zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
It's hardly a boner, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. I've made my opinion clear. He's a good player. He's flawed for sure but his bat in the 2 hole is what the Braves have needed.
Wren "dismissed" --
- Thread starter Dalyn
- Start date
It's hardly a boner, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. I've made my opinion clear. He's a good player. He's flawed for sure but his bat in the 2 hole is what the Braves have needed.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
Why do you think he's better than that or something?
Perfect Cell
Lynchburg Prospect
fredi needs to go just as much as wren
Runnin
Well-known member
I don't think TLS is a major league caliber player, at least not on a good team. He's slow, has no power and isn't great defense. Maybe he would've helped us if playing all year but that just shows how bad we were at SB.
Tino25Dynasty
Arizona Fall Leaguer
There's no doubt Fredi's gone.... They're just waiting till the end of the season. Wren can make organizational moves and what not.... Which is why its more the better to get rid of him now. Fredi can only control the major league team in wins and losses. meaning since we're out of contention already. Nothing is lost by leaving him in for the rest of the season.
But I'm sure he know's he's gone....
The Wren move.... As I've said. I don't think Wren was a horrible GM. He I thought was okay. But just some big moves hurt us. None more than the BJ deal. Just awful. Can't fault him for Uggla though. Who knew he'd all of a sudden have the same talent as a high school bench player.
But I'm sure he know's he's gone....
The Wren move.... As I've said. I don't think Wren was a horrible GM. He I thought was okay. But just some big moves hurt us. None more than the BJ deal. Just awful. Can't fault him for Uggla though. Who knew he'd all of a sudden have the same talent as a high school bench player.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
I submitted my resume to JS.
I agree. I don't think the Braves do anything without JS' approval. That being said....he's not going anywhere...and you can't fire the players.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
Legit point. I've blamed Wren for not working from a blueprint, but I think in the latter part of his tenure as GM, Schuerholz changed his modus operandi dramatically, particularly in his erratic decisions on free agency and when to offer arbitration. Part of that was the new payroll restrictions, but his decisions began making less sense to me. The biggest change in thinking was evidenced in the Texeira deal and I think that was necessitated by the ridiculous decision not to re-sign Sheffield. Every great team has to come back to earth at some point and Schuerholz reluctance to trim the sails for a year or two and reload internally and get into a position to complement that core with the missing pieces and I always thought Schuerholz should have taken a step back at that point and been a bit more realistic in his assessment.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
In what world is a 2B who hits aroudn .300 and walks around 10% of the time not a major league player? Of course you'd like better. I'd love to have a lineup of C - Gattis, 1B - Freeman, 2B - Utley, 3B - Beltre, SS - Hardy, LF - Justin CF - Brantley and RF Jason so no one is below average offensively and they all can pick it defensively, but that doesn't exist in baseball. Even the Yankees and DOdgers have holes. In TLS you're looking at a kid who hits a lot of line drives, doesn't strike out much, walks around 10% of the time. That should lead to in a given season a slash of at worst this year if his BABIP is around .330 which probably close to where it should be with his LD propensity and flyball aversion, .291/.367/.358. Is that so bad? Sure it isn't lighting the world on fire, but we can do so much worse, and there's no cheap for sure upgrade that I'm seeing out there. Unlike what I think we can do with trading Johnson and Signing Headley where the cost between the 2 isn't so drastic. I also think his power numbers will go up. Among qualified starters, TLS's HR/FB would be near bottom of the league. From what I've seen, he's got more homer power than Dee Gordon, Ben Revere, and Zack Cozart. I can imagine a slight uptick in that number.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
LaROche for Gonzalez was the king of the bad trades.
I get Wainwright for Drew. We had a glaring hole that needed to be filled, so we went after a quality player, and our return from Drew was great, JD Drew posted one of the best seasons any Brave ever posted, the absolutely idiotic thing they did with Drew though was not offer him arby, We could have potentially had the 26 and 27 pick *not sure who the dodgers signed from Boston, don't care to look* and for sure we would have had another sandwich pick. There was no way in hell Drew was accepting arbitration. That was his biggest boner move involving Drew. If we could have taken one of those picks and stolen Clay Buchholz or Jed Lowrie from the Sox, that would have gone a long way, of course knowing the Braves of that era, it would have gone to draft osmeone who wouldn't have made the majors. 2005 draft got us 2 talented pitchers who couldn't stay healthy (Devine and Hanson) and Escobar. And our trade piece for Vazquez (Flowers) Could have been worse, could have been the 06 draft which got us Medlen and Locke and Rasmus. Food for thought our 06 draft including guys we didn't sign, had 4 major league players. That's insanely bad.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
But that's the rub. He's hitting .252 and his walk rate has dwindled. I suspect both are the result of teams now knowing how to pitch to him.
I know it sounds like I've thrown La Stella under the bus. He's young and he can make adjustments and maybe his performance gets up to near the level it was in the minor leagues. I just see him as a mid-ceiling guy whose value is largely dictated by the other guys in the line-up. In fairness to him, he's in just about the worst line-up possible for him right now. I think his drop-off when moved up in the batting order is indicative of something (not sure what), but my guess is because of the expected value in a spot near the top of the batting order required pitchers to work him harder and hence, the the performance drop. Because La Stella is not a power hitter, when he was hitting in the 7th or 8th slot, pitchers could relax on him because he wasn't likely to hit a mistake out of the park. There is value in turning the line-up over, so I think having La Stella in the 7th or 8th slot isn't a bad idea.
We'll see on La Stella. My guess is he goes into spring training 2015 as the projected starter. We'll see how it goes from there.
LOL, so not much different at all huh? You basically listed a difference in every quality that defines a baseball player's usefulness.
JohnAdcox
Brian Jordan's New BFF
As they say in the cartoons, "that's so crazy it just might work!"
gtcway
Spring Training Invitee
I was thinking this morning about this, and maybe someone else had had the same idea and posted it, but doesn't this sound about right?
Wren tells the higher ups that he's going to fire Fredi then they take action first and fire Wren, fully intending to keep Fredi around per glowing reviews all around.
Wren tells the higher ups that he's going to fire Fredi then they take action first and fire Wren, fully intending to keep Fredi around per glowing reviews all around.
The team needs to improve the biggest areas of weakness first, and that isn't 2B. We have every reason to expect some combination of TLS/Goss/Peraza to be able to cobble together a .320-.350 OBP with adequate defense at 2B next year, so stop worrying about it.
We all get it, TLS isn't great, but he is a decent option that costs nothing. That is very valuable to a team with very few resources to improve a roster that just finished below .500.
The list of "problems" on the Braves roster probably ranks as follows for this offseason:
1. CF (corner OF if Heyward slides to CF)
2. SP (must replace 400 IP of mostly quality work from Santana and Harang)
3. 3B (CJ is just not very good and must be platooned/subbed more effectively next season)
4. LHed BP (Avilan and Shreve are not going to cut it next year)
Then maybe 2B comes in at #5, but I would probably say getting a LHed option to platoon at 3B is more important than "fixing" 2B.
We all get it, TLS isn't great, but he is a decent option that costs nothing. That is very valuable to a team with very few resources to improve a roster that just finished below .500.
The list of "problems" on the Braves roster probably ranks as follows for this offseason:
1. CF (corner OF if Heyward slides to CF)
2. SP (must replace 400 IP of mostly quality work from Santana and Harang)
3. 3B (CJ is just not very good and must be platooned/subbed more effectively next season)
4. LHed BP (Avilan and Shreve are not going to cut it next year)
Then maybe 2B comes in at #5, but I would probably say getting a LHed option to platoon at 3B is more important than "fixing" 2B.
I feel bad for Wren. I'm all about judging decisions for what they were at the time - and not based on results. He did make some blunders, but for the most part his decisions were all defensible at the time. Unfortunately for him, most people look at results - and while his small, calculated gambles paid off well generally, his flashier signings and extensions missed pretty spectacularly.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
That is Job #1 to me. Watching Harang is like sitting on a keg of dynamite with a short fuse, but he did a nice job this year. Curious to see if and how he is approached during the off-season by the Braves and other teams. He ate a lot of innings (There's the set-up. Calling all punchlines.).
I think your other priorities are the correct ones in no particular order. All need to be addressed. I think Heyward in CF is indeed a possibility. We may see some Gattis in LF if that's the case. But the team can't have both Bethancourt and Simmons in the line-up consistently, so we may have to shop for a C if Heyward slides over to CF. If we built up the bench and could do some mix-and-match, something could get cobbled together.
One guy I am interested in is Jed Lowrie. I don't think he's a starter at the big league level and he's shaky defensively, but he's one of those guys who can play around the IF and is a better player than either Pena or Gosselin. I'm really curious to see what the market for him will look like. Switch-hitter who hits LHP better than RHP, so I don't know if it works to have him around if Chris Johnson remains in tow. At any rate, probably a guy you can slot in for 300 ABs or so and could do a good job if used correctly. I just don't know what his market will be. Maybe he's just an expensive version of La Stella.
mossy
<B>Hysterical Girlfriend<BR>That Storms Out and</B
I fully agree with this. To take Frank's side, NOBODY (not even the armchair know it alls on this board that the Braves don't employ) could have predicted the epic demise of Uggla/BJ. Perhaps in some way, but not as badly as they turned out.