“Schuerholz employed a similar strategy with position players as he did with relievers. Each year he would let all of his good free agents walk, and pretty much not replace them in any meaningful way, but the Braves would still win the division anyway. Oh sure, he would occasionally pull a trade to fill a hole, if one fell into his lap, but by and large he would just sign some scrap heap guys and sit back and wait for a Braves prospect to fill the hole eventually. This meant that hundreds and hundreds of at-bats got wasted on these fill-in guys – terrible players like Dave Gallagher, Michael Tucker, Tony Graffanino, Keith Lockhart, Gerald Williams, Brian Hunter, Bobby Bonilla, B.J. Surhoff, Rico Brogna, Robert Fick, and Vinny Castilla in his dotage.”

And 14 consecutive division titles. Wow. He’s even smarter than I thought he was. He didn’t have the money to spend on 8 All-Star position players so he did what he could with what he had. That’s what made him great.

And don’t forget – he brought in Maddux via free agency which, put together with Glavine and Smoltz (home grown talent, led to a majority of those titles.

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Nick and I have already exchanged our viewpoints on the subject of John Schuerholz’s GM abilities, so I won’t beat a dead horse. I’ll just sum it up by saying I respectfully disagree with him. (If Nick ever wants to write a contrarian book about Schuerholz I’m sure it’ll generate a lot of press.)

I want to address a couple of things that were brought up by JoshuaPerry:

Who did the Braves let go for Mike Hampton? Why it was the always deadly Tim Spooneybarger (now out of the majors) and a minor leaguer who has never made it to The Show. Braves got Mike Hampton and a bunch of cash. A whole lot of it. (I think Colorado is still paying a big chunk of his salary.) Yes, Hampton has been injured the last two years, but while he’s been healthy he’s gone 32-20 for the Braves and his Atlanta ERA is somewhere south of the number 4. I’d say that was a good deal for the Braves. (I wanted to include it as well as many other transactions in my retrospective post on Schuerholz but I didn’t want it to be too long.)

Successful free agent signings since 1997? There aren’t that many (purse strings were set to “tight”) How bout:

November, 1998: Signed Brian Jordan, who went on to have a career year in 1999.

Aside from that, there’s not much. John Thomson had a good year right after he signed, but followed it up with two injury-riddled years. The Braves have re-signed a number of players in the past ten years, and have certainly made some deals for some big name guys (Hudson, Sheffield, for examples).

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You make a good point about the somewhat random capricious nature of winning in the playoffs. Thus, Schuerholz’s “average” of 1 World Series win per 17 seasons as Braves GM is a rather dismal .058. Yet, when you look at the total number of times the Braves made it to the series, his performance as GM looks better—five total trips to the series out of 17 season is a much better .294. So clearly, his legacy as a GM should reflect the total number of times the Braves went to the World Series, not just their one win. I think it’s clear that five trips to the Series is a major accomplishment.

Nonetheless, when assigning credit for that accomplishment, you do have to take into account the contributions of Bobby Cox and the coaching staff, which is what Nick’s main point was. This is a rather crude comparison, but if you look at Schuerholz’s record with the Royals, it’s not nearly as good as his record with the Braves—two divisional titles in 9 years, and one World Series win. (One-for-nine is an average of .111.) Clearly, Schuerholz does not look like some brilliant clairvoyant when working with different staff. And, to go back to my point in a previous comment, he looks like less of a golden boy when in a less forgiving division than the NL East in the 1990s and early 2000s. So yeah, Schuerholz was a good GM, but he wasn’t a genius with a crystal ball, which is how nearly every media outlet has been portraying him since he announced his resignation. He was a good GM, and a great eye for talent, who had great people around him.

And re: Cashman, I think he actually has very little room for error, what with the New York media breathing down his neck and Steinbrenner’s notoriously short leash/quick hook. He has a significant cushion of money to play with, meaning that he is better able to move past any error that he makes. But…he really just doesn’t make that many mistakes in the first place. If he did, he’d be outtah theah.

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But feel free to disagree, as you clearly do.

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Plus, I think Nick was honestly trying to answer your question. UmpBump isn’t a rant n’ rave-type blog where people try to “goad” others and have pointless smackdown-type arguments. We just all really like baseball.

It seems there was also some confusion from the commentors on this post about whether we were talking about the best GM “in the modern era” or “in the current era.” Obviously, none of the names we’re bandying about right now are the best “in the modern era,” which is the phrase that Nick was objecting to in the original post, the rather mild point of which seems to have gotten lost.

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I always enjoy it when someone attempts to answer a question with a counterfactual. Ah, what better way to respond to me than with a point that cannot be proven! You truly skewered the Schuerholz supporters with that one. I’m not going to restate my entire argument (it’s all above, including cool typos!), but it’s quite clear, even with the mistakes Schuerholz has made, that no other GM has come close to his sustained level of excellence over the period.

Yes, all the names you listed are certainly going straight to the Hall of Fame. Let’s see, Dumbrowski, Towers, Jockety, Ryan, Gillick, Cashman, Beane. As Dr. Evil would say, riiggghhhtttttt…. At the very least, most casual fans know Cashman and Beane, they’re probably better. Are those the two examples you want to use? Well, they would certainly lose some of luster if they were put under the same microscope you’re using on John S. Cashman is simply the tool The Boss uses to run the Yankees, and his record of drafting, trades, and free agent signings has been nothing to get very excited about. Beane should be given credit for the impact he has had upon the Athletics organization, and perhaps baseball in general, but when viewed through your bounded lens of trades, contracts, draft, free agents, etc., Beane has had significant failures.

I’ve said my peace, and anything further would be pointless because I think you may simply be trying to goad me. Keep up the false logic – I’m sure FOX will have a job waiting for you.

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I just wanted to point out one other quick thing, the article is titled Schuerholz was always overrated. He wasnt always overrated, it was until the last 5 years once the team started getting into the double digits and losing their trio of pitchers that people really talked about John a lot. He never was overrated, just talked about a lot.

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Yes, I can easily say that I am COMPLETELY satisfied w/ Schuerholz’s entire tenure in Atlanta.

Kevin,

If you haven’t done so already, read “Scout’s Honor” by Bill Shanks…a good book about the Braves’ focus on “makeup”. It’s the anti-Moneyball.

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