The Five Biggest Mistakes the Braves Made in 2009
October 18, 2009 at 6:28 pm by Capitol Avenue Club under Atlanta Braves, Front Office
Late last night I was sitting around wondering what I should write about today. This post came to me. The five biggest mistakes the Braves made in 2009.
Number 5 – The way Arbitration was handled.
I am a big fan of the way Frank Wren does business, but if there’s one thing I would like to see him improve upon, and something that doesn’t get a lot of attention, is the way he handles Arbitration. Six players were arbitration eligible this past off-season: Matt Diaz, Jeff Francoeur, Kelly Johnson, Omar Infante, Mike Gonzalez, and Casey Kotchman. I thought three of the cases were handled very well: Matt Diaz signed for 1 year, $1.2375 million, Omar Infante was signed for 2 years, $4.325 million (buying out his final arbitration year and a year of free agency) with a club option for $2.5 million, and Mike Gonzalez was signed for 1 year, $3.45 million. The other three cases were handled rather badly. Kelly Johnson was signed for $2.825 million. I thought Wren probably should have taken him to arbitration. They met close to the middle, Kelly Johnson’s people submitted $3.3 million and the Braves submitted $2.35 million. It doesn’t sound like much money, but I felt like the Braves had a fairly good chance of winning the case and it’s a bad habit to get into–settling for halfway. Casey Kotchman signed for 1-year, $2.885 million. I know it was his 2nd arbitration year, but a 1B with a career .742 OPS doesn’t deserve $2.885 million. And, perhaps the worst of all, Jeff Francoeur signed a 1-year, $3.375 million deal. The Braves submitted $2.8 million and Francoeur’s people submitted $3.95 million. You’re crazy if you think Francoeur could have won that arbitration case.
Number 4 – Signing Derek Lowe to a 4 year, $60 million contract.
It’s not that I think Frank Wren shouldn’t have signed Derek Lowe. I just think that if he had taken the time to properly negotiate, I think he could have had Lowe for less money. A refresher. Lowe was signed a few days after John Smoltz signed with the Red Sox. The next highest offer Lowe had in hand was a 3-year, $36 million offer from the Mets. I understand Frank’s desire to avoid a bidding war, but the Mets weren’t going to go 4 years. If Frank had taken the time to properly negotiate, I suspect he could have had Lowe for 4 years, $50 million. Instead, as a reaction to the Smoltz departure and in a desperate attempt to win back the fan-base, Wren threw the $60 million offer on the table with a clock on it, hoping to swiftly announce something positive to soften the blow of Smoltz’s departure. Maybe it was necessary at the time, but now that the fan base has seen what Wren is capable of, I really hope he never uses this negotiation tactic again. No matter what the fans think, it wasn’t worth $10 million.
Number 3 – Not giving Matt Diaz enough PA’s.
Quick, without thinking, who is the qualified (minimum 2 PA’s per team game, or 324 PA’s) Braves leader in OPS? No, it’s not Brian McCann, he’s 2nd with .834. No, it’s not Chipper Jones, he’s 4th with .818. No, it’s not Yunel Escobar, he’s 5th with .812. No, it’s not Martin Prado, he’s 3rd with .822. You probably know who it is just by looking at the sub-title before this paragraph, but would you believe Matt Diaz is the Braves leader in OPS? And it’s not really all that close. His .878 OPS is .044 points higher than McCann’s 2nd place .834. Additionally, Matt Diaz is the Braves leader in both components of OPS, OBP and SLG%. He also led the team in batting average (.313) and triples (4). Yet he’s 6th on the team in PA’s. Completely inexcusable. I’m serious, this is a god damn tragedy. Especially considering the fact that the people he was chiefly competing against for playing time posted robust OPS’s of .773 (Nate McLouth), .749 (Ryan Church), .705 (Garret Anderson), and .634 (Jeff Francoeur). Look, I know Matt Diaz’s limitations. I know he isn’t going to be the next Manny Ramirez or Pete Rose. I don’t give a fuck. The Braves put together a horse-shit outfield for the entire year and still wouldn’t play Diaz until the last two months. And that, to me, is a crock of shit. Perhaps the most maddening mistake. I retract that. 2nd most maddening mistake.
Number 2 – Signing Garret Anderson to a 1 year, $2.5 million contract.
Garret Anderson hit .268/.303/.401/.705 with 13 HR. He also played some of the shittiest defense I’ve ever seen. He posted a -10.9 UZR. According to Fangraphs, it would’ve been worth having Garret Anderson on the team if he was willing to pay the Braves $4.1 million. That’s not a typo, he had negative value. I’m just looking at that and saying, couldn’t Brandon Jones have done the exact same thing for free? Furthermore, couldn’t Brandon Jones have hit better and played better defense for free? I know that the Braves were looking for a power hitter, and Brandon Jones doesn’t exactly fit that bill. But neither does Garret Anderson:
Worst SLG% 2009: Outfielders
Randy Winn – .353
Michael Bourn – .384
Nyjer Morgan – .388
Chase Headley – .392
Garret Anderson – .401
It’s worth note that the 4 ahead of him on this list all had higher OBPs and all provided some sort of defensive value. Morgan and Bourn are arguably the two best base runners in the NL, Chase Headley plays in Petco Park, is young, plays good defense, and posted a .342 OBP. Randy Winn sucks, but he does play at AT&T Park and plays passable defense.
In fact, Brandon Jones’ translated AAA line would look like this in MLB: .260/.342/.410. So yeah, he would’ve probably hit better. And it doesn’t take much to be a better defensive player than Garret Anderson, but Brandon Jones certainly would’ve been. I haven’t even gotten into base running, but B. Jones would’ve been better there, too. It was a very bad mistake to sign Garret Anderson. Perfect example of choosing youth over washed-up veterans. At the very least, the kids are learning something and getting better.
Number 1 – Depending on Jeff Francoeur for anything.
From Frank Wren’s chat with fans in November of 2008:
Thanatos: What is the plan if Jeff Francouer struggles again next year? Will you try to acquire a solid outfielder to back him up?
Wren: We are counting on that not happening.
OK, Frank, I’ve got a follow-up question. What the hell makes you think you can count on Jeff Francoeur not struggling? Seriously. You’re talking about a guy who had, to that point, a career .312 OBP and a career .746 OPS. He was coming off a year in which he posted a .294 OBP (the 2nd of the past 3 years in which he posted a sub-.300 OBP) and a .653 OPS. Additionally, he played horrible defense in 2008. So why did you think you could count on him? He hit .250/.282/.352 for the Braves, played bad defense, and was eventually traded for a semi-useful piece thanks to Omar Minaya’s complete lack of knowledge as to how valuable players are.
Francoeur should’ve started the year at AAA if the organization was intent on keeping him. Depending on him helping a major league team was, by far, the worst and most maddening mistake the Braves made in 2009.
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Hi. I am a long time reader. I wanted to say that I like your blog and the layout.
Peter Quinn
Love the explanation of Matt Diaz not getting enough PA’s, it made me laugh!
Hi, I’m a new reader, but I also like the writing and layout. I’ve been reading Braves Journal for a long time, but this is the 2nd blog I’ll read that concerns the Braves from now on. Keep it up!
Philip
I appreciate it, folks.
I have followed Braves Journal for year and just found this site the other day. You guys are doing a good job.
Bravo on this post. Dead on.
Number 3 really isn’t different than a combination of Number 2 and Number 1, but both of those were so bad they should count for at least 1.5 each, so I don’t mind.
LOL, you’re dually right, Hizouse.
Thanks, Smitty.
another long time reader of braves journal and talking chop, etc. just discovered this last week and also very impressed with what i’ve seen so far. I know you probably wanted to limit yourlist to only 5 but i would have to think giving norton as many pa’s as the braves did and relying on him in so many crucial ph situations, esp in the 2nd half w/ better options available and norton clearly not able to cut it any longer, has to make the list somewhere; maybe a tie for 5th place?
I don’t know. There’s only so much impact a player can have over 97 PA’s. And Norton, despite his inability to actually hit, did manage to get on base 31 times (.330 OBP). It was a mistake giving Norton so many PA’s for sure, though.
i know it’s only 97 pa’s but with so many of them at the tipping point of a game it seems david ross or one of the other bench options could have swung the difference in a couple of those games at least. if the braves had been tied or one back in the wc chase that last week i don’t think we would have closed out with 6 losses. playoff appearances are precious and it’s not like we were trying to develop confidence in norton for the next good brave team. we should have just cut bait w/ him at midseason. good list all in all though
I agree with you. The leverage of those 97 PA’s was rather large. It may have been a top-5 mistake.
allright, sorry but the best nickname i heard all year was ‘Ache’ to describe anderson, where the heck did that come from… did it start that game he dropped TWO foul balls in one inning?! since it was bobby who pushed hard to sign him,you think frank wren will pretty much just ignore him now?
I like Diaz. But for me, I think we still have to be careful how he’s deployed. He’s basically ARod against left handers (.347/.384/.537 career), but in 2009 he was Ted Williams against them (.412/.464/.640), and was given every chance that could be had to play against them. A more pedestrian .255/.349/.400 this year against RHP, in nearly twice as many PAs, which is below but not outlyingly so (is that a word?) his norms. He deserves more of a chance, but if I were running the team, I’d still try to have a good potential platoon partner around for him. Wouldn’t be nervous about giving him steady duty, but want to maximize him too.
Diaz, Prado and Kelly Johnson really destroyed left handers this year:
Diaz: .412/.464/.640 in 152 PAs
Prado: .301/.392/.531 in 168
KJ: .325/.368/.600 in 90
That’s 410 of the 1914 PAs vs LHP for the team. 21%.
But the team line vs LHP was .268/.339/.411.
The other 79% of the PAs were that bad.
Yunel was awful (.232/.343/.348 in 183), McCann worse (.225/.309/.325), and McLouth was Langerhansian (.192/.280/.298).
Keith,
IIRC “ACHE” = Anderson, Cleanup Hitter Extraordinaire (ACHE)
My favorite Anderson description for the year was “loaf fielder”
Nevin, Keith,
Nevin is correct. ACHE = Anderson, Cleanup Hitter Extraordinaire. Courtesy of Mac Thomason of Braves Journal. One of my favorite nicknames of all time.