Schuerholz Out!

[PureBaseballFan]

I guess I'll have to stick to this bubble of thought then. Apparently, a young, cheap, not-yet arb-eligible slugging first baseman is much more valuable than an iffy-health, 70 inning reliever. I must be crazy thinking otherwise.

I'm not being sarcastic, but that's where all that argument starts from.

Though LaRoche finished strong he didn't start well. In fact Thorman outplayed LaRoche in the first month. I liked LaRoche and think he will be a good player but we did need another good bullpen arm and was fine with the move even now. Also like I said before Thorman's failure was magnified by the failue of Andruw, McCann's injury that hurt his numbers, and of course Chipper missing games.

[Atlanta Braves Freak]

But now, as evidenced by what's going on at Braves Journal, some are discussing the merits of the Mike Gonzalez-Adam LaRoche trade now that Schuerholz isn't GM anymore. There's a real big stink about that. I'm sure they're here too, but the line of thinking goes:

We needed LaRoche more than we needed Gonzalez because we had Soriano and LaRoche's replacement would be Scott Thorman, who was not ready. If the Braves had kept LaRoche, the Teixeira trade would have never been made and the organization wouldn't be in such a pitiful state right now.

That's the way the logic goes.

That doesn't make much sense, because the team is in the same state we were with Laroche in 2006.

I can't agree with that logic for a few key reasons.

1. The Braves needed a good lefty out of the bullpen and Gonzalez more then meets that requirement. The best lefty going into the season for the Braves bullpen was McBride who had shown he could be good but he walked far to many people to be consistently good.

2. Soriano was no sure thing. He was coming off of a head injury that was pretty bad for baseball. I don't think anybody could have predicted how good he was in the first half as there were concerns of if he could be gunshy.

3. Other then Soriano none of the people in it could be called dominant or even good. This was the opening day bullpen for 2007.

Mike Gonzalez
Rafeal Soriano
Macay McBride
Chad Paronto
Oscar Villarreal
Bob Wickman
Tyler Yates

Other then Soriano and Gonzalez not one of the others could be called good or great. Now if Mike wasn't there the likely person to replace him would have been my favorite bullpen arm Moylan but as much I love Moylan I would have never predicted the kinds of numbers he put up.

4. You could argue the Braves were trading from one of their stronger positions. Many believed that Thorman would put up some average numbers for a rookie and that was all the Braves needed considering they were counting on Andruw to continue his big hitting ways, Chipper to be healthy, McCann would put up numbers similar to 2006, and Frenchy developing more as a hitter. Thorman's failures were magnified more by the lows of other players. If Thorman failed then they had Salty who played first in high school and they could have seen him as an option if Thorman failed. Kala Kaaihue in 2006 was showing in the minors that he could crush HRs and that in perhaps a two or three he could be ready for the majors.

5. Salty was likely to be traded anyway. If it wasn't for Tex he likely would have been traded for Arroyo, Garland, Vazquez, or any other pitcher that was on the market. We needed pitching and the Braves were willing to trade Salty and Harrison for that pitcher but when they couldn't get it they got the next biggest need a Power hitting 1B. People seem to forget that Tex was not the first choice for the Braves as they were looking for pitching in early June and didn't enter the Tex talk until about 1 week before the trade deadline.

6. The guys the Braves traded were at positions of decent depth. Elvis Andrus was struggling offensively and Diory Hernandez emerged as a good prospect at both 2B and SS, that combined with fact Yunel came to the majors and did a very good job showed the Braves had more then one option for the future of SS. Matt Harrison was a good prospect but Jo-Jo clearly overtook him as the Braves top pitching prospect and the good showing early in the season of Thomas Hanson, Francisley Bueno, Dan Smith, Cole Rohrbough, Jamie Richmond, Jose Ortegano, Jeffrey Locke, and Steve Evarts showing they were average to great prospects made Harrision more expendable. (the main thing about those guys is they are in the lower levels except for Smith and Bueno) Neftali Feliz might be ready for the majors in 3 to 4 years but until he develops more pitches he won't move up in the minors a whole lot, his potential upside is good but you will likely have to wait a while for him to be ready. Beau Jones, he was the PTBNL, has good talent but still needs to develop his control of pitching and will take a couple of years before he is fully ready.

The way I see it is Salty was gone no matter if we traded for Gonzalez or not. Andrus maybe not but Harrison was also likely gone because of the desperate need for pitching. To be honest I think the only thing that would have changed if the Braves didn't trade for Gonzalez is instead of Tex the Braves would likely have had Garland, Vazquez, Arroyo, or somewhere instead.

I don't agree with the logic either. Mike Gonzalez was a solid pickup. It's much harder to acquire a reliable relief pitcher, than acquring a top of the line power hitter. I haven't really questioned many of Schuerholz's moves, but I hope Frank Wren will take more risks than Schuerholz. JS has been conservative in the past few years, this year is the first instance in quite some time that he made a lot of moves at the trade deadline.

[AznInvasion]

At the time of trade, I was worried that Laroche would be a tough loss. Now, I'm very satisfied with the deal because we also got Lillibridge in the deal. Once, Gonzalez comes back healthy, maybe we can have a great bullpen.

[PureBaseballFan]

I think the interesting thing to look at is will Frank Wren be able to have some different negotiation tactics. I am wondering if the policy of not giving no-trade clauses will change.

[chip&smoltz95]

so did anyone actually leave the organization?

did mcguirk get promoted too?

mcguirk is the team chairman
JS is the team president
and wren is the GM

right?

[SamtheBravesFan]

so did anyone actually leave the organization?

did mcguirk get promoted too?

mcguirk is the team chairman
JS is the team president
and wren is the GM

right?

Yeah, I think so.

[PureBaseballFan]

so did anyone actually leave the organization?

did mcguirk get promoted too?

mcguirk is the team chairman
JS is the team president
and wren is the GM

right?

McGuirk is now the CEO of the Atlanta Braves and basically the face of ownership for Liberty Media.

[AznInvasion]

They really should say things got shaken up in ATL or everyone got promoted instead of JS stepping down. People get the completely wrong idea. Better choice of title basically.