Q&A: Fredi G on Braves’ disappointing season and the future

A day after the Braves finished their first losing season since 2008, manager Fredi Gonzalez met Monday with several writers for a wide-ranging interview. Topics ranged from his job status – the Braves have said a new general manger would have input into the managerial decision – to whether the Braves need major upgrades to be a playoff contender in 2015.

Q. Have you started to go over next season? How does that work until a permanent GM is in place? (Braves senior adviser and longtime former Indians and Rangers GM John Hart is serving as interim GM until a permanent GM is named.)

A. We've met with all three Johns (Hart, team president John Schuerholz, assistant GM John Copollela) and the staff, went over our evaluation of our club. Really that's all we've done. I'm meeting with John Hart Wednesday to go over some things, and that's about it. That's the only thing we've got planned.

Q. Have your heard anything about your job status, whether to expect a decision before GM is hired, anything like that?

A. Nothing. I haven't heard anything, really. I think we'll find out some more stuff on Wednesday. I've talked to John (Hart) a bunch of times, obviously. I think until they hire a GM, you're kind of like … I think that's the first piece, hire a GM. I think everything will go pretty quickly after that.

Q. Is that strange for you, your situation being in limbo?

A. That’s just the way it is. I feel more for the coaches than I do myself. That’s just part of it. That’s understood from my end.

Q. You understand why they’d delay that decision, given the circumstances?

A. Yeah, I think hiring a GM is pretty important.

Q. What about if you were let go, wouldn’t doing it now potentially help you possibly land another job rather than if you were fired a month from now?

A. I don't think I'm a hot commodity out there, OB. (Gonzalez laughs). It's not like you're talking John Gruden, or Bill Parcells or something. Come on.

Q. What about your coaches, do you expect those decisions to be made sooner?

A. I think the meeting (Gonzalez and Hart) on Wednesday will clear some stuff up.

Q. So you think the coaching decisons will happen before your status is determined?

A. I think after Wednesday we'll know some stuff (about the coaches' job status). It's so easy to blame the coaches, in any sport. And they understand. That's what we signed up for. But I don't have any idea. Would I like to keep my staff? Absolutely. Is that going to happen? I'll call you as soon as I get out of the meeting.

Q. Coaches are the ones that usually get scapegoated, right? Can’t fire all the players, as they say.

That’s sports in general. Not only sports, but business too. If you don’t sell enough product or do the quota, you get fired. But that’s sports. To a man, they’ve all (coaches) in there done a terrific job.

Q. What went wrong this season, have you had a chance to think more about it?

A. Collectively, we didn't produce offensively. I think our pitching was good the whole year; did we break a record for quality starts? (They tied for second-most in franchise history and led the majors with 110 quality starts). That's a constant that really kept us there all year. But offensively we just didn't do the same thing we did last year. We didn't score runs, we didn't hit home runs.

Q. Last year you had three guys – Freddie Freeman, Chris Johnson, Andrelton Simmons – who had career-best seasons. This year, no one did and those three took varying degrees of steps backward from a year ago.

A. Whether they were career years last year or not, I want to think somewhere in between last year and this year, their numbers. If you can say last year they were career years, then going forward hopefully somewhere he in between.

Q. It seemed like you had five or six guys slumping at once a lot of the time, sometimes even more, such as in September. That’s unusual.

A. That's why I said "collectively." You can't say, 'Take this guy out of the lineup and put this guy in, it'll be better.' At times there were, like you said, five or six guys that struggled. For whatever reason, we didn't produce.

Q. Was this season as big a challenge as you’ve had trying to put together a lineup?

A. There was a lot of stuff that happened. We led off Jason (Heyward) for a little bit. I think we started leading off Jason in that series against the Nationals at home, in August. We win two out of three there, lost three out of four against the Dodgers – I may be wrong; it may be before that (when he batted leadoff) – and then we swept Oakland. Pittsburgh, we win two out of three there. Cincinnati, we split…. And then all of a sudden we lose (Evan) Gattis, and now we've got to figure out, put Jason in the fifth hole, leaving Miami. And we were scuffling for a leadoff hitter the rest of the way.

So, the answer is yes, it was a challenge every single day.

Q. Seemed like you had a legit No. 3 (Freeman), and maybe Justin (Upton) and Jason fit there at 4 and 5, or Jason at the top, but it just seemed the other guys didn’t fit specific spots.

A. Yeah, you could say that. I've been told that before. We didn't have a prototypical leadoff hitter. We had to deal with what we had. You can't have six guys hitting seventh, you know?

Q. If you think about it, you had the two road trips, 0-8 and 2-7 — that’s 2-15 right there….

A. I don’t think we got shut out on that (0-8) road trip. But at San Diego we had the bases loaded, nobody out, it seemed like every day (and failed to score). Whew. All of a sudden, we just went dry offensively. Darndest thing I’ve ever seen.

Q. So many times all season, you guys failed to score in crucial situations with runners at second or third, no outs….

A. Or first and second. Or bases loaded.

Q. Yes, and it seemed like it just sucked the life out of the team eventually.

A. I don't know if the guys ever felt it; I never saw them react that way, the hitters. But I'm sure in the back of their minds…. That one series in San Diego stands out, where we get bases loaded and one out, and Simmons tries to lay down that bunt – his thing was, 'I didn't want to hit into a double play.'" (He bunted into 5-2-3 double play, as the Braves managed to hit into that rare version of the double play in consecutive games with bases loaded at San Diego.)

Q. Did you ever meet with the players, to really let them know the team needed to start playing better?

A. I had a meeting in Seattle, after the last game in Seattle. That was the last meeting I had collectively as a team. This last series in Philly, I met with three, four or five guys, and there's three or four other guys who live in the area, we'll sit down and talk some more.

Q. But was there ever a closed-door meeting where anyone really laid into the guys, let them know as a unit they needed to step it up?

A. You mean players only (meeting)?

Q. Players only, or you talking to them, or…

A. Well I told you in Seattle, I had it. Three minutes, at the end of the last game in Seattle. Prior to that series, yes, there was one meeting in San Diego where the guys got together and tried to — some of the veteran guys spoke. I don't know exactly what the message was, but I'm pretty sure it was, "We're a good club, relax and let's go out and play some baseball."

Q. Despite having a lot of guys with several years or more of experience, people forget…

A. That they're still young guys. I know. We forget that, on any given day, we were (among the youngest teams) in major league baseball. We've still got some growing pains that we went through, and hopefully it will make us better for next year.

Q. All of the playoff teams this year have at least one or two veteran guys you can point to as leaders, guys that have been around, been through it all, and that others rally around. Leaders. You guys really didn’t have that, at least not in the regular lineup.

A. Walk (hitting coach Greg Walker) and I have been talking about that, because Walk was with the World Series team in Chicago when they had (Paul) Konerko and some of those guys. I think (Juan) Uribe was there, (A.J.) Pierzynski, whoever. I mean they had them." (Jermaine Dye, Scott Podsednik, Aaron Rowand, Carl Everett and Joe Crede were among other veterans in the 2005 World Series champion White Sox lineup; eight of nine regulars were 27 or older, and Uribe was 26.)

Walk goes, “These (Braves) are going to be really, really good in a couple of years.” Our hitters. And you’re right, Jason has been five years in the big leagues? Freeman, four. Justin, six or seven – but he came up when he was like, 18 or 19. (Andrelton) Simmons only has a couple of years in. Second base we had, on any given day, 30 days in the big leagues. And then CJ (Chris Johnson) only had 3 ½, four years in the big leagues. And you’ve got Gattis behind the plate, his second year. So we were young. And I think at times it showed, some of the at-bats. But like I always say, you can’t put them in a simulator and make them experience this. They’ve got to go through it.

Q. You can’t change personalities, either. If you look at Justin, he’s been in the league long enough to be a leader, but doesn’t seem like he has the personality to be that kind of take-charge, vocal sort of leader. Seems like you didn’t have those kind of guys that you’ve had in recent years, even if it was a backup like Eric Hinske or David Ross.

A. We had a couple. Gerald (Laird) was pretty good about that. It takes a little while. Those guys, Hinske and Ross, started doing that when they were nine, 10 years in the league. Chipper, in my first two years (as Braves manager) and his last two years, was about as good as you want a leader to be – vocal, and also producing. That's about as good as it gets there.

We lost four guys who were pretty darn good players and good people. Maybe not the vocal, tip-over-tables (types), but you lose Huddy (Tim Hudson) and you lose (Eric) O’Flaherty. You lose McCann, and then Chipper. And then sometimes we forgot (Martin) Prado, how impactful he was with some of the young Latin kids. In Simmons’ first year, he followed Prado around like a little puppy dog. So that was big. And it’s funny, most of those guys, other than O’Flaherty, had been in this organization at least seven or eight years. Chipper, Prado, McCann forever…. You lose those guys who came here not necessarily from the minor leagues, but had been here a long time.

And we’ll get there. With the Freemans and the Heywards and the (Julio) Teherans. Who else signed long-term deals? Simmons, Kimbrel. They’ll get to be those guys.

Q. Can you groom a guy to be that kind of leader, or does it just happen?

A. I think we have plenty of those guys in that clubhouse who can do it, and then you've got to kind of let it naturally work. Some guys are faster than others. Some guys may not ever want do it.

Q. Did the situation with Uggla, his presence, when he had to go to the bench for so long (before being released), do you think that affected the team at all?

A. I don't know. I think Danny handled it about as well as any person could handle it, really.

Q. Naturally he’s not going to be happy (being benched), and it’s a small clubhouse, maybe the players feel that? After he left, things really didn’t get any better, even though you had a better bench. But just talking more about whether that had any kind of influence on the season, the fact that he was here for so long in that situation?

A. I imagine it was tough. It was tough on Danny, it was tough on … because like you said, he's about as good as you want as a teammate. Maybe the best teammate. And when you see a teammate getting benched, and this guy was a three-time All-Star, broke a (home run) record for second basemen, and you see him every day and he's hurt, he's hurt because he wants to contribute, and he's a teammate…. But I don't know if that had any effect on the other guys. I really don't.

Q. Can you talk about (rookie catcher Christian) Bethancourt’s season? (He had a lot of passed balls, particularly late in his second major league stint this season.)

A. I think Betty made some strides. He went through some stuff in September that he had never experienced. He'd never experienced (playing through) September. He's one of the guys I spoke to for a long time (Sunday). He told me that this is the most he's ever caught in his career, for the last five years in the minor leagues he's home in August, taking a little rest, maybe go to the fall league. It's not the same, playing for the Sun City Solar Sox, than it is playing in September in the major leagues. He did some winter ball stuff (in the past), but you go home and rest for two months before you do that. So we talked about that. I think he's going to be better off for it next year.

Q. With some other young players or anyone else, were there any surprises for you?

A. I thought Alex Wood – I was asked by the electronic media (earlier) if was surprised by anyone. I really didn't have any surprises because last year we saw how good Woody was. But he had a great year pitching, starting pitching. And I forgot to mention Teheran. He really wasn't a surprise, but he had a hell of a 2014 season. Those guys just kept getting better and better.

I was surprised how well Gattis caught, because we really weren’t sure as a staff, we weren’t sure as an organization, but I thought he did a hell of a job for what we threw at him. He had 22 home runs and missed five weeks, I guess, during the course of the year at one point or another. He did a nice job. (Braves pitchers had) 110 quality starts, and I bet he caught 90 of them. So yeah, those guys really did a nice job. And I’m just talking about the young guys.

Harang had to be a surprise. Big time. If it wasn’t for him … he saved our ass. And it’s funny, because we were in San Francisco in May and we had some guys coming back (to the rotation from injuries), and we were thinking, we need to trade somebody. And all of a sudden, we put Woody in the bullpen for a little bit, and we thought we’ll just keep (Harang) in the rotation until somebody gets healthy. And the next thing you know he makes (33) starts and you feel good every time he goes out there, that he’s going to give you a good chance.

Q. Watching the last series in Philly, were you thinking about major changes to the roster for next season?