This is "blow it up"

[mrapp8]

No team in professional sports history has had a streak of 20 losing seasons in a row. This is a definite possibility with another failed youth movement.

IMO, the answer is logical. Most of the team's top prospects are in the lower leagues of the minors. Buy low on potential trade candidates and build this team to be successful for a 2-3 year stretch. By that time guys like Wieters, Rowell, Snyder, and Erbe will be ready to have significant roles on the ML roster. Trade candidates include guys like Kyle Farnsworth, Eric Chavez, Nomar Garciaparra, Johnny Damon, and Richie Sexson. Most of these players are seen as burdens or they simply have younger players replacing them, which means we might be able to pass off our ill-advised contracts.

[El Gordo]

What if we blow it up and it doesn't work out and we suck......What have we really lost?

The Baltimore Orioles.:002_ssad:

[RShack]

I was in WPB during that period of time and always at Spring Training. I spent a lot of time on the back fields where I had better access to take pictures. Looking back at the pictures I have it's amazing how many guys went on to have long MLB careers... Guys like Chipper Jones, Klesko, Javy Lopez, Turk Wendell, Al Martin, Vinny Castilla, Steve Avery, Tony Graffanino, Jason Schmidt etc...

Of the 9 you mentioned, I believe that Schuerholz was on board for the signing of 4 of them: Chipper Jones, Jason Schmidt, Vinny Castilla, and Tony Graffanino.

That means the minor league stock he inherited included 5 guys you mentioned: Ryan Klesko, Javy Lopez, Turk Wendell, Al Martin, and Steve Avery. While they each had their moments, that doesn't sound like a "dynasty list" to me. I'm not big on predicting the future, so please don't take this the wrong way, but how confident are you that the careers of these 5 will dwarf the future accomplishments of the MiL guys MacPhail inherited in June?

I don't mean to turn this into a Schuerholz vs. MacPhail comparison, simply because I think there's no comparison. I'm only saying that it is simply neither reasonable nor accurate to look at the indisputable fact that the Braves have been *better* than consistent contenders and then attribute that to some miracle farm that Schuerholz inherited. The state of their farm when Schuerholz came aboard for 1990 had been improved by Cox prior to his arrival, but it certainly doesn't support the claim that the reason the Braves didn't trade away all their good players is because at the time Schuerholz took over their farm system was somehow knee deep in future stars. It wasn't. Nor did he find a ton of star-quality guys on their ML roster either. Rather, he mixed-and-matched a very few remarkable players with many not-so-remarkable players in such a way that it all worked. And then he kept doing it, year after year. By and large, that's what great GM's do. Along the way, they maintain the conditions which permit them to keep doing it.

I'm not so much arguing with you as I am simply trying to dispel some of the inaccurate impressions and false mythology about ATL that get echo-chambered all over this board, that's all.

[NewMarketSean]

What if we blow it up and it doesn't work out and we suck......What have we really lost?

Don't you get it? People want NAMES!!! They want to watch the Jeff Conines and Kevin Millars of the world play baseball. It's like the Field of Dreams! They don't want to watch some no-name prospect lose 90 games in a season with a chance to get better! They want to see people they know play baseball, go to McDonalds on the way home and then watch a few episodes of Everyone Loves Raymond before turning in.

[geschinger]

Of the 9 you mentioned, I believe that Schuerholz was on board for the signing of 4 of them: Chipper Jones, Jason Schmidt, Vinny Castilla, and Tony Graffanino.

That means the minor league stock he inherited included 5 guys you mentioned: Ryan Klesko, Javy Lopez, Turk Wendell, Al Martin, and Steve Avery. While they each had their moments, that doesn't sound like a "dynasty list" to me. I'm not big on predicting the future, so please don't take this the wrong way, but how confident are you that the careers of these 5 will dwarf the future accomplishments of the MiL guys MacPhail inherited in June?

I think I'm also forgetting a bunch of guys... Kent Mercker, Mike Stanton and Mark Wohlers - three effective relievers come to mind. I'm not sure that the careers of whom MacPhail is inehriting won't reach the level of those guys but I am relatively certain that the the young starting pitching at the Major League level he inherited is never going to come close to the success of the young pitching in the Braves organization when Schuerholz came on board. I'd love to see Cabrera, Loewen, Bedard collectively have the kind of success that Avery, Glavine and Smoltz have had but of course that is highly unlikely.

I don't mean to turn this into a Schuerholz vs. MacPhail comparison, simply because I think there's no comparison. I'm only saying that it is simply neither reasonable nor accurate to look at the indisputable fact that the Braves have been *better* than consistent contenders and then attribute that to some miracle farm that Schuerholz inherited. The state of their farm when Schuerholz came aboard for 1990 had been improved by Cox prior to his arrival, but it certainly doesn't support the claim that the reason the Braves didn't trade away all their good players is because at the time Schuerholz took over their farm system was somehow knee deep in future stars. It wasn't. Nor did he find a ton of star-quality guys on their ML roster either. Rather, he mixed-and-matched a very few remarkable players with many not-so-remarkable players in such a way that it all worked. And then he kept doing it, year after year. By and large, that's what great GM's do. Along the way, they maintain the conditions which permit them to keep doing it.

I'm not so much arguing with you as I am simply trying to dispel some of the inaccurate impressions and false mythology about ATL that get echo-chambered all over this board, that's all.

It wasn't a system knee deep in future stars but it had developed into one of the better farm systems. Schuerholz came aboard after the 1990 season ended. One of the few name players (Dale Murphy) they had they did trade although I don't think the return was great considering he was near the end of his career. Their better players in 1990 were guys who were young - guys you wouldn't need to trade to get younger. Their peaks were ahead of 'em.

I'm not trying to diminish the accomplishments of Schuerholz. He is among if best if not the best in the business. But a solid foundadtion of young talent was already in place. Signing on in the middle of this season MacPhail has a lot further to go to turn this team into a winner than Schuerholz did when he took over before the 1991 season.

He was able to add a few key pieces to complement the young talent. He did a great job bringing in guys like Terry Pendleton, Sid Bream and Otis Nixon to help put them over the top. It's not like the Braves were your typical 95 loss team when he came in. He didn't have to radically alter the roster - again, the foundation was already there to build upon. Key guys like Roy Clark and Paul Snyder were in place long before Schuerholz took over and are huge reasons why the Braves have been able to reload from the farm system so often during their run.

I think Jordan is of the same caliber as someone like Snyder and Clark and if MacPhail can handle or hire somone who can handle the GM duties anywhere near as well as Schuerholz can this organization will have a decent future.

The problem is that Jordan has only been around a couple of years and drafted for the long term in his first few drafts. Offensively, we don't have many guys near ready and some of the core players at the ML level are not exactly young. I'd like to see the team trade some of the core for young talent. Worry about their development as major leaguers next season moreso than wins or losses and if they do develop and we think they are ready to take the next step - go out and bring in someone like Tex to compliment 'em.

The road I'm afraid we're on is to do little and by the time we hopefully have young talent ready to plug in they won't be complimenting a good core but rather making up for the decline in an aging core.