On Monday, the Atlanta Braves made the move that we all expected for awhile now – they fired general manager Frank Wren, who has put together a team that has fallen out of the playoff race in recent weeks. But Atlanta’s follow-up move was quizzical – they named adviser John Hart as the interim GM, and stated that Hart, team president John Schuerholz, and Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox would collaborate to find the team’s new GM. Notice one name missing from that paragraph?
Yup – manager Fredi Gonzalez. Reports have surfaced that Gonzalez is inexplicably safe in his role as general manager, despite being at the helm of a team that has brutally collapsed in October for the second time in his four seasons at the helm. Over Gonzalez’s four years in Atlanta, the Braves are a 47-60, including playoff games (in which they are 1-4 under Gonzalez). That’s a .439 winning percentage, which is actually a worse winning percentage than both the Astros and Cubs have this season. So ask yourself this – is Frank Wren the deserving fall guy here for putting together a team that has limped to the finish line, or is Gonzalez the one whose head should be in the basket following yet another disappointing finish?
Many will point to the abject failures of Wren’s free agent signings, specifically Derek Lowe, Kenshin Kawakami, and B.J. Upton, and a pair of his contract extensions (Dan Uggla, Chris Johnson) as the reason he should have been axed. But if you turn the wayback machine to 2007, the final season of Schuerholz’s tenure before Wren was promoted, you’ll find that Wren walked into a terrible situation. Those 2007 Braves finished 84-78, and despite never falling under .500, they peaked at 12 games over on May 12th. Wren didn’t take over an elite contender – he took over a house of cards that was one stiff breeze away from collapsing. Tim Hudson and John Smoltz headed that rotation, and they were followed by a cornucopia of mediocre to downright terrible options, including Chuck James, Buddy Carlyle, and Kyle Davies, among others. The farm system Wren inherited had been weakened by Schuerholtz’s questionable trade for Mark Teixeira the prior summer. The only above average outfielder the Braves had in 2007 was Matt Diaz, a platoon bat.
Sure enough, the bottom fell out in 2008, and the Braves lost 90 games for the first time (and only time, for that matter) since 1990. The Braves were financially tapped out thanks to the Teixeira acquisition and Mike Hampton’s ridiculous salary (thanks, John!). Wren rebuilt the team that winter by signing Lowe and Kawakami, acquiring Javier Vazquez from the White Sox for what amounted to a bucket of balls. But that still wasn’t good enough – the team won 86 games and finished third in the NL East. Thus began a cycle that Wren couldn’t escape during his tenure as Braves GM – he constantly had to spend money to dig himself out of that hole Schuerholz left him in 207. When one problem was solved, another would pop up. The offense stinks? OK, go get a bat. Oh crap, we have a hole in center field, get one of them too. Dammit, that guy is a free agent we need to replace, sing one. Man, two starting pitchers blew out their elbows, fill those holes now. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.
And before the 2014 season, Wren did a damn good job staying within the budget set for him by team president Schuerholz and owners Liberty Media. The 2008 team had a payroll of over $100 million thanks in part to the contracts Schuerholz dumped on Wren before he left town, but Wren stayed under that threshold until this season, when injuries to both Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy forced him to sign Ervin Santana. It’s also worth remembering that money doesn’t buy what it used to. Atlanta’s $95 million payroll in 2013 ranked 15th in baseball. A decade earlier, in 2002, the Braves had a $93 million payroll, and it was seventh in baseball. In 1995, when the Braves won their lone World Series in Atlanta, they spent just $47 million and only two teams across all of baseball spent more. It’s tough to take Wren to task considering that Schuerholz had more money to play with in comparison to the rest of the league. If the Braves wanted to spend like a top ten team like they used to, Wren would have had somewhere between $10 and $30 million to play with. Maybe if that was the case, the team would have cut bait on Dan Uggla sooner, wouldn’t have given Chris Johnson what looked to be a safe extension, and filled those positions with actual impact players.
Frank Wren leaves the Braves in a better position than when he entered in 2007. That 2007 team had over $70 million committed to just five players in 2008, three of which were pitchers that combined to throw just 248 innings. The 2015 squad that Wren’s predecessor will inherit has just under $80 million in commitments, spread over eight players (and one sunk cost in Uggla). The next Atlanta GM will need to rebuild a horrid bench, as Ryan Doumit, Emilio Bonifacio, and Gerald Laird all will become free agents this year. He’ll also need to rebuild a rotation that sees Ervin Santana, Aaron Harang, and the injured Gavin Floyd depart. He’ll need to figure out just what the hell to do with Justin Upton and Jason Heyward who will be free agents next winter. He’ll need to make tough decisions about the futures of Jonny Venters, Kris Medlen, and Brandon Beachy, all valuable contributors in the past that didn’t throw a pitch this year thanks to their second (or in Venters’ case, his second *and* third) Tommy John surgery.
He’ll also have to face the elephant in the room – the aforementioned Fredi Gonzalez. Gonzalez has frustrated Braves fans time and time again since taking over from Cox following the 2010 season, and the fact that he wasn’t dismissed along with Wren today has driven Braves fans into a blind rage. The rumors are floating that Gonzalez’s job is safe, leading to questions about how much power the new GM will actually wield compared to the ancient triumvirate of Schuerholz, Cox, and Hart. But any GM worth his salt is going to want to choose his own manager – you don’t see Tony La Russa saying that Kirk Gibson will be the Diamondbacks manager in 2015 as the team reaches the final stages of their GM hunt. The same thing happened in San Diego, when questions surrounded Bud Black before the hiring of A.J. Preller and his vote of confidence in the club’s long-time skipper. Gonzalez has won one playoff game in four years with the Braves, and for a team that so lustily wants to return to The Braves Way ®, sticking with a mediocre manager because he’s one of “your guys” seems pretty silly.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in Atlanta over the next few weeks. This is unarguably one of the most important offseasons that the team has faced in recent years, and a series of bad moves could doom them to mediocrity in the near future. If that does happen, and the Braves turn into the Padres, I’ll bet Frank Wren not being able to get over the playoff hump will look pretty damn good in comparison
