Braves hire Alex Anthopoulos as GM

[Dick_Pole]

I don't like the narrative I hear from some people:

 

He dumped the Wells contract....the Angels were idiots.

 

He acquired Donaldson....Beane drunk texted him.

 

Come on, give the man credit for hustling. He completed those deals and took advantage of some brain farts as much as those teams' GMs had brain farts.

[BTS]

How can you say AA left behind an old, s***** core. And then say re-signing Bautista was understandable when Bautista was the only one of EE, Donaldson, Martin who is actually s***?

 

What the f*** am I reading.

 

I don’t understand the confusion. Why do you believe that it’s logically inconsistent to say that AA left behind an old core and also say that re-signing Bautista last year was understandable?

 

Also, the $60M anchor at shortstop is part of that core. You forgot him.

[intentional wok]

I don't like the narrative I hear from some people:

 

He dumped the Wells contract....the Angels were idiots.

 

He acquired Donaldson....Beane drunk texted him.

 

Come on, give the man credit for hustling. He completed those deals and took advantage of some brain farts as much as those teams' GMs had brain farts.

 

This one is mine, and my point was that short of this trade, very little of what AA did amounted to anything re: the MLB roster. It's a nice hustle, but without it his mark on the MLB side of things looks like a lot more like a skid mark.

 

As for spending prospects on lame vets vs. signing better prospects to replace them: that's like saying throwing money away is forgivable if you happen to strike gold later. You shouldn't have to rely on super prospects falling into your lap to keep yourself in the black. No GM can really control the breaking out or flopping of a prospect. Between managing your assets vs. watching one become a super-asset, it's only the managing of them that's completely up to the GM, and people are arguing that AA spent his assets poorly.

[TheHurl]

It's just so mind numbing that losing Alvarez, Nicolino, Marisnik, Hechavarria, Castro goes down as a huge, huge blow on AA's resume but no one cares he signed Vlad Jr.

 

He traded s*** prospects for vets, then signed a way better prospect. But just trading prospects in general means you're s***. Got it.

 

It wasn't that. It was more how he viewed the team at the time he made the trade and that he threw them all into one trade and tried to one stop shop. He left his team with JPA as it's only catcher, brought in a shitload of older players leaving the team with no depth if injuries happened. I also should remind you that those "s*** prospects" provided $200M in greatere value than the vets within 3 years of the trade.

 

Lets not pretend that lots of teams weren't in on Vlad Jr. He was a $3.9M recruit. AA did what it took to land him and I can respect that (using his French to impress the Mom, he used Montreal connections to impress Vlad), but there were ties that Ismael Cruz started when Vlad was 13. Tony LaCava and AA even questioned why they were there to look at a 14 year old and admitted if it weren't Vlad's kid they wouldn't have looked.

[BTS]

His old core was plus value though. It was a worthwhile core. You are basically just saying that, yes, eventually good players become old and decline. He did not re-sign any of them after they were clearly s***. They just ran their course as all cores do.

 

Yeah. That’s my entire problem: he produced a core with a 2-year window. His core had two years together at its best before many of them either hit free agency or fell off a cliff. I don’t think that’s an acceptable plan for a team that has a top-10 payroll. I disagree fundamentally with that course.

 

If Shatkins starts building around 30+ year olds on free agent contracts and ignoring spots 20-40 on the 40-man in order to open a 2-year window, I’ll call for their firing too.

[Brownie19]

Well, we’re 8 full seasons from when he took over and his teams won a division title and wild card spot, and is now in the middle of a predictable down swing due to him going all in with old guys on big contracts. This minimal success despite being allowed a top-10 payroll. Those results are unacceptable. The team he assembled, given the assets available, was unacceptable. Bad GM.

 

I still think if he trades Thor for JD, instead of Dickey - it changes a lot of the narrative surrounding him.

 

He takes way more s*** for the Dickey deal than he gets praise for landing JD. He takes way more s*** for adding aging, overpriced veterans than he does for dumping Vernon Wells and his contract...and for some unknown, utterly crazy reason, he takes way more s*** for trading way prospects than for signing Vlad Jr......and that's just the way it will always be.

[BTS]

So you are saying he should have traded Bautista and Encarnacion in their prime. I don't know what else he could have done with them. Maybe made them younger somehow? They were old but produced surplus value, and he did not trade anything for them.

 

So he should have traded them. That is literally the only option.

 

No, I don’t believe he should have traded them in their prime. This is a stupid post.

[BTS]

So he re-signed good, 30 year old players to huge surplus value contracts. There was no acquisition cost of said players. They got old and declined. He did not re-sign them. Conclusion is that he is s***?

 

I’ll reiterate my issue: the team he built had a 2-year window to win. A collection of ageing vets with nothing resembling upper minors depth to provide cheap wins when those vets leave/decline. I’ll reiterate that I don’t think that’s a desiresble course for a team with their payroll. It looks a lot like what we’ve seen fail in Philadelphia, Detroit, New York, and soon enough, Boston.

[saskjayfan]

I’ll reiterate my issue: the team he built had a 2-year window to win. A collection of ageing vets with nothing resembling upper minors depth to provide cheap wins when those vets leave/decline. I’ll reiterate that I don’t think that’s a desiresble course for a team with their payroll. It looks a lot like what we’ve seen fail in Philadelphia, Detroit, New York, and soon enough, Boston.

 

so your saying there's no hope next year...ahh...another year of losing.

[metafour]

Which of the guys we sent to the Marlins set us back 5 years lol? I would let AA trade 10 Alvarez and Nicolinos if he signs just one Vlad Jr.

 

I feel like we got the worst case scenario out of every single player we acquired and still Buehrle alone out performed all the prospects we sent.

 

That trade single-handily destroyed our payroll flexibility, so much so that we were forced to start the 2015 season relying on several rookies who had no business being asked to start on a team that was supposed to "compete" (Pompey, Osuna, Castro, Norris). Osuna worked out, the rest flopped and we were in an absolutely terrible situation depth wise. You clearly have no idea how to evaluate trades because there is much more to consider than simply who was sent and who was acquired. We got old and expensive after that trade, and the premier player we acquired (Reyes) had to be shipped out just a few seasons later just to get rid of his terrible contract (bringing back a new terrible contract in Tulo) because surprise-surprise a player who's value was dependent on speed ended up collapsing after his legs went (this should have surprised no one). Even Buehrle, the "saving grace" of that trade was performing on a contract that was paying him ~$15 million a year. He was a pretty good ~#4 starter here, but lets not pretend like we were getting any sort of great value out of him considering that the Marlins payed out the ass to sign him.

 

As a team with obvious payroll parameters, he got the chance to infuse a s***-ton of salary onto the payroll and he did so by adding a slew of declining and over-paid "past stars" on long-term deals that basically prevented us from adding further difference-making talent unless Rogers opened up the pocket-book a second time, which they obviously weren't going to do.

[BTS]

Like I said, I prefer Shatkins. There is no debate that their style of team building is optimal. I just dislike the notion that AA was a bad GM. There was a season, under his tenure, that we could have easily won the WS. It's not easy to do that. A 2 year window is a longer window than anything we've had since 93. That still doesn't make him a great GM. You can't trade Thor for Dickey and be great. But there's no way I can call AA a bad GM.

 

But I think my biggest issue is that objectivity is just completely ignored when evaluating him. His team building is not actually like those teams you listed. He did not re-sign any aging guys who were clearly declining. The only move he made to add a bad contract was Tulowitzki, who has experienced the biggest drop off of a star player that anyone can remember. I think this board pretends that he is Amaro who gave extensions to all the old Philliles guys who were clearly declining but AA didn't do that!

 

He didn't give out a Cabrera/Zimmerman/Upton contract like in Detroit. He didn't give out an Ellsbury/Arod/whoever deal in NY.

 

The only stupid s*** he did was trade prospects for vets. He was just betting on his knowledge of prospects being 100% correct which is *obviously unsustainable*. But to hedge his bets he went big on a prospect like Vlad Jr.

 

It's not an optimal team building philosophy. Optimal is like Shapiro in CLE which is why I prefer that style. But you can still win a WS with a sub-optimal philosophy, and we almost did that. And that doesn't make you a bad GM in my books. So I'll just leave this discussion there.

 

I think it comes down to us disagreeing fundamentally with how impressive it is that he was able to briefly assemble a WS contender on a top-10 payroll. It seems more special than it is because the team spent the previous 20 years being either woefully mismanaged, or trying to compete on a paltry payroll (sometimes both). We’ve seen a lot of bad front offices enjoy short term success with money to spend and prospects to burn. I’m only impressed if you can sustain it.

[saskjayfan]

I think it comes down to us disagreeing fundamentally with how impressive it is that he was able to briefly assemble a WS contender on a top-10 payroll. It seems more special than it is because the team spent the previous 20 years being either woefully mismanaged, or trying to compete on a paltry payroll (sometimes both). We’ve seen a lot of bad front offices enjoy short term success with money to spend and prospects to burn. I’m only impressed if you can sustain it.

 

Your top 10 Payroll comment is a little misleading? No? In 2015 our payroll was the 10th highest to open the season at 122. The 20th payroll coming in at 102. The 9th highest payroll to open the 2015 jumped to 135. The 8th highest was 142. The top 5 were all north of 170 and the dodgers were more than double the Jays payroll at 272.

 

The Jays were the best team in 2015 and our payroll was 7 million dollars higher than the median payroll to start the season which was 115. You make it sound like we were big spenders with a top 10 payroll when were were still relatively poor compared to the top teams in baseball.

[burlingtonbandit]

Curious, do people here think AA or Atkins is a better GM?

 

I think part of the problem with AA's tenure was that Beeston was a terrible President. The upgrade Shapiro provides over Beeston is the underrated one IMO.

[BTS]

Your top 10 Payroll comment is a little misleading? No? In 2015 our payroll was the 10th highest to open the season at 122. The 20th payroll coming in at 102. The 9th highest payroll to open the 2015 jumped to 135. The 8th highest was 142. The top 5 were all north of 170 and the dodgers were more than double the Jays payroll at 272.

 

The Jays were the best team in 2015 and our payroll was 7 million dollars higher than the median payroll to start the season which was 115. You make it sound like we were big spenders with a top 10 payroll when were were still relatively poor compared to the top teams in baseball.

 

Jays payroll ranks over the last 4 years as per Spotrac

 

2014 - 9th

2015 - 10th

2016 - 10th

2017 - 4th (though I think this mishandles Upton)

 

So no, I don’t think calling them a top-10 payroll team is misleading.

[BTS]

Curious, do people here think AA or Atkins is a better GM?

 

I think part of the problem with AA's tenure was that Beeston was a terrible President. The upgrade Shapiro provides over Beeston is the underrated one IMO.

 

I don’t even really consider Ross Atkins a real person.

[saskjayfan]

Jays payroll ranks over the last 4 years as per Spotrac

 

2014 - 9th

2015 - 10th

2016 - 10th

2017 - 4th (though I think this mishandles Upton)

 

So no, I don’t think calling them a top-10 payroll team is misleading.

 

 

 

you put zero context around the comment. The difference between 10th and 20th in 2015 was slight. The difference between 10th and 5th was massive. You stated you were partly not impressed because of their payroll which was 10th. That comment suggests he had money to work with when in fact money was only a very slight advantage over the middle of the pack and a massive disadvantage over the top teams in baseball. When you work with a payroll that is less 33% to 100+% difference than the top 5 teams in the league, I would suggest that's a pretty decent accomplishment. I'm probably just easier to please I guess.

[Jimcanuck]

Any GM can trade prospects for high priced veterans for a short window of contending.

 

JD was an outstanding trade (WTF Beane), and some others were very good, but I give AA the label of mediocre GM overall.

[Krylian]

I still think if he trades Thor for JD, instead of Dickey - it changes a lot of the narrative surrounding him.

 

He takes way more s*** for the Dickey deal than he gets praise for landing JD. He takes way more s*** for adding aging, overpriced veterans than he does for dumping Vernon Wells and his contract...and for some unknown, utterly crazy reason, he takes way more s*** for trading way prospects than for signing Vlad Jr......and that's just the way it will always be.

 

Cause it's easier, and more fun, to hate on things, than it is to praise. Social Media was forged on criticism. The internet will break if people stop complaining.

[BTS]

you put zero context around the comment. The difference between 10th and 20th in 2015 was slight. The difference between 10th and 5th was massive. You stated you were partly not impressed because of their payroll which was 10th. That comment suggests he had money to work with when in fact money was only a very slight advantage over the middle of the pack and a massive disadvantage over the top teams in baseball. When you work with a payroll that is less 33% to 100+% difference than the top 5 teams in the league, I would suggest that's a pretty decent accomplishment. I'm probably just easier to please I guess.

 

The difference between 10 and 20 was 27M. Bigger than the difference between 10 and 5. You can whine all you want about it being brought up, but one thing will never change: AA had a top-10 payroll to work with.

[Captain Adama]

I still think if he trades Thor for JD, instead of Dickey - it changes a lot of the narrative surrounding him.

 

He takes way more s*** for the Dickey deal than he gets praise for landing JD. He takes way more s*** for adding aging, overpriced veterans than he does for dumping Vernon Wells and his contract...and for some unknown, utterly crazy reason, he takes way more s*** for trading way prospects than for signing Vlad Jr......and that's just the way it will always be.

 

The Vernon Wells deal was precipitated by the fact that Tony Reagins called AA for Wells. At that point, it was a no brainer to unload Wells' contract onto the Angels. The major problem with AA was it that he was awful at rounding out rosters and his teams' depth were poor, so when injuries hit, those teams were particularly vulnerable. Plus, he still had trouble looking at advanced analytics and thought that signing guys like Cordero, Vizquel and De Rosa were good ideas because of the vetrin presents.

 

AA deserves credit for what he's good at; and that's being thorough, that's why opportune deals for Donaldson, Rasmus and Morrow happened. Donaldson basically saved his tenure from becoming a total bust and leaving at the end of 2015 as a joke, instead of revered (?). And I've said this before, but it's not the prospects themselves that he traded away which is a problem, it's the poor use of the prospect capital. There were better players to trade said prospects to maintain a younger core instead of trading for old, expensive contracts that any idiot could've overpaid for on the free agent market.

[John_Havok]

So many strawmen and false equivalenvies in this thread.

 

AA doesn't get immunity from criticism just because he was at the helm for 2 playoff appearances for the first time in 25 years.

 

Criticisms of the forest doesn't mean you don't like some of the trees.

[glory]

How can you say AA left behind an old, s***** core. And then say re-signing Bautista was understandable when Bautista was the only one of EE, Donaldson, Martin who is actually s***?

 

What the f*** am I reading.

 

Signing Bautista was understandable because it looked like they weren't going to get a draft pick for him with no team willing to sign him, they had a hole in the outfield, and they got him on essentially a one year deal. I don't see how saying the core was old and s***** while also saying the Bautista signing made sense are conflicting opinions. Both statements are correct.

 

Shatkins has run the team for two seasons now. In that time, they haven't had a single pitching prospect reach AAA until Borucki in August, and the closest thing they have to a position player ready to start in the bigs in 2018 was acquired at the trade deadline three months ago. If you don't have young players or prospects to supplement an aging core, then guess what? The core will decline, and the players around them won't be good enough to compensate for it. That's exactly what you saw in 2017. The only option was to double down and trade more prospects for vets if you wanted to string this flawed roster along for another season, but thankfully this regime is a lot smarter than that.

 

I don't see the genius in what AA did. Yes, some moves were great (JD in particular), but the totality of it was lackluster, and left the team in a very difficult spot beyond the one year window they had in 2016. The way Shatkins has operated since they were hired is exactly how they should have done it. Don't agree with every move they've made, but they haven't waffled on their goals.

[Angrioter]

JMac, DeRosa, Kawa...... , trade Valencia instead of Colabello

[Terminator]

JMac, DeRosa, Kawa...... , trade Valencia instead of Colabello

 

Omar Vizquel might have been the worst.

[Key22]

You have to consider what he inherited though. The farm system was god awful and he was told to cut the payroll. It took at least 3 years to get back to square 1.

 

Just curious - how many years will you give Shatkins before you consider their tenure a failure? The team was in considerably better shape than it was went AA took over.

 

Is that really true? Shapiro inherited a team with a lousy farm system and zero depth. Shapiro has his own Vernon Wells albatross in Tulo. A $20 million no bat worsening defensive player no one will take even if you pay $30million of his remaining contract. Shapiro also inherits an old team. Shatkins did make some good moves. Retsining Estrada, signing Happ and Smoak (who everyone thought was a bum) . Considering they had no prospects, and a maxed out payroll there is only so much Shatkins can do at the present time. They say all the right things of what they want. Team speed Altuve types but you can't trade for that with our crap prospects. And with Tulo, it hampers the financial commitment available. They will need probably 5 years to tirn this team around. Houston sgould be the model. Young talented and add a Verlander to put you over the top. 1992 aand 1993 Jays did the same. Huge talent and add Cone and a Molitor to put you over the top. AAs failure was not realizing that his core wasn't nearly good enough to win and spending the farm for Price and Tulo wasn't going to put them over the top. Make the playoffs yes but WS quality...no. too many holes.

[burlingtonbandit]

People are over blowing how bad the farm system was when Shapiro took over. There wasn't much depth in the upper levels (because of the trades) but it wasn't lacking talent..

 

Vlad Jr

Alford

Tellez

Pentecost

SRF

Borucki

Greene

 

Were all here when AA left. Its not like it was the Angels or Tigers System. The biggest improvement is the development system Shapiro has installed, not the actual players which no one seems to acknowledge.

[BTS]

People are over blowing how bad the farm system was when Shapiro took over. There wasn't much depth in the upper levels (because of the trades) but it wasn't lacking talent..

 

Vlad Jr

Alford

Tellez

Pentecost

SRF

Borucki

Greene

 

Were all here when AA left. Its not like it was the Angels or Tigers System. The biggest improvement is the development system Shapiro has installed, not the actual players which no one seems to acknowledge.

 

At least three of those guys aren't even assets.

[Key22]

The trouble with farm system evaluations is you don't know Jack until they perform at the majors. Travis Snyder numbet 4 or 9 prospect in all of baseball. Result? Chump. Let's swe Vlad hit Sale, Verlander, Chapman, and field ball hit by Judge at 110mph before we write his name in Cooperstown.

 

While Jays prospect fandom is high, where are our Jose Altuve, Judge, Lindor, Correia prospects? Boston and New York usually draft AFTER us ans tjey seemingly produce far more high level studs ocer tje last 15 years than us. Sure Pillar is nice if he were batting ninth. And sure we have some pitchers but it sure seems like we produce mostly mediocrity

[crazy47larry]

I never knew AA elicited this much hate before. He totally revamped our scouting/drafting process. The fact that we even had some valuable prospects to trade was a foreign concept until he took over. Our team was in the dark ages before him trying to build through FA for christ sakes. I see a lot of revisionist history going down on this thread. Outside of the obvious blockbuster trades everyone remembers, think about trading nothing for Brandon Morrow, Colby Rasmus, Yunel Escobar, Rajai Davis. The list goes on. Then under the gun moves like moving Roy Halladay after he requested a trade and Vernon Wells when he had quite possibly the single worst contract in MLB. I absolutely prefer a draft & develop philosophy but you simply cannot fault AA for doing most of the moves he made.

 

Does anyone have a transaction history of all his moves?

[Boxcar]

People are over blowing how bad the farm system was when Shapiro took over. There wasn't much depth in the upper levels (because of the trades) but it wasn't lacking talent..

 

Vlad Jr

Alford

Tellez

Pentecost

SRF

Borucki

Greene

 

Were all here when AA left. Its not like it was the Angels or Tigers System. The biggest improvement is the development system Shapiro has installed, not the actual players which no one seems to acknowledge.

 

So a stud in Vlad (and let's be honest, international signings are a crapshoot so thank jesus we lucked out), Alford, who looks like he'll be a fringe starter if we're lucky, and a bunch of crap. Pretty sure any team can hold a claim to that kind of talent.

 

At least three of those guys aren't even assets.

 

Generous. I count 5.