Atlanta Braves hire GM Alex Anthopoulos
The Atlanta Braves moved cautiously forward in the last week, hiring coaches and making minor personnel moves. After pining for Dayton Moore for weeks, Sunday night we heard they’ve hired Alex Anthopoulos as the new GM.
When I started writing this it was a post about the internal disagreement between John Schuerholz – who wanted Jim Hendry – and John Hart who favored Anthopoulus. I had decided to lay out each man’s less than successful past for everyone to chew on.
As I was proof reading I learned that Anthopoulos had been hired.
Can report now Anthopoulos is getting #Braves GM job, announcement possible at GM Meetings
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) November 13, 2017
Sherman’s earlier post indicated that Hart had usurped Schuerholz as McGuirk’s go to guy for baseball advice. McGuirk’s hiring of hired Anthopoulos as the team’s final decision-maker in baseball-related matters seems to verify that feeling.
Hart keeps the title of president of baseball operations for now but becomes a “counsel/figurehead”. Oddly that was the role Schuerholz took after his retirement in 2007.
Trades and regrets
AA’s first trade saw Roy Halladay leave for Philadelphia for three players that never really worked out. Prior to the 2011 season AA managed to convince the Angels to take the Vernon Wells contract in its entirety and received two very good players in return. He then traded one of them, away for a shaky closer.
AA seems to love big trades and the 2012 season saw him make a series of multiplayer trades. In July 2012 he sent seven players to the Astros and received four in return. The trade was effectively Musgrove and Frankie Francisco for J.A. Happ and Brandon Lyon.
On November 19, 2012 he sent Henderson Alvarez, Anthony DeSclafani, Yunel Escobar, Adeiny Hechavarria, Jake Marisnick, Jeff Mathis and Justin Nicolino to the Marlins. The Marlins sent Emilio Bonifacio, John Buck, Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes and cash to Toronto.
Atlanta Braves
December 12th saw him trade Wuilmer Becerra, John Buck, Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard to the New York Mets for R.A. Dickey, Mike Nickeas and Josh Thole.
In November 2014 he sent Franklin Barreto, Kendall Graveman, Brett Lawrie and Sean Nolin to the Oakland for Josh Donaldson.
His final season and last gasp attempt to win before taking a different position saw him embark on a July trading frenzy. First he traded Jesus Tinoco (minors), Miguel Castro, Jeff Hoffman and Jose Reyes to the Rockies for LaTroy Hawkins and Troy Tulowitzki. Two days later he sent Matt Boyd, Jairo Labourt and Daniel Norris to the Tigers for a rental of David Price.
The next day Jake Brentz , Nick Wells and Rob Rasmussen headed to Seattle in exchange for Mark Lowe. He then pivoted and sent Jimmy Cordero and Alberto Tirado to the Phillies for Ben Revere.
The need to trade multiple players so often came from a lack of high quality players in their system. When AA stepped aside, the Blue Jays were an old team with one top 100 player and a season ending payroll of $135,728,804. Today they are teetering on whether to embark on their own rebuild.
A quick trip to LA
After Mark Shapiro took over in Toronto, AA worked out the remainder of his contract then took a position with the Dodgers as VP of baseball operations. That move must have been a culture shock. Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi are far removed from the culture he knew for so long in Toronto.
The Dodgers are a more statistically oriented team. As we saw in the World Series, sometimes they take those statistics to extremes and suffer as a result. How much AA absorbed while there and how he sees the uses of advanced metric is something to watch for.
After two years in LA he’s now in charge or cleaning up the mess created by his predecessors and fielding a competitive team in 2018.
That’s A Wrap
I had hoped someone would step forward and say, the Braves have a chance to break this cycle of two years of success followed by six years of failure. Instead they pined for a man who didn’t love them any longer until forced to hire somebody quickly before the GM meeting time.
I noted my dislike of Hendry on MLBTR earlier. After the hiring of AA, one commenter wrote a long reply saying AA was great in Toronto because he moved the immovable Wells contract, landed Donaldson and made the Tulo deal.
He failed to note that the team had one really good season under AA 2015 and one with mostly the same players under Shapiro in 2016 before sinking below .500 again. Neither did he mention the lack of a minor league system capable of supporting the major league team and the repeated signing of old, oft injured players.
I don’t want to be Debbie Downer here so let me be clear: I am glad the Braves chose someone who isn’t is my peer group age wise. I hope – desperately want – AA to succeed and make the Braves consistently competitive again.
I just laid out the way AA worked during his last stint as GM. It was the same way his mentor did the job before him and the way Ricciardi’s mentor taught him.
Next: Great baseball talent found here
The Braves need new ideas. I fervently hope AA brings new ideas and new methods picked up while with the Dodgers that break the boom and bust cycle teams seem to follow. I wish him luck and look forward to an interesting off-season.