Wren "dismissed" --

[The Tariff King]

Your boner for LaStella is astounding.

I like the kid and think he's a better option than Gosselin, but it's not like we're talking Utley to Brooks Conrad here.

 

[The Tariff King]

I wonder if Hart will pull a Dick Cheney... be the head of the search committee then name himself the V/P candidate. lol

 

[50PoundHead]

We also have Peraza and Bethacourt as valuable trading chips. Hursh adn Sims as very valuable prospects as well.

What I think would be wise to do is work on extensions first, then start looking at improving the team. Jason, Justin, Freddie, Simmons, and Gattis are 5 quality position players to build around, Julio, Minor and Wood are 3 quality starters to build around. And we have the best closer in the business. There's far worse situations to be in.

When you look at the other 3 positions. Johnson will almost certainly be better than this year, not by too much I think but still should be better. Our worst players will be gone by default as they were Uggla and Doumit, maybe someone takes over for Doumit as the super sucky bench player who gets used way more than he should. TLS over Uggla should be a giant leap. Whether you think TLS is great or not, he's for sure better than Uggla was this year, if he doesn't hit enough Gosselin can be a capable platoon half.

the key with fixing our offense is Frediot. If he's gone we're fine. Him being gone would not have resulted in Gosselin starting over TLS. TLS will for sure be the better player of the 2. TLS, Jason and Freddie at 1-3 you have 3 guys who can walk and put the ball in play. None of them K too much, they all walk healthily and Heyward this year was the "worst" linedrive hitter at 19% so we have 3 guys who should be near or over .300 hitters. Justin hits the crap out of everything. We should have a solid 1-5, then Simmons is great with the glove and should be better with the bat, if we can get someone to convince simmons to hit liners and not popouts he'll be an asset of a hitter because of his contact skills. BJ has sucked massively, but if he and CJ are our worst players and they're replacement or above replacement, I'll deal with it.

Pitching I'm admittedly more concerned with. Assuming the budget is tight, we need to basically take 3 hail marys and bring in Floyd, medlen and Beachy for incentive laden deals.

We would be absolutely nuts to trade either Peraza or Sims. Absolutely nuts.

I doubt Beachy ever throws a pitch in a regulation major league game again. Floyd and Medlen have a better chance, but if we go into the season depending on any of them, we'll get what we deserve.

I'm fine if Gonzalez gets fired, but there's no simply no fixing the line-up with the current players. Like BJ#1FAN implies, La Stella is a nice player and better than Gosselin, but La Stella's value is almost entirely determined by the players around him. He has little power, little speed, and looks to be below average defensively. In other words, he does not possess his own multiplier. You can put him higher in the line-up (where he didn't perform particularly well) and he may extend an inning here and there, but if Heyward, Freeman, or J. Upton don't hit, it doesn't matter. I think Fredi's synopsis was right. Advanced scouting picked up La Stella's vulnerabilities (I'm guessing in on the hands and force him to pull the ball) and he has yet to adjust. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. You can't have an All-Star at every position and La Stella brings a some nice skills to the table, but I'm guessing when all is said and done, he's Eric Sogard.

 

[weso1]

I honestly wasn't impressed by the press conference. Seemed like a bit of a mess to be honest. A reporter asked what the Braves way meant and JS just pulled some random answer out of his ass. And then just gave us some confusing messages in regards to our position in seeking this mysterious Braves way. We've been doing the Braves way all along but yet we need to find our way back to the Braves way. What the hell does that even mean? I mean it just didn't make any sense. And then you had Bobby give 100% support to Fredi and JS and Hart clearly weren't on the same page there. And it's obvious Hart doesn't want to be a GM, but JS seemed almost desperate to get him to be the next GM in some of his answers.

The whole press conference was borderline embarrassing. It's clear that Fredi needs to go. Maybe he's a good manager, but sometimes you have to let good coaches go. It just is what it is. We fired both Bobby Cox and Joe Torre and we did fine in the long run. Sometimes the organization just needs a change. Bobby is clearly extremely biased in opinion of Fredi and thus his opinion shouldn't even be considered in that decision. It would be stupid for JS and Hart to even consider Cox's opinion on that matter.

 

[weso1]

I wonder if Hart will pull a Dick Cheney... be the head of the search committee then name himself the V/P candidate. lol

I honestly think Hart doesn't want the job. He's created an awesome life for himself. Why screw that up at his age?

 

[Jay212033]

I may be the only one that actually liked Frank Wren. I think he did a great job his biggest mistake imo was hiring Fredi Gonzalez and that probably was all his doing. Most folk point to Uggla, Lowe, Upton but plenty and I mean plenty of good GMs make those same mistakes.

 

[KB21]

To add, looking at our farm system, one thing that this organization needs to refocus on is adding young pitching talent to the fold. Look at the lower levels of our minor leagues (below AA ball). Really, the only great pitching prospect we have right now is Lucas Sims. The next best guy is probably Alec Grosser with Garrett Fulenchek probably behind him as far as prospects go. Outside of those three, there isn't much at the lower levels right now. I don't know if I remember a time where the lower minors was this barren when it comes to pitching prospects.

As far as bats go, we at least have Ozhanio Albies, Braxton Davidson, Connor Lein, Tanner Murphy, and Luke Dykstra. Honestly, I think that group is much stronger as prospects than our pitching group, and this is not exactly a group that I would beat the door down to get.

 

[The Tariff King]

I honestly think Hart doesn't want the job. He's created an awesome life for himself. Why screw that up at his age?

I'm not saying he'd do it permanently, but a 1-2 year "interim" thing until Coppolella was ready to go.

Baseball lifers like Hart, Cox, JS are always itching to get back directly involved in the game, and Hart had a sour ending in Texas and may want to finish his career as a GM on a positive note.

Would not be surprised if I see Cox in the dugout again in my lifetime, whether he's doing it the way McKeon did (come down from the FO and do it), or finish up the season as an interim. He's already in the hall, so not like he'd have to wait for the call again.

 

[50PoundHead]

I may be the only one that actually liked Frank Wren. I think he did a great job his biggest mistake imo was hiring Fredi Gonzalez and that probably was all his doing. Most folk point to Uggla, Lowe, Upton but plenty and I mean plenty of good GMs make those same mistakes.

Hard to fathom your support given that you're a minor league guy. The system is in a shambles and it goes beyond the impressive graduation rate.

But no. Great GMs don't make mistakes of the same magnitude as Wren did. They all make mistakes, but Wren made colossal mistakes. He did some good things at the margins and with a couple of trades, but by and large, he had to play at the margins because of his mistakes on the big ticket purchases he made.

 

[zitothebrave]

We would be absolutely nuts to trade either Peraza or Sims. Absolutely nuts.

I doubt Beachy ever throws a pitch in a regulation major league game again. Floyd and Medlen have a better chance, but if we go into the season depending on any of them, we'll get what we deserve.

I'm fine if Gonzalez gets fired, but there's no simply no fixing the line-up with the current players. Like BJ#1FAN implies, La Stella is a nice player and better than Gosselin, but La Stella's value is almost entirely determined by the players around him. He has little power, little speed, and looks to be below average defensively. In other words, he does not possess his own multiplier. You can put him higher in the line-up (where he didn't perform particularly well) and he may extend an inning here and there, but if Heyward, Freeman, or J. Upton don't hit, it doesn't matter. I think Fredi's synopsis was right. Advanced scouting picked up La Stella's vulnerabilities (I'm guessing in on the hands and force him to pull the ball) and he has yet to adjust. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. You can't have an All-Star at every position and La Stella brings a some nice skills to the table, but I'm guessing when all is said and done, he's Eric Sogard.

La Stella isn't an amazing player. But La Stella and Johnson are fine support players. The meat of the lineup is Jason, Justin, adn Freddie with Gattis when he's in there as well. La Stella is basically Chris Johnson with slighlty less power, much lower K rate and much higher BB rate and not as terrible defensively. there's quite a good value to that. I mean we can do much better, but we can also do much worse (like we did to start the year) I don't think the league figured out La Stella. His struggles coincided with his Pt being cut. Is that cause the league figured him out or is that something Fredi fabricated?

And he's way better than Eric Sogard, Sogard has a career wRC+ of 73 and he's a better of a defender. If TLS had a match I can see in the majors, is Marco Scutaro with less defense.

For the Braves to win they need Jason, Freddie, Justin, and Gattis to hit, If they can't perform we're ****ed. If they do we're in it. This year they performed and we still sucked and Fredi has a lot to do with that with his **** lineups that set them up for failure.

 

[NinersSBChamps]

The four players you mentioned all performed under what they should have. The exception being Justin who hit about what he is supposed to.

 

[The Tariff King]

We would be absolutely nuts to trade either Peraza or Sims. Absolutely nuts.

I doubt Beachy ever throws a pitch in a regulation major league game again. Floyd and Medlen have a better chance, but if we go into the season depending on any of them, we'll get what we deserve.

I'm fine if Gonzalez gets fired, but there's no simply no fixing the line-up with the current players. Like BJ#1FAN implies, La Stella is a nice player and better than Gosselin, but La Stella's value is almost entirely determined by the players around him. He has little power, little speed, and looks to be below average defensively. In other words, he does not possess his own multiplier. You can put him higher in the line-up (where he didn't perform particularly well) and he may extend an inning here and there, but if Heyward, Freeman, or J. Upton don't hit, it doesn't matter. I think Fredi's synopsis was right. Advanced scouting picked up La Stella's vulnerabilities (I'm guessing in on the hands and force him to pull the ball) and he has yet to adjust. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. You can't have an All-Star at every position and La Stella brings a some nice skills to the table, but I'm guessing when all is said and done, he's Eric Sogard.

Agreed, I think LaStella's time will be short if Peraza makes an impact and starts at 2B. I see the Braves more likely to put Peraza at 2B over TLS than at 3B over CJ. Then again I'm hopeful we'll trade CJ and find an average 3B to replace him.

LaStella's best skill really is plate discipline, and that's something that really hasn't been tried and tested for him yet at the major league level where the scouts will quickly figure him out and the pitchers will adjust. He did struggle when moved to the top of the order whether it was leadoff or 2nd, despite how much Zito wants to ignore that too.

I'm not knocking the kid; because I like him but he's not the 2B of the Future Long Term or Short Term. He probably can be serviceable until we find a real replacement, but Zito's infatuation with him might be the Jersey Connection. He has no power, purely a singles hitter who can find gaps for doubles. Handicapped by lack of speed, and his glove is questionable.

The reason I liked the kid a lot was because anything was better than Uggla, and LaStella's minor production was a HUGE upgrade over Uggla. But that has more to do with how awful Uggla was, than how good LaStella is.

 

[KB21]

Another thing against Wren. It was Wren and Manno that decided the dominant Julio Teheran needs to change his mechanics to prepare himself for the majors. After two years of struggling, Dom Chiti and Dave Wallace worked with Julio and got him back to doing the things he did to become a dominant prospect.

 

[zitothebrave]

The four players you mentioned all performed under what they should have. The exception being Justin who hit about what he is supposed to.

Jason was a tick below last year, Freddie a tick below last year, Justin basically where he was last year and Gattis way up. They were fine. Our issue was the massive sucking from Simmons and CJ compared to last year.

 

[The Tariff King]

For the Braves to win they need Jason, Freddie, Justin, and Gattis to hit, If they can't perform we're ****ed. If they do we're in it. This year they performed and we still sucked and Fredi has a lot to do with that with his **** lineups that set them up for failure.

Justin was the only one that performed throughout the year until he got to September where he has fallen off the cliff.

Jason had terrible slumps, Freddie after starting out red hot struggled and slumped on and off. He had a few weeks where he looked hot, but nowhere close to the unpitchable phase he had to start April.

Gattis was great when he wasn't injured, but that oblique injury really destroyed his season as he was awful post-all star break.

 

[The Tariff King]

Another thing against Wren. It was Wren and Manno that decided the dominant Julio Teheran needs to change his mechanics to prepare himself for the majors. After two years of struggling, Dom Chiti and Dave Wallace worked with Julio and got him back to doing the things he did to become a dominant prospect.

I sort of don't disagree with Wren and Manno's logic for that.

Even watching Julio now, his mechanics scare me despite him having tons of success this year. It's unfortunate Julio struggled after he altered his delivery to be more efficient, but you can't blame Wren and Manno for trying to protect their investment.

 

[zitothebrave]

Agreed, I think LaStella's time will be short if Peraza makes an impact and starts at 2B. I see the Braves more likely to put Peraza at 2B over TLS than at 3B over CJ. Then again I'm hopeful we'll trade CJ and find an average 3B to replace him.

LaStella's best skill really is plate discipline, and that's something that really hasn't been tried and tested for him yet at the major league level where the scouts will quickly figure him out and the pitchers will adjust. He did struggle when moved to the top of the order whether it was leadoff or 2nd, despite how much Zito wants to ignore that too.

I'm not knocking the kid; because I like him but he's not the 2B of the Future Long Term or Short Term. He probably can be serviceable until we find a real replacement, but Zito's infatuation with him might be the Jersey Connection. He has no power, purely a singles hitter who can find gaps for doubles. Handicapped by lack of speed, and his glove is questionable.

The reason I liked the kid a lot was because anything was better than Uggla, and LaStella's minor production was a HUGE upgrade over Uggla. But that has more to do with how awful Uggla was, than how good LaStella is.

His patience was tested. And he came out just fine. Sure teams will test him cause he doesn't have power. But if he keeps spraying liners then he'll hit way more.

Peraza probably will be his long term 2B replacement, but Peraza JMO needs more time in the minors. And if we can't get a better 3B then to me the issue is much more obviously at 3B than 2B.

My like of La Stella has to do with the fact that all he does is hit. He doesn't strike out much, he walks a lot and he hits a lot of liners. He's not an amazing hitter, but he has almost no bad floor. His current production is probably his floor as he has a 22.6 LD% and like a 270 BABIP or something like that.

 

[zitothebrave]

Justin was the only one that performed throughout the year until he got to September where he has fallen off the cliff.

Jason had terrible slumps, Freddie after starting out red hot struggled and slumped on and off. He had a few weeks where he looked hot, but nowhere close to the unpitchable phase he had to start April.

Gattis was great when he wasn't injured, but that oblique injury really destroyed his season as he was awful post-all star break.

Every hitter in baseball has terrible slumps. And we should have won more games to start the season but Fredi kept using Simmons adn BJ up top and let the 2B experiment go on too long. When it was obvious Uggla sucked TLS should have been brought up, the use of Pastor/Pena was moronic as well.

 

[The Tariff King]

La Stella is basically Chris Johnson with slighlty less power, much lower K rate and much higher BB rate and not as terrible defensively. there's quite a good value to that. I mean we can do much better, but we can also do much worse (like we did to start the year) I don't think the league figured out La Stella. His struggles coincided with his Pt being cut. Is that cause the league figured him out or is that something Fredi fabricated?

Slightly less power... even though their OPS' are close, CJ's home runs are of more value to me in this awful lineup than LaStella's doubles, since there's no guarantee the person behind TLS will drive him in.

Not as terrible defensively. Hmm well since CJ is arguably one of the worst defensive 3B in the league, that doesn't speak too well for TLS.

TLS has better plate discipline and walk rate than CJ, but that's about it in terms of tools that far outweigh CJ's. Oh and he's getting league minimum compared to CJ who is going to get a raise.

I just can't get over your boner for TLS.

 

[The Tariff King]

Every hitter in baseball has terrible slumps. And we should have won more games to start the season but Fredi kept using Simmons adn BJ up top and let the 2B experiment go on too long. When it was obvious Uggla sucked TLS should have been brought up, the use of Pastor/Pena was moronic as well.

Your armchair managing really makes me laugh sometimes.