DALLAS — With the Marlins making headline trades and other National League East foes doing deals, Braves general manager Frank Wren was asked if he missed being in the center of activity at the winter meetings.
A few years ago, he was a high roller at the meetings in Las Vegas, courting big-ticket free-agent pitchers such as A.J. Burnett before signing Derek Lowe.
Which was more fun, that situation or this year’s?
“We prefer to have the players we have,” Wren said. “We have a good club. I keep going back to this, and I’ll stand by this: On Aug. 26 we had the fourth-best record in all of baseball. So our team didn’t get bad in 30 days.
“Our team went through a bad streak for 30 days, but we have a good team.”
The Braves went 10-20 down the stretch and blew an 8 1/2-game wild-card lead after Sept. 5, missing the postseason after a loss to the Phillies on the season’s final night.
For the first three days of this year’s meetings, the Braves have been quiet. Crowds of reporters gather around Marlins officials, who are spending lavishly and trying to buy a contender for the first season in their new ballpark.
The Braves are trying to acquire a backup shortstop and an affordable outfielder.
“I think the urge is to do something big just to do something big when you see other people doing things,” Wren said, “and I think we’ve got to guard against that. Stay on our mission to get better. There’s a lot of different ways you can improve your club, so we’ve been attacking it from all different angles.”
The meetings end Thursday, and there’s a good chance the Braves will return to Atlanta without filling their needs. Wren was not concerned, pointing out that deals often are made after the meetings and into January.
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