So, Manny Banuelos made his major league debut against the Nationals and Max Scherzer, possibly the best right-handed pitcher in baseball. Scherzer pitched a five-hit shutout and Banuelos was removed after 5 2/3 innings, turning the ball over to the Braves’ trusty bullpen.
And somehow the Braves won. Don’t ask me how, because it beats the hell out of me. But the short of it is that Banuelos was little short of superb, throwing 48 strikes in 75 pitches, racking up seven strikeouts with no walks (though he did hit two men in the sixth, which led Fredi to yank him). He worked in the low 90s with his fastball, featuring an 80-mph changeup and a 76-mph curve. Other than a Denard Span single in the first and a Wilson Ramos single in the second, he basically didn’t allow anyone to do anything. (After the game, the Braves announced he had gotten dehydrated and cramped up, which led to his quick exit. He should be fine to make his next start on Tuesday.)
The Braves won in walkoff fashion on a Cameron Maybin single, and as we get ready to celebrate America’s birthday, I’d just like to say how happy I am that we have him. He’s something else.
Re: the international slot trades (JC’d from last thread)-
Yeah, this whole thing is annoyingly close to NBA front office wrangling for my tastes. Giving up tangible players for intangible things like cap space or slot money or mid-level exceptions or whatever. I don’t know anything about the low-level minor league players we traded or the international players we signed, but I guess the international players are better than the minor league players we traded? I certainly hope so, anyway.
And by “something else”, Alex of course means “something other than Melvin ‘BJ’ Upton”.
That was a fun game!
The Braves are fishing around for a catcher again (per Jayson Stark). I think the Christian Bethancourt era is pretty much over.
I gave up on Bethancourt last year. His laziness behind the plate seems to negate his great arm. I also don’t ever see him with an OPS above .650. His stock is already in rapid decline but I don’t know if it will ever be higher than it is now. Apparently Lavarnway isn’t the answer so I’m all for the Braves searching. The O’Dowd PED incident really hurt.
Love what the Braves are doing. Fulenchek seems like a steep price to pay if you think of him as last year’s second-rounder who came into 2015 as an arguably-top-ten prospect in the system, but it’s not so bad if you think of him as the 15th-or-so-best pitching prospect in the system at the present time who’s still extremely raw and may or may not be a Roy Clark favorite.
They obviously like the 16-year-olds a great deal, and they’re obviously planning on going big next year. Exciting, even if it is all highly risky and speculative.
I would like to see Ryan Lavarnway get more PAs.
@5
In a vacuum, I have no issue w/it, but just looking anecdotally around at other trades of the same ilk, we seem to be paying a higher price for slot money than other teams.
3&4 – I wonder if the Cubs would discuss Schwarber? Say for maybe Wisler + Davidson, or either Wood or Miller straight up?
Dueling Sonnets and other such delicacies…
I have just heard on good authority that the doors are going to be opened, the throngs allowed in, the media alerted for our first ever Poetry Bash mid-afternoon tomorrow, the Fourth…contain your excitement if you can until then when a new, separate thread will be put up…
there will be categories inviting all comers to post not just for the Milton sonnet but lighter fare covering 2, 4 and 5 liners, all baseball themed…the latter being limericks of course…can you match the biting wit, the syncopated rhythms of blazon, Edward, coop, AR and goodness knows who else? unlikely, i know, but you gotta try!!
as an afterthought could someone really smart attempt a limerick using only sabermetric initialling? where each letter counts as a word except W which counts as three? because that’s how they sound when you say them out loud…so WHIP on this basis is six syllables read as ‘dou-ble-yew-haitch- eye-pea’ and would occupy the entirety of either line 3 or 4 in a limerick – lines 1,2 and 5 needing eight…
now, could you juggle enough different ones around where they completely fit in aggregate into the request length of each line – 8/8/6/6/8 ? remember, no ‘real’ words…
then, could you rejuggle or substitute some so that not only do they ‘fit’ but the last letter in each line rhymes with what it is supposed to? (lines 1,2 and 5 rhyme, as do 2 with 3 )
then…without changing the ultimate status quo as achieved above can you further juggle/substitute till reading the whole as a 5 line poem creates a coherent baseball theme? genius…
please, no posting your entries here or on tomorrow’s morning game thread…save them, fret over them, rewrite them, despair of them, triumph over them till 3pm tomorrow. Cheers.
Schwarber is a DH in waiting. He’s less of a full-time catcher than Evan Gattis.
Disagree; he’s 6′ flat to Gattis’s 6’4″ for one, and doesn’t have near the injury history. He’ll never be Yadier Molina, but I don’t see why Mike Piazza is out of the question.
Regardless, we’re running AJ Pierzynski now, so it’s not like the bar is ridiculous high.
I don’t really see a good alternative out there (unless you think you could pry Swihart from the BoSox) if you want the guy to be able to hit his weight.
Who are we going after in the international market? Must be a big time player
Does anyone know where Cruz and Pache slide into our prospect list?
Agreed with Stu. It’s exciting, but risky. It also seems to be an approach that not everyone in baseball is doing, which makes me believe that we can be an elite team if it works. I am still very concerned about the lack of power in the system, but we’re developing enough great up-the-middle talent that we can probably figure out the corners. Plus, Freeman and Markakis are here for the long-haul anyway, so we’re really just talking about 3B and LF.
Hopefully above wherever Fulenchek was…
Regarding going big next year, here’s the buzz (ESPN Insider):
BTW, do not do any googling of Kevin Maitan unless you are prepared to get ridiculously excited about a 15-year-old baseball prospect who is not even guaranteed to sign with your favorite team.
Scherzer may have lost the game, but with his performance he overtook Kershaw for the #1 spot on the vaunted Bill James World’s Starting Pitcher Rankings.
@15-I doubt either Cruz or Pache slot in above Fulenchek, but what makes the deal so weird is that the 400,000 we got for Fulenchek is actually only !/5 of what we paid for Pache. So Pache is worth five 2nd round picks? It doesn’t make sense. Braves seem to be happy to dump anybody Wren drafted for peanuts.
blazon: I’m saving three poems for tomorrow, but song parodies are still OK today, right?
Maybin I’m amazed
at the way you you hit with men on base
Maybin I’m afraid
of the way I love you
Maybin I’m amazed
at the way you play the game so fine
And hit one on a line
Maybin I’m amazed
at the way I really need you
Maybin I’m a fan
and Maybin an Atlanta fan
Who’s in the middle of something
That he doesn’t really understand
Maybin I’m a fan and Maybin you’re the only player
Who could ever help me
Maybin, won’t you help me understand?
Maybin I’m a fan
and Maybin an Atlanta fan
Who’s in the middle of something
That he doesn’t really understand
Maybe I’m a fan
and Maybin you’re the only player
Who could ever help me
Maybin, won’t you help me understand?
Maybin I’m amazed
at the way you don’t need Freddie’s bat
Maybin I’m afraid that you’ll start limping
Maybin I’m amazed
at the way you let us beat the Nats
Fix our slumping bats
Maybin I’m amazed at the way I really need you
It’s foolish to compare international signings with draft signings. Draft signings are constrained by slot; international signings aren’t. The reason acquiring Toussaint was such a coup, for example, was because if he was the exact same player but an international free agent, he’d cost loads more to sign than Bronson Arroyo’s dead money.
Well done, JonathanF!
Joba Chamberlain DFA’d by Detroit.
Jonathan…
i’m amazed! great stuff…
see you tomorrow, apologies for not including you in the Roll of Honor, ha..
Tanto, so then why would they trade a similar asset whose value is suppressed for an asset whose value is on the open market?
I like Lavarnway.
We’re signing 16 year olds with the bonus pool money. Fits right into my 10 year plan.
To paraphrase Casey Stengel, in ten years they’ve got good chances to be 26.
Incredible heads up play by Simmons there
JUAN! You’re doing a fine job substituting for the offense tonight.
Lol Chip and Joe touting Francoeur as someone who has trade value.
@30 – Haha…we were joking about what you’d trade for Jeff Francoeur…definitely wouldn’t get you much slot money
He’d be more like BJ Upton, in that the trading team would have to provide the value.
IWOTP, but a win is a win.
Bryce Harper bout to be nekkid in a magazine.
There are some things I’d pay not to see. Great game. If we were to politically correct our name this year, I’d recommend we change it to the Yo-Yos.
@26 – Is this just trolling? Or do you want them to sign older players with the bonus pool money? Do you want them to just not sign international players? Do you not understand what the international bonus pool is? Or, like I said, are you just trolling?
Because if you’re not just trolling, I don’t really know where to begin. You’re aware that all the players being looked at in the international market are 16, right? If they were 17 or 18 (or 21) and unsigned, that would not be a good thing, it would mean they were bad players. Do you think there’s no value in signing 16 year olds, as if Julio Teheran never happened? Are you somehow trying to draw a dichotomy that you can either focus on the major leagues, upper minors, or lower minors, and it’s impossible to do three? On draft day did you say to yourself “Braves are spending money on these guys!? They aren’t even professionals yet!”
For those who haven’t seen it, Andrelton’s latest attempt to break ‘Rissa’s bracket. (They overturn the ‘safe’ call.) http://m.mlb.com/video/v224132283/phiatl-simmons-throws-out-rupp-at-second-base/?game_pk=414856
I wish Uribe was on our team couple years ago.
Neftali Feliz DFA’ed…prodigal son anyone?
Jace is tired – rest him.
Recapped.