World Series about to be won the Braves way.

"This year’s matchup features the two wild-card teams -- the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals. It reiterates the belief that sometimes it can be all about the team that gets hot at the right time, but don’t let that make you feel these aren’t the two best teams in baseball. They might not have been in the regular season, but there’s no doubt they are right now.
The Royals are just fun to watch. They play great defense and run the bases well and know how to bunt. Novel concept, huh? We didn’t really see too much of that around here in the past few years with the Braves, did we? But the Royals show us what fundamental baseball is all about. They simply play the game the right way."

lol. Talk about contradicting your point in less than two sentences.
 
The great thing about the concept of "the Braves way" is that the Braves don't have to play that way for it to qualify as "the Braves way." And you can blame all the team's failures on the fact that it wasn't playing according to The Way (with lots of Fastballs, I assume).

Shanks isn't terribly bright, but he can skillfully construct some bull****.
 
BJ#1FAN said:
"This year’s matchup features the two wild-card teams -- the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals. It reiterates the belief that sometimes it can be all about the team that gets hot at the right time, but don’t let that make you feel these aren’t the two best teams in baseball. They might not have been in the regular season, but there’s no doubt they are right now.
The Royals are just fun to watch. They play great defense and run the bases well and know how to bunt. Novel concept, huh? We didn’t really see too much of that around here in the past few years with the Braves, did we? But the Royals show us what fundamental baseball is all about. They simply play the game the right way."

lol. Talk about contradicting your point in less than two sentences.
Click to expand...

For Shanks, doing things "the right way" doesn't extend to sports writing.
 
Maybe I was closer to Bill than others, but he writes the way he writes and has his opinions. I don't agree with him all the time, but I don't think there's any question that the Braves, as currently constructed, are not contender. That's pretty clearly the undertone of this piece and I agree with that perspective.

Wren did not work from a blueprint with his moves. He was like a drunk in a grocery store trying to put together a formal meal. When I think "Braves' Way," I think consistency in approach. That wasn't Wren.
 
Maybe I was closer to Bill than others, but he writes the way he writes and has his opinions. I don't agree with him all the time, but I don't think there's any question that the Braves, as currently constructed, are not contenders. That's pretty clearly the undertone of this piece and I agree with that perspective.

Wren did not work from a blueprint with his moves. He was like a drunk in a grocery store trying to put together a formal meal. When I think "Braves' Way," I think consistency in approach. That wasn't Wren.
 
Maybe I was closer to Bill than others, but he writes the way he writes and has his opinions. I don't agree with him all the time, but I don't think there's any question that the Braves, as currently constructed, are not contender. That's pretty clearly the undertone of this piece and I agree with that perspective.
Click to expand...

I mean, they were a contender as recently as 2013 using the strikeouts and homers, "drunk in a grocery store" method of roster construction. I just don't see a September collapse as evidence of some sort of betrayal of a sacrosanct organizational culture.
 
50PoundHead said:
He was like a drunk in a grocery store trying to put together a formal meal.
Click to expand...

To be fair, some people can do that—it just takes practice, and usually you have to visit a couple different grocery stores to find all the components.
 
The usual excellent analytical prowess!

"The Royals are just fun to watch."
"They simply play the game the right way."
"Have the Royals simply caught lightning in a bottle?"
"Wow, the Royals just know how to pick it in the field."
"He just knows how to make a roster work"
"The Giants just have a bunch of baseball players."

I say make Shanks the GM! He can build a team the "Braves Way" by finding fun baseball players to watch that just play the game the right way and can really pick it! If he can teach Fredi how to make a roster work, the Braves will be unstoppable!

What a clown. How is he paid to write about baseball?
 
MadduxFanII said:
I mean, they were a contender as recently as 2013 using the strikeouts and homers, "drunk in a grocery store" method of roster construction. I just don't see a September collapse as evidence of some sort of betrayal of a sacrosanct organizational culture.
Click to expand...

I guess that's where we're parting ways in the assessment of the situation. Losing McCann (regardless of how he did in NYC) is a big difference in the clubs and Chris Johnson had a career year in 2013 and Simmons may have been exposed at the plate. And if you look at the scarcity of prospects in the minor leagues, we have to count on turnarounds on the existing roster to get back over .500. Add to this mess, the fact that we are currently short about 400 IP in the starting rotation and I'm going to have to be convinced otherwise that we are remotely a contender in 2015.

People talk about the "Braves' Way" like it's actually a pox. What is commonly referred to as the "Braves' Way" was established by Bobby Cox and Paul Snyder when Bobby was GM. That's what built the foundation for success in the 1990s. It did take Schuerholz coming over to make some moves (largely because Cox and Snyder seemed content to stay on the prospect road and not springing for some veteran help). But the prospects kept coming up until Chuck Lamar's confusing fantasy football with baseball and then was re-established after Lamar left.

I'm not advocating we adopt the Royals' style of play. I'm advocating that we get back on terra firma in the organization top-to-bottom. We're not there right now.
 
Whenever I hear "the braves way" I want to vomit. We've been consistently a solid organization but what good is "the braves way" when we never win or go on extended post season runs?

To me..."the Braves way" is 4 moves that all hit the jackpot. 1 - Drafting Tom Glavine, 2 - Signing Greg Maddux, 3 - Trading for John Smoltz, 4 - Drafting Chipper Jones
 
Enscheff said:
The usual excellent analytical prowess!

"The Royals are just fun to watch."
"They simply play the game the right way."
"Have the Royals simply caught lightning in a bottle?"
"Wow, the Royals just know how to pick it in the field."
"He just knows how to make a roster work"
"The Giants just have a bunch of baseball players."

I say make Shanks the GM! He can build a team the "Braves Way" by finding fun baseball players to watch that just play the game the right way and can really pick it! If he can teach Fredi how to make a roster work, the Braves will be unstoppable!

What a clown. How is he paid to write about baseball?
Click to expand...

Just stop. You are simply killing me.
 
50PoundHead said:
I guess that's where we're parting ways in the assessment of the situation. Losing McCann (regardless of how he did in NYC) is a big difference in the clubs and Chris Johnson had a career year in 2013 and Simmons may have been exposed at the plate. And if you look at the scarcity of prospects in the minor leagues, we have to count on turnarounds on the existing roster to get back over .500. Add to this mess, the fact that we are currently short about 400 IP in the starting rotation and I'm going to have to be convinced otherwise that we are remotely a contender in 2015.
Click to expand...

I'm an optimistic sort, and I'm inclined to think we can turn things around in 2015 (in a bizarre way, the utter completeness of the collapse in September makes me more optimistic), but sure, there's a very legitimate argument that contention isn't a realistic goal next year. I think if the organization wanted to re-trench for a year or two before the opening of the new park and deal Heyward and Justin Upton for prospect help, that would be a fair idea. And if you want to savage Frank Wren, the Johnson extension isn't a bad place to start.

However, the point is that even if you buy into the most pessimistic portrayal of our current state, that positioning doesn't have anything to do with a departure from "the Braves way." No one was complaining about Wren's radical, anti-Braves approach to organization building when we won 96 games and smacked around the Nationals in 2013. Or when we won 94 games in 2012. Or even in the couple years before, including the 2011 collapse. Wren had a nice thing going, a consistent, winning organization, and there existed nary a peep about "the Braves way."

Hell, even something like replacing McCann with Gattis would seem an example of "the Braves way," insofar as it was an example of us letting an aging, expensive veteran go because we could replace him with younger, cheaper, home-grown talent.

Then things collapse this September, the knives come out and all of a sudden come the cries of, "Wren betrayed the Jedi Ord- I mean, the Braves Way! We have lost The Path of the Beam! Salvation lies only in a return to the way we did things in the Long-Ago."

The organization isn't in a great place now, no doubt. But we need good players, not a return to hoary cliches.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top