No, not the best GM - Schuerholz continued...

The evidence against: In 1996 JS dealt 2 prospects for a 4th starter (to complement the big 3 of Maddux/Glavine/ Smoltz) named Denny Neagle, who went on to a couple of solid seasons. JS as usual identified a farmhand who was overhyped, a slugging 1b named Ron Wright, as the bait – but Pitt demanded a throw-in minor league arm, and JS slipped – adding Jason Schmidt to the deal. When you deal away easily the best player going forward in the deal, and he wasn’t even crucial to it, you’ve made a mistake (although Pitt made the same mistake on Schmidt later). The next season, he repeated his own lack of self-scouting prowess in dealing young Jermaine Dye to the Royals for Michael Tucker and the immortal Keith Lockhart. As budgets grew tight in the new millennium, JS made serial budget mistakes – offering arbitration to get draft picks to Greg Maddux, then being surprised when he accepted and making a panic trade of Kevin Millwood as a result – luckily, he got a solid season out of Johnny Estrada, but still he mismanaged the situation. After being thusly burned, he made the opposite mistake and failed to offer arbitration to Gary Sheffield, even though it had been widely reported that Sheff was going to sign with the Yanks right after the arbitration deadline. JS was making the mistake of many generals in fighting the previous battle instead of seeing what was ahead and planning accordingly. Throughout the ‘90s, despite having the best triumvirate of starters in history, he continually neglected the bench players, power relievers and other pieces that would help the Braves in the postseason. With the salary-forced departures of Glavine and Maddux in the ‘00s, he forgot that most teams had to think ahead in assembling a pitching staff and foolishly converted Smoltz to relief work, then back to starting once the need became apparent to all. Short-term deals for players they couldn’t possibly hope to re-sign (notably JD Drew) look good for one season, until the fact that Ray King was a competent reliever for several years, and Adam Wainwright may be a cheaply paid star, shows how JS was selling the farm to keep a veneer of success going in a way that was economically unsustainable – it’s exactly the type of deal a Billy Beane never makes. Kyle Farnsworth was another example, giving up 2 excellent pitching prospects in Miner and Colon for less than a half season of decent relief work, punctuated by a total meltdown in the playoffs and a departure to the Yanks in free agency – i.e., Gary Sheffield revisited. Over the past decade, JS has had to operate under the salary constraints of a mid-market club, and despite the farm system bringing several new (and cheap) stars to the club like McCann and Francoeur, the erosion of young talent through previous short-term trades have made it far more difficult for the Braves to remain consistently competitive in their new budgetary environment. JS seems able to succeed with a Red Sox/ Mets budget, but let’s face it – he’s no Billy Beane. So he’s nowhere near the best GM of all time. (And I didn’t even mention his horrid brush with nepotism in drafting his son….)