Injuries poisoned the Diamondbacks’ 2014, so their last-place finish did not necessarily represent the true talent level of the team. That didn’t stop new Chief Baseball Officer Tony La Russa from starting the postseason early by cleaning house. GM Kevin Towers was fired and replaced by Dave Stewart, who played for LaRussa on the late-80s/early-90s A’s. Manager Kirk Gibson and bench coach Alan Trammell were fired the day after Stewart was hired and Stewart later hired A’s bench coach Chip Hale to manage the team for 2015.
The Braves didn’t wait until after the World Series to start their off-season moves, firing general manager Frank Wren Sept. 22nd and naming John Hart interim GM. Hart later accepted the position of president of baseball operations, working with assistant GM John Coppolella. Hart has led a series of trades that saw several key Braves leave town in exchange for prospects and young major leaguers. He acknowledged there was an eye toward 2017, when the Braves will move to Cobb County and open SunTrust Stadium, without trying to ”strip down” the team.
Before we begin the “unboxing,” if you will, I’d like to mention the two major personnel changes the Royals have made this offseason. Essentially, they have replaced Billy Butler with Kendrys Morales and replaced Nori Aoki with Alex Rios. Let’s make a quick comparison:
We think about the Rockies and get all depressed so you don’t have to
We soldier on. Check out yesterday’s entry, on the Phillies. And give the preview podcast itself a listen. Run Production How do they score runs? Are they notably home-run dependent? Notably light on power? Is… Read more »
On Monday, Effectively Wild launched its annual team preview series, a staple of the podcast that has drawn new listeners in droves each of the last two springs. This year, Banished to the Pen will… Read more »
Spring 2015 marks the third set of the Effectively Wild podcast’s daily team previews, and our first year of written companion pieces. The order of EW’s previews is determined by PECOTA’s win-loss projection for the… Read more »
