Sixteen Transactions in Frank Wren’s History
March 9, 2010 at 8:00 am by Capitol Avenue Club under Atlanta Braves
Quantitatively evaluating sixteen of Frank Wren’s more well-known moves. Let’s just get right to it.
Signings
1. Signed Rafael Soriano to a 2 year, $9 million contract.
Signings are the easiest to evaluate because it’s just money and production. This one proved to be worth it, rare for a relief pitcher. This deal gets high marks.
2, 3. Signed Tom Glavine to a 1 year, $8 million contract (2008). Signed Tom Glavine to a 1 year, $1 million contract plus incentives (2009).
I figured I’d just get both of them out of the way. Quite simply, this turned out to be a horrible deal. It looked better at the time on both accounts, but it’s still a terrible allocation of resources.
4. Signed Garret Anderson to a 1 year, $2.5 million contract.
Waste of cash. Playing him when he was actively hurting the team didn’t help, but a terrible signing overall.
5. Signed Derek Lowe to a 4 year, $60 million contract.
Too early to call, but it probably won’t look too good after 2012. The Braves also gave up their 2009 second round pick.
6. Signed Kenshin Kawakami to a 3 year, $23 million contract.
Again, too early to tell. The first year was slightly positive and it could really go either way.
Big Trades
7. Traded SS Edgar Renteria to the Detroit Tigers for RHP Jair Jurrjens and OF Gorkys Hernandez.
The production of Jair Jurrjens for the Braves thus far makes this deal a complete knock-out. Renteria was basically worthless on a very bad Detroit team. Jurrjens has been worth 7.7 wins for league minimum over the past two seasons. This is by far Frank Wren’s best trade. Gorkys will be covered in the next transaction, but he was a top 76-100 hitter, worth $12.5 million, at the time of the trade.
8. Traded RHP Charlie Morton, OF Gorkys Hernandez, and LHP Jeff Locke for OF Nate McLouth.
McLouth has a very good chance of making this deal look pretty good. Then again, so does Charlie Morton and (to a lesser degree) Jeff Locke and Gorkys Hernandez. Hernandez was rated a top 51-75 prospect immediately before he was dealt but his stock has since fallen and he’s now simply a grade B prospect. To this point, there’s plenty of evidence Wren sold Gorkys at his highest point:
Of course, if he stops making so many outs, he could be worth $55 million, rather than $5.5 million.
9, 10. Traded 1B Mark Teixeira for 1B Casey Kotchman and RHP Stephen Marek. Traded 1B Casey Kotchman for 1B Adam LaRoche.
Stephen Marek will have to be a $5.3 million man to make this trade worthwhile. I have little confidence he’ll have any positive impact on any MLB roster ever. Not that Frank Wren was in a particularly good position to begin with.
11, 12. Traded C Tyler Flowers, SS Brent Lillibridge, LHP Santos Rodriguez, and 3B Jon Gilmore for RHP Javier Vazquez and LHP Boone Logan. Trade RHP Javier Vazquez and LHP Boone Logan for OF Melky Cabrera, RHP Arodys Vizcaino, and LHP Michael Dunn.
Treating Boone Logan and Michael Dunn as a wash, the Braves traded $20.6 million in prospects for $15.2 million in prospects and $14.5 million in surplus value. One of the better moves Wren has made. Of course, having those extra wins in 2010 would be nice. The first one certainly looks better than the second, at least in retrospect. I only considered Melky’s 2010 value for the sake of conservatism.
Minor yet not insignificant trades
13. Traded RHP Jose Ascaino for LHP Will Ohman and INF Omar Infante.
Ascanio ended up being a throw in in some minor trade with the Pirates at the ’09 deadline. Calling this deal lop-sided may be an understatement.
14, 15. Traded RHP Joey Devine and INF Jamie Richmond for OF Mark Kotsay and cash. Traded OR Mark Kotsay for OF Luis Sumoza.
Joey Devine is far from finished making this look bad for Atlanta.
16. Traded OF Jeff Francoeur and cash for OF Ryan Church.
No matter what, this was the correct move. Francoeur played above his head, Church was mostly hurt and ineffective, and the Braves still won the value game. I find that a lot more relevant than the fact that the Wilpons foolishly committed $5 million to Jeff Francoeur in 2010 whereas the Braves exercised some fiscal responsibility and chose to cut Ryan Church. The longer the Wilpons pay Francoeur the better this deal will look (from Atlanta’s perspective).
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What about “community effect”? Some sources have said Schuerholz almost had the Renteria for Jurrjens and Gorkys deal done before Wren took over. Also, I feel that Bobby Cox is partly responsible for not wanting to use Devine properly (and Schuerholz for putting th eteam in postion to almost be forced to bring up a just signed reliever into a pennant race).
Also, what about “remaining years under contract”. Obviously we can only estimate production on McLouth going forward (he is signed through 2011, option 2012, right?), but it would seem that the value of prospects given is “sunk” at time of trade so the best estimate of the remaining “production” coming from McLouth as compared to his cost should be included (including a small draft pick bonus on the back end).
On an unrelated note, I am convinced the Braves will have Heyward on the opening day roster. I am convinced he can obp 380, and at that level, with his plus defense in right, he can help. I don’t think 10 ot 12 games will result in a measurable improvement, but I really don’t think they will hold him down.
Well, if Schuerholz almost had the Renteria Jurrjens Gorkys deal done, Frank Wren probably had something to do with that, too, seeing as he was assistant GM at the time.
Obviously we can’t ignore the remaining contract years, but for this exercise I stuck with results based evaluation.
Minor points, but when Renteria was first acquired Boston threw in cash, so the Braves were paying $6 million, not 10. And the first Glavine signing cost us a first round pick which should be included, as should the pick Lowe cost us.
Daniel,
Renteria’s salary/production reflects his time in Detroit, not Atlanta. Did the Red Sox throw in salary to cover Renteria’s 2008 salary, too? I’m asking because I don’t know.
Whatever the cash was (and I thought it was equal to 2 million per year for 2 years) Boston gave that to ATL and ATL did not give it to Detroit.
So the $10 million figure is correct.
It should be noted on the Teixeira trade that if Wren had not traded Teixeira, he would have just lost him to free agency, while probably picking up a couple of draft picks. So, the trade can’t be viewed in a vaccuum, where Kotchman + Marek wasn’t worth as much as Teixeira. The alternative was virtually getting nothing if they didn’t trade Tex.
That is noted, yes. It’s probably something I should have discussed further, it’s a good point. But in the interest of brevity, I elected to go with:
In the Renteria move, would that reduce his salary, making his production even more beneficial, giving his time in a Braves uniform a positive value (as it appears negative on the charat above)?
And while we couldn’t flip one for a productive LaRoche down the stretch last year, we might have signed an adequate 1B making that need irrelevant. But the two draft picks might have been better than Kotchman and Marek, certainly better than Marek. And considering we didn’t offer arb to LaRoche, those two are the end of the line in that deal meaning we gave up Tex for VERY little productivity ultimately. The draft picks we could have gotten if he left via free agency could have been more valuable. But that is entirely speculative and wouldn’t really fit with the method of evaluation you chose.
I should’ve been more clear about this.
The Renteria image illustrates his value to Detroit in 2008, not Atlanta.
[...] Capital Ave. Club quantitatively evaluates 16 of Braves’ GM Frank Wren’s most notable moves. [...]
What about non-transactions Wren made? Such as not signing Smoltz or Hampton. And cutting Glavine to make room for Hanson.
Not much use in quantitatively evaluating non-transactions, we don’t have enough information.
Will yall please sell the braves because so far yall suck big time. Please give us someone who can put some money towards the braves and dont say yall dont put money towards it because there is no fans. The fans dont go because the product yall give us! give em back to ted turner please! and also try to get them back on tbs or some channel where we can watch them in North Carolina! we cant watch them on turner sports or peachtree because they black out!
I believe you are attempting to address Liberty Media. I am not Liberty Media.
Also, if you’re so discontent with the product, why do you want to watch the games on television?
You can contact Liberty Media here.