When a clubhouse attendant told Braves infielder Nick Green that Bobby Cox needed to see him in the manger’s office, Green had a bad feeling.
“That was kind of a long walk from the training room to Bobby’s office,” said Green, who soon was informed by Cox that he’d been traded to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays… “I knew something was going to happen, I was just hoping it wasn’t me,” said Green.
And I bet he was really hoping he wasn’t going to be traded to the Slough of Despond, aka the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Though the good news for him is that he’ll probably play more there.
Scheurholz on why he traded for Sosa instead of a lefty:
The Braves would like to acquire another left-handed reliever, and had discussed Tampa Bay lefties Bobby Seay and veteran Trever Miller. But the Braves say Sosa has more upside potential that either of them, and they will try to find another lefty.
“In the opinion of our scouts, [Sosa] is exactly what we need for our bullpen right now,” said Schuerholz, who said if the Braves need to start the season with Tom Martin as their only lefty reliever, they wouldn’t have a problem doing so.
I put it to you that Scheurholz is so full of s— that his hair won’t turn white.
I agree w/you Mac…I’m not too happy about this deal.
Sosa’s 2004 numbers weren’t great….ERA of 5.53 and WHIP of 1.55 in 99 and a third innings, which included 8 starts.
Good news is that he struck out 94, of course he also walked 54 and gave up an astonishing SEVENTEEN home runs.
He may have a big upside, but he sure doesn’t have a now side.
Yeah, upside was the reason. I guess that’s why JS traded away Russ Branyan in the middle of the LaRoche/DeRosa suck-fest last year. He certainly had no upside.
Yes, I’m bitter. This was a bad deal. If all you can say is that this guy as upside… We need some new scouts.
I think it is a smart deal. Green, Betemit, and Orr all deserve to make the team. Betemit might be the weakest canidate of the three but he has no options left. So they traded Green for a reliever with good stuff which I expect Mazonne to turn into a very good reliever. They traded Green in my opinion because of Orr’s versatility (he plays outfield as well) and Betemit’s potential. They cleared a logjam and upgraded their bullpen.
The pessimism here is just weird. You can throw a stick at minor league game and hit three guys like Nick Green. Sosa throws consistently in the high 90s, and doesn’t have much mileage on his arm since he’s a converted outfielder. To say the least, guys like that are much harder to find. I understand Green was a bit of a fan favorite but taking on someone on the riskier side of the risk/reward equation for the 25th spot is fine with me.
I like the deal.
I think Green is at or near the top of his potential. A solid fielder at 2B but doesn’t have the arm strength to play SS well enough to be a good untility infielder. Will be an above replacement level hitter, but will be a stretch to be league average. On a team like the Braves, who have one of the 3-5 best 2Bs in baseball, Green had no role other than injury insurance.
Sosa is a power pitcher with very little experience. I have no problem using him as the 12th man (almost exclusively in lost causes anyway) to see if he can develop. 27, but with very few innings on his arm, he could be around a while if things go the right way.
Also, I really hate the idea that we HAVE to have a lefty. I’d rather have a good pitcher than some fungible player whose only strength is that he throws with his left arm. The platoon advantage is worth a few points of BA, but often those LOOGYs are a few points of BA worse than the pitcher they replace for a net value of zero.
And Bobby Cox, for all the platooning he used to do offensively, has rarely been a manager who brings in the specialist for certain batters. His roles are more inning dependent than opposition dependent. As such, the lefty / righty stuff is less important in his bullpens than elsewhere.
Green may be disappointed, but we’ve just made him a lot of money. Utility 2B, he’d be looking at near league minimum for his hole career. Think Mike Mordecai. But as an iffy starter for the D’Rays, he will get a pay bump probably into the million dollar range in a year and up to the 2M+ range in arb year one.
If you throw that same stick at the Tampa Bay pitching staff you’ll hit 12 guys like Sosa. Nick Green was not just a Keith Lockhart-type player. He is a solid bench player and excellent defender. While I do not oppose trading Green, I see several guys in Richmond who can do Sosa’s job at half the price.
Why Sosa? Why not Jorge Vasquez, who actually has a record of pitching well and did well in the pen earlier in spring before being jettisoned for phenom-of-the-moment Bernero? I wasn’t a big Green fan, but I thought his value was higher than a miscellaneous live arm.
Great news…Tom Martin gave up two more runs today!
Great news…Tom Martin gave up two more runs today!
Even worse, Esix Sneed somehow sneaked a ground ball past Bagwell down the line and circled the bases like a freaking bullet for a triple. The threat of him making the team continues. That dude can run.
This is way off topic but i was just looking at the boards on john sickels new website and he was talking about Dan Meyer. Apparently he has lost around 3-4 mph on his fastball and his performance has been below average (you could see that just looking at the stats). Is this another situation of of Schuerholtz trading a pitcher at his peak value and watching him flounder away somewhere else? Why does this happen you think? is the braves pitching development system that good or is JS just that good at knowing when someone is primed to trade.
I too noticed that Meyer wasn’t doing well at all, but I do think it’s too early to decide JS pulled off another coup. I’ll wait until after next year’s spring training to write off Meyer.
I don’t understand why JS didn’t get Shea or Miller both leftys from Tampa. He tries. to skimp on relievers and ends up with Martins. One more quality reliever would really protect our starters.
True he does skimp on Relivers but he has had success with the bargain price thing. Last year a big reason we had the leaguelow ERA was because of an excellent bullpen. And lets not forget the guys like hammond and remilinger (although he was a known commodity). But you’re right he has had a couple of busts in there too
We need another Mike Remlinger.
I think Bobby will basically use Sosa the same way he used Cruz last year: to mob up innings in loses. None of the other relievers can pitch multiple innings on a regular basis (I don?t think Colon or Buddy Hernandez can). Basically, we are just trading our last man off the bench for our last reliever in our bullpen, that?s all. Just like Charles Thomas, we are trading away Nick Green at his peak value. To be honest, I don?t think any GM will trade a decent LH reliever for Green or Orr or Betemit anyway. Besides, we can be quite sure now Snead will not make the team as Orr can play outfield as well. While having three rookies on the bench is not ideal, we can?t have everything with an $80 million payroll.
Looking at the brighter side, I think Johnny Estrada put it all in perspective by saying “We’re in better shape now than we were at this time last year. We don’t have as many question marks this year.” Remember last year at this time when we were worried about Drew, Estrada, LaRoche, DeRosa, our entire pitching rotation and our entire bullpen other than Smoltz?! What JS achieved this offseason without an increase to the payroll is truly amazing, regardless of how well or how poor he did on this trade.
“None of the other relievers can pitch multiple innings on a regular basis (I don?t think Colon or Buddy Hernandez can).”
I’m confident Buddy can. I’m not sure he can pitch back-to-back days, however…
He might turn out to be an inning eater, which is what they need at the beginning of the year so they don’t get a bunch of dead arms like last year. Not every trade is going to look great on paper. Sometimes they are like pitches; you make one that is sort of high and outside to set them up for the next pitch, then you blow an inside pitch by them. I like to think of it that way.
Schuerholz may be letting people think Betimet is too valuable to let go for some converted outfielder, then he can use him to get a better lefty middle releiver down the road when a GM thinks there is some worth in Betimet when there may or may not be. How do you think we got rid of Rocker, Spooneybarger or Dan Meyer? Same concept.
I hate to see Nick go to, but he’ll make more money and get more playing time this way, and we get a Sosa for a fraction of the price of the real one.
The more I think about it the more I like it. Nick Green made a great contribution in 2004, but I would not be surprised if he is at his peak value. Sure, Sosa has bad numbers and Mazzone will have to work wonders. Only a year ago many were speaking about ‘Jaret Wrong’. I think thate is a chance that the trade may work out.
After all, it is nice to have a hard thrower with a live arm. Given the state of the bullpen, we should not be surprised to see JS make a couple more trades–some of which will almost certainly involve some of our valuable propsects. If Sosa should work out, he could make a major impact.
Initially I was surprised by the Braves trading Nick Green away, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense.
He was one year closer to arbitration than both Betemit and Orr. Betemit has more power potential, and can play both short and third. Orr is faster, and also play the outfield, and there offensive skills are a wash.
It’s not a great deal, but not every deal has to be great. Cruz, Thomas, and Meyer, were turned into Hudson is a staff ace, and then signed him to and extension for $11 mil a season. Over that same time Russ Ortiz, Derek Lowe, and Pedro will be getting paid more, but which of those four pitchers would you rather have?
The whole point of that is that teams are constantly looking for guys who can throw 97, and Sosa could be another piece down the road to bring the Braves real value. Green was peaked in value.