Chipper. That was Bobby.
 
Don’t forget trading our very good, slugging first baseman for Mike freakin’ Gonzalez. Why would you ever trade a good MLB position player for a reliever?
 
You know, it's funny, I've never really lamented the Wainwright-Drew trade too much. It was objectively terrible, of course, but Drew was so good in 2004. It was a genuine thrill to watch him that year, and I'm glad I had that opportunity.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Don’t forget trading our very good, slugging first baseman for Mike freakin’ Gonzalez. Why would you ever trade a good MLB position player for a reliever?
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Trade that sparked the Tex trade. Had we not made that trade we wouldn't ahve gone for Teixeira and probably used that prospect Hall on someone else, or held part of it and looked for a partner for Salty. Hell I bet we could have gotten a better reliever than Mike Gonzalez for Salty.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Don’t forget trading our very good, slugging first baseman for Mike freakin’ Gonzalez. Why would you ever trade a good MLB position player for a reliever?
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Thank you for bringing this up. Such a bizarre trade. LaRoche was coming off a nice season too so it’s not like JS was trying to cut his losses.
 
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