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Major congrats to good old Canadian kid Alex Anthopolous for guiding the Braves to their second straight division title. Taking a team from 20 games under to first isn't always easy but AA did it with a fairly pedestrian payroll. Extending Acuna and Albies to shrewd and team-friendly contracts look exceptionally smart and could ensure that the Braves contend for years to come. Congrats to this Mac grad.

Also huge congrats to the Bringer of Rain. Josh Donaldson was my favourite player during our run and for him to almost have 40 dingers again, a Donaldson esque OBP and team-leading WAR once again is a nice reminder of the Bringer of Rain's talent.

Both guys have lots of haters and I am sure team negative will move quickly to undermine these achievements. It's great to see these guys prove the haters wrong, and do it with grace and class. Congrats to AA and JD!

ratul wrote:Major congrats to good old Canadian kid Alex Anthopolous for guiding the Braves to their second straight division title. Taking a team from 20 games under to first isn't always easy but AA did it with a fairly pedestrian payroll. Extending Acuna and Albies to shrewd and team-friendly contracts look exceptionally smart and could ensure that the Braves contend for years to come. Congrats to this Mac grad.

Also huge congrats to the Bringer of Rain. Josh Donaldson was my favourite player during our run and for him to almost have 40 dingers again, a Donaldson esque OBP and team-leading WAR once again is a nice reminder of the Bringer of Rain's talent.

Both guys have lots of haters and I am sure team negative will move quickly to undermine these achievements. It's great to see these guys prove the haters wrong, and do it with grace and class. Congrats to AA and JD!

AA went to a stacked deck. How has he proved the haters wrong? He left the farm system in poor condition.

I’m not sure why AA would get any credit for last years team. Would you give credit to Atkins for making the playoffs in 2016?

AA has gone from strong team to strong team after the Jays. good for him.

he's been dealt great hand after great hand. Ricciardi got Bautista and Edwin to start the "great AA" era.

Atlanta rebuilt their team much the same way the Jays are right now.

Wins totals the last 8 seasons. 94-96-79-67-68-72-90-96 (and counting)

So they were a playoff team, then they fell out of the playoffs with a losing record, then took 3 years to rebuild. What a unique and familiar looking direction to rebuild? Lucky for AA, he got to jump on after all the hard work was done.

Credit to AA: he didn't try to put his stamp on what was already an extremely good, and young, team. That's not sarcasm...a lot of execs would have wanted to swing big moves to take more of the credit for their successes, but AA sat back and let it develop (and preferred extensions for the kids over big long-term money for free agents), and the result is that they should have a period of sustained success.

Not surprised at the hate. Alex deserved and deserves better. Thankfully he is getting his due in Atlanta

The best part about the Braves is that we haven’t seen their best. Not many organizations can say with real confidence that they’ll be in the running for the 2023 World Series; this one can. Anthopoulos has shaped one of baseball’s best teams without doing anything to hamstring it long-term.No GM can guarantee a World Series victory, but this GM has kept his trains running on separate tracks. The future looks great. Next month could be swell, too.

https://www.ajc.com/blog/mark-bradley/the-braves-mvp-alex-anthopoulos-adroit/IycHKeNHtkA82ztdiaFuwO/

ratul wrote:Not surprised at the hate. Alex deserved and deserves better. Thankfully he is getting his due in Atlanta

The best part about the Braves is that we haven’t seen their best. Not many organizations can say with real confidence that they’ll be in the running for the 2023 World Series; this one can. Anthopoulos has shaped one of baseball’s best teams without doing anything to hamstring it long-term.No GM can guarantee a World Series victory, but this GM has kept his trains running on separate tracks. The future looks great. Next month could be swell, too.

https://www.ajc.com/blog/mark-bradley/the-braves-mvp-alex-anthopoulos-adroit/IycHKeNHtkA82ztdiaFuwO/

We just hate you because you say stupid ****.

Post this in the Braves forum if you are happy for AA, instead you are looking for attention, again.

Nobody really hates AA . Is more about how to build a team that wins something. All we should care about is 1992 and 1993 and how to get back there not argue throughout the season about the person in charge that brought us a division title.(woopity doo)

Pretty much. AA did a lot of good things. AA also did some really silly things. The net result was that he got us one playoff appearance, and was a primary contributor to a second, but he also assembled a team that was never going to have staying power. There is a middle ground between "absolutely the very best anything ever" and "absolutely the very worst everything ever".

Let's be real, one of us could have taken over the Braves when AA did and got them to the same spot. That's not a knock on AA, that's just stating how stacked the Braves were at the time he was hired. They still have prospects that he inherited that project to be really good in the minors, after already graduating about 100 of them.

Tanner wrote:Let's be real, one of us could have taken over the Braves when AA did and got them to the same spot. That's not a knock on AA, that's just stating how stacked the Braves were at the time he was hired. They still have prospects that he inherited that project to be really good in the minors, after already graduating about 100 of them.

I did the math a while back, and quite literally a poster of Tilson Brito could have gotten them to the playoffs last year (and I suspect this year as well), if the assistant GMs were allowed to handle the obvious promotions of star prospects. Coppolella was a great GM, if you look past the "bringing the game into disrepute and getting banned for life" thing.

Not for nothing, but the Donaldson and Keuchel one-year deals were pretty shrewd.

Still, his three deadline deals for relievers haven't worked out very well.

There's no question that AA has made good moves, but they'd also have won the pennant without Donaldson/Keuchel (assuming they're allowed the same Pythag luck; their run differential is actually worse than Washington). If they go deep in the playoffs with Donaldson/Keuchel performing well, he will and should get credit.

He's a good GM, but crediting him with the success of a bunch of players who were already in place is some galaxy-brain silliness.

Continued praise from Atlanta press

The Atlanta Braves, despite last night’s loss, continue to run away with the NL East, ahead of teams with bigger payrolls and expectations, namely Philadelphia. Alex Anthopoulos has put it all together. This is the season he should be recognized for the incredible job he’s done building this team.

https://atlallday.com/2019/09/18/give-alex-anthopoulos-executive-year-now/

The "Atlanta press" apparently means "a fan blog". This has about run its course.