One of the very few topics on which I generally default to optimism is the Atlanta Braves. It is known.
I can get testy with the constant rending of garments that we seem to descend to any time things don’t go perfectly or according to how we would do it. It is known.
I have been watching a lot of One Punch Man of late. This is likely new information.
All of this given, I hereby present “how the Atlanta Braves compete for the NL East or at least the WildCard* in 2016, in one move.”
Assumption 1: Hector Olivera does not bomb out. That is to say, he is a reasonable facsimile of a middle of the order hitter with some power, and can fake it well enough at 3B.
Assumption 2: Terry McGuirk was not lying when he said payroll would increase going into 2017, and that the Braves are willing to once again carry a top-10 payroll.
I honestly don’t think either of those assumptions require unicorn’s blood to be true. Your mileage may, as they say, vary.
Punch 1: Call Milwaukee. Offer Lucas Sims and Touki Toussaint, packaged with at least one of Michael Bourn or Nick Swisher’s expiring contracts. Preferably both. Ask for Ryan Braun’s entire contract in return.
C – AJP
1B – Huggy Bear
2B – Jace Peterson
3B – Hector Olivera
SS – Erick Aybar
LF – Ryan Braun
CF – Cameron Maybin
RF – Nick Markakis
OF4 – Dian Toscano
OF5 – Mallex Smith
The rest of the roster fills in with pieces already in the mix in Atlanta.
Breathe.
*Remember way back 12 months ago when everyone was all “ALL WE NEED TO DO IS SNEAK INTO THE SECOND WILD CARD! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!?“
Not too shabby. Can we get the Brew Crew to throw in Lucroy if we add Bethancourt?
Given the Brewers needs and position on the success cycle, I think they’d move Braun for pitching prospects and salary relief.
We can make a division pennant contending team on a 140 million payroll (top 10). About 3 threads ago I walked through that. And, it could contend next year. The real thing is if that is made up or real.
I haven’t looked up Braun’s dollars or years but think dollars are around 22 mill.
But IF the number is 140, then the FO should be trying to figure out what we have in the pipeline and what we don’t have and go get what we don’t have. This is the year to start “getting” because the top 10 pick is protected. If they can cobble this crew to .500 next year, then the pick is NOT protected. Braun fits a filling of a big hole as the next shot at a power hitting outfielder we have is Braxton Davidson in about 3 years. Then, the next year the “young uns from the islands” are possible material.
I don’t think the FO thinks that Olivera can handle third. IF he can and IF they plan based on that, then this works. But, what would work better is to add Heyward in free agency and move Markakis to left.
I am convinced a Jace / Castro platoon can range in the 2 to maybe even 3 WAR level. No point making a move there with Albies so close and both of them cheap, etc.
A true ace level front line pitcher would make the second biggest impact. Somebody like Grienke or Price. I would also consider getting a “real catcher,” but if Weiters is 4 years at 16 mill (saw a projection on that by somebody), then no way.
I can also see an upper tier lefty reliever (Tony Sipp, maybe).
But I am pretty sure the Braves have made the decision that Olivera is left field only. So, you need a 3B for at least a year to get to Ruiz and 2 more to get to Riley.
Ahhhhhhperator won’t you put me on through/I’ve got to offer my prospects to the Crew/Hurry up won’t you put’em on the line/I gotta talk through this trade just one more time
Toussaint was worth a Bronson Arroyo salary dump 6 months ago and now he’s going to get Ryan Braun? Fair play to the Johns if they pull that off, I’ll take back anything bad I ever said about them (except the hiring themselves after a non-existant GM search, patronizing tone to fans and impending move to the suburbs but hey this cuts out a lot of my criticism!). That team still needs 2-3 starters and probably 2 more relievers plus a real bench. Also this is contingent on the idea that Olivera can play third which the Braves obviously don’t think he can.
Also the Simmons trade makes even less sense if you do this move unless you figure Simmons brought two extra chips and you cashed them in for Braun? Still wouldn’t make of ton of sense though because if you trade for Ryan Braun your window is extremely small and holding onto minor league pitchers as oppossed to all world shortstops doesn’t seem like the optimal use of resources in that situation.
I approve of Jim Croce references. Especially to that song. One of the best of all time.
Weiters accepted the one year QO from Baltimore.
Toussaint is the filler. If Sims/Toussaint doesn’t get it done, flip Sims to the more highly regarded guy Newcomb. If they demand a ML ready talent, offer Shelby Miller but require they take both of the bad OF contracts at least.
@6- Garth!
Give them Teheran
Ryan Braun is not that good anymore. He’s 32, and any day now, he’ll turn into Nick Swisher. He’s not the type of player I want to target when we start flipping some of our top-10 prospects.
Generally, speaking, I don’t think we need to be trading any of our best prospects for players over 30. And that includes Olivera, but what’s done is done.
Lessee…going by last year’s numbers, that’s about a 20 WAR lineup. Giving some extra credit for health and improvement (and lack of decline), we can bump it up to 25 without being out of line. A decent bench could provide a few more…I’ll go to 28 (hey, they’re bench players for a reason). A team of replacement level talent would garner ~47 wins. So, all told, a reasonable optimist could extrapolate 75 wins from that group and a league-average pitching staff. So now all we have to do is improve the staff from 2nd worst to average, and presto!
It does no good to repeat names like Maybin, Peterson, Pierzynski etal like some sort of incantation that turns them into players a contending team would rely on.
@12, thank you.
Sansho,
A league average staff would ad WAR. A replacement level pitching staff gets you to 75 wins IF everything else you indicated pans out. For starters, average is still around 2 wins x 5 plus probably 5 more out of bullpen, total. So, league average pitching would make that a 90 win team.
I think the lineup and bench won’t quite do that, so it still doesn’t get to 90.
Let’s make some generous assumptions
AJP: 1.5 WAR
Freddie: 3.5 WAR
Jace: 1.0 WAR
Hector: 3.0 WAR
Aybar: 2.0 WAR
Braun: 4.0 WAR
Maybin: 1.0 WAR
Markakis: 2.0 WAR
That adds up to 18, so you’d have to be even more generous to get to 20, to say nothing of 25. There’s a very good chance Hector, Aybar, Braun, Neck, and Maybin fall short of the generous projections up there.
Yeah, I realized that mistake after the edit time ran out. Still, the given scenario requires cashing two of our best pitching prospects to get the position player situation even reasonably sorted. And then you get started on the staff, and it’s just a bridge too far.
OH FOR PETE’S SAKE! Are we going to complain about acquiring six hundred and forty seven thousand pitching lottery tickets while ignoring the offense, or are we going to complain about cashing a couple of them in to fill offensive holes? Because you can choose one or the other, but you simply can’t have both!
Also, if the goal is WC2, 85 wins puts you in that game.
If your point is that any franchise has sufficient assets to convert into a major league roster that can contend for the second wild card at any point, given proper motivation and willing trading partners, then I agree with you. Start with your trade, then make two more just like it, and it can happen. Is that what you believe is going on? That the FO will jump halfway across the canyon?
Olivera a 3 WAR 3B, lol. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do this right, with an actual 3B.
The Orioles are about to see their window close when their FAs sign elsewhere. Their farm is not in good condition. Manny Machado. KINDERGARTEN COPP, I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars, and bought turntables.
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables, and bought guitars.
Maybe not this year. Probably not this year. But I will match dollar for dollar any bet anyone wants to make that between now and 2017 the Braves will trade away some of the stockpile of pitching assets they’ve been hoarding for an established offensive improvement somewhere.
I agree. I think it will happen after next season. Unless krussell’s conspiracy theory about the Braves having to play ’17 at Turner Field comes to pass. I can’t tell you how compelling I find that idea. I assume it’s contractually foreclosed as a possibility, but still….
@JeffPassan: The Freeman-to-Astros talks died quickly, and since then Braves have vowed not to deal Freeman. Speaks to how public pressure affected them.
Hart said recently, though I can’t find the link, that they aren’t completely committed to Olivera in left, which was encouraging to me. We have more than lost that trade if Olivera indeed ends up in left, and I just don’t see why he can’t fake it at third for at least 2016 when we have fourteen outfielders. For those that know defensive metrics better than I do, is it possible to draw conclusions from his Cuban, minor league, and limited major league time at third?
@4, @9
I do appreciate the Garth parody.
Alex, from previous thread – I’m open to hear out your arguement, but yeah, I’m not calling Minor, Medlen, Beachy, or Wood successes. They haven’t panned out as reliable starters. Youth is on their side and they could prove me wrong, but between them they have like one full, above average season. Flashes of short-term brilliance, yes, but to look at that group and come away with the idea that developing starters is something the Braves do better than the average bear is confusing to me. Jury is out on Teheran.
I had to pick end points somewhere, and I don’t think 10 years and 4 WAR were egregiously arbitrary. Each year there are about 15-20 4+ WAR pitching seasons in MLB. Those pitchers are #1’s / #2’s on any team in baseball. Pitchers brought to the majors by the Braves have produced only 2 such seasons in the last decade. That to me does not indicate to me an organizational edge. This is why I call foul on the myth that the Braves org is great at developing pitching.
Now where the Braves have had success is in trading these pitching chips early in their careers for others assets. Lots of pitching prospects of days past left town and brought back quality hitters. And the. There’s that Wainwright trade…
@22
I’ll also match that bet as well. It’s an easy bet, and you’re simply loony or the world’s biggest pessimist if you think that’s not the plan.
Has there been a study about the cumulative nature of WAR? For instance, has someone maybe taken playoff teams, added up all of each team’s WAR, subtracted the 47 win figure I saw and consistently arrived at clear results? I’m honestly interested in seeing if it’s really that simple. But if it’s not, then this little exercise is a little futile.
But if it does, did we clarify what adding that generous estimation for that lineup, a league average rotation and a league average bullpen? What amount of wins does that equal? In which case, if you could take the 2016 team and turn it into a 80+ win team and not sell the farm… wouldn’t you do that? And if a spin off of that idea is add in another pitching prospect and get a power-hitting outfielder who fits into the team’s plans more long-term….. then wouldn’t you really do that?
I take your point, but it’s no more futile than staring at a list of names and hoping they play over their heads. What is not futile about fandom?
Adam Wainwright brought back a fantastic hitter. They should have extended him.
You’re right.
But hey man, I’m a Gator fan. We’re “a year early”. An Astros fan would tell you they were “a year early”. Why not us? We’re going to have one of the youngest rosters in baseball, and if we make a couple decent moves in the next few months, we could have some breaks go our way and we’re right there. Why not us?
I think we should take a cheap flyer on our old David Carpenter
I don’t think anyone is opposed to trading pitching for hitting, much less would anyone accept a wager that the FO would. The problem is in suggesting trading that for declining, expensive former stars who might not be any good by 2017 but will certainly gobble up budget.
Well you’re not trading for Kris Bryant, so you trade for who’s available.
Or not, depending on whether it makes sense. We did trade for Justin upton once. You can’t just throw away assets bc a guy used to be good and he’s available.
Looking back, it’s pretty crazy that Arizona gave up on a then-25 year old Justin Upton, coming off a 110 OPS+ season, a year after a 141 OPS+ season. But with that said, obviously the market has changed, but we gave up Randall Delgado (Tyrell Jenkins), Nick Ahmed (Rio Ruiz? Can’t really find a good comp), Brandon Drury (Dustin Peterson?), and Zeke Spruill (Zach Bird). The Chris Johnson/Martin Prado component complicates things, but I think it’s fair to say that if there’s a player out there for trade like Justin Upton, the Braves probably have the horses to make the trade without weakening the system too much.
What are the new trends for age curves? We seem to talk about 30-32 year olds like they are set to decline tremendously by age 33 or 34. Is that statistically that fair to say? And if that’s the case… then what is AJP and Grilli taking?
I’m excited to see if the 2016 Atlanta Braves can get lower attendance and television ratings than they did in 2015. The ratings this year were the worst since 1990.
We have some intriguing bats in the very low minors. I think the most likely scenario is that we’ll have to time our “getting real good again” with their arrival. Flipping pitching for hitting just means we’ve got to go get more pitching, unless you live in the fantasy world where every single one of the pitching prospects we’ve acquired will pan out and we win every single trade.
@38
Would you like to throw a percentage at the starting pitching prospects panning out? You seem to be the most negative person towards the process so please proceed.
How about… 20%? Would you be willing to sign on the line that’s dotted that 20% of the starting pitching prospects will develop into strong starting pitchers? When I say “strong”, I mean a #1-3.5 starter on a 95-win team. We currently have, according to the pros on MLB.com, 14 starting pitching prospects in our top-30 expecting to be in the big leagues within the next 3 years. I’m not a pro, neither are you, so I’m going to go with their list. Some are under-hyped, some are over-hyped, so that’s why I go top-30. For clarity, people like Kolby Allard aren’t on the list because they’re considered to be too far off. So if 20% of those 14 pitchers develop into 1-3 starters, can you live with that? Would that be a decent success rate? So then would you mind trading some of the remaining 80% should the Braves identify that some of them may have more perceived value than actual value? If that happens, you have a rotation of Miller/Teheran/3 #1-3.5 starters. That also leaves Banuelos, Wisler, and Folty completely irrelevant, and in 2017 you haven’t spent a dime on FA SP.
That’s something you could get around, right? 20%?
Not every player Falls off a cliff at 32 or 33, but one does have to admit that they often do. If you could predict which ones would, you’d have a lucrative job. In lieu of such a predictive model, it seems that a middle payroll team would refrain from gambling large segments of its payroll on the possibility that players don’t decline steeply in their mid-30’s.
It also matters whether you think you’re close to contention. We are not, so trading our top prospects for a guy who *might* be good for another 1-3 years doesn’t make sense when we’re pretty sure we’re not going to be any good this year (2016)
No, krussell. Here’s what has to happen for the Braves to get good again. Some combination of the players they’ve acquired need to pan out, some others need to be flipped for players that fill holes, and some other holes need to be filled with straight cash money outlays on free agency. We are a couple of years away from that final stage, but it’s not like you have to hit the lottery three years running. You take your 75 win core (which they’re relatively close to now) and shore up up to 80-85 wins with internal options. Then you flip and buy until you move that team to a 90+ win team. At that point, you’re competing for the division, and thus a World Series by definition, again.
@40 – HOF caliber players tend to tail out into their late 30s and early 40s. AROD’s your example here. Chipper. Barry. Hall of Very Good may give you value through their mid- to late- 30s, but you want out from under them before they hit 34-36 really. Run of the mill “good but not great” players should never be paid real money past 32 or so. (Nick Markakis comes to mind here.)
But the flip side of that coin is that players and agents are no longer blind to the value of young players making 500K a year pre-arb. You’re seeing a LOT more arb and early FA year buyouts like with Mike Trout, so the value of having amazing young talent, while still obvious and true, is lessening on the margins. And as those talent values lessen on the margins, the value of a perfectly cromulent free mid-tier free agent 31 year old increases.
Sam’s a thinker.
I guess we’ll see if Ryan Braun is worth the 17-20 mil he will be making in his age 33-37 seasons. Everyone declines, and starting from a higher peak means you have a better shot at being decent in your decline. It’s still somewhat erratic, and I’d rather not be betting that a guy doesn’t start to suck too soon.
The Brewers extended Braun knowing that he won’t be worth $17-20 mil at the end of the deal but that he will have already out-produced the contract in its entirety by then anyway. With a deal like his, you’re paying for top-flight production on the front end. I don’t think we should be the team to pick up the baton on him from here.
If the Braves want to recoup value out of damaged goods prospects, they have to wait until they play a few games first.
They aren’t going to trade away Touki Toussaint or Sean Newcomb until they get their control together. They aren’t going to trade Max Fried until he proves he’s healthy.
A young player is at his highest value after he’s reached, and succeeded in, the big leagues, but before he has accrued too much service time.
Look for Shelby and Teheran to be on the block this season. Look for Banuelos, Wisler and Foltynewicz to be on the block after this season.
The next great Braves team is more likely to feature Newcomb, Allard, Fried or Toussaint than it is to feature any of the guys currently on the roster.
A team that is willing to move a real hitting prospect doesn’t want a real pitching prospect. No one trades their tomorrow for a similar but different tomorrow. The team that will trade a real hitting prospect wants an immediate contributor, a guy with a track record. If Julio recoups value, if Shelby shows last year wasn’t a fluke, those are the guys that will bring you a real prospect hitter. Banuelos, Wisler, Foltynewicz, if you can get them going in the right direction, are less valuable because the ceiling doesn’t appear to be as high, but they will be almost as valuable, because of service time.
The 2017 roster will likely have one of Teheran and Miller, and one of Banuelos, Wisler and Folty (one kept, one traded, and one injured/flamed-out/stuck in AAA trying to figure it out.)
@Buster_ESPN: Since Shelby Miller’s name first emerged in the trade market, the Giants and Dodgers have checked in on his availability.
Agree with jj. We have lots of pitching prospects (as do all the other teams, lol) but you are not going to magically keep the two or three that pan out and trade the rest for star hitters. We’re going to keep all the prospects for a while so we can see which ones we want to keep and which ones bust. If NONE of them bust then we’ll have surplus to trade from. But don’t hold your breath on the Kyle Schwarber for Banuelos deal…
Since we’re a low/mid payroll team, developing young position players is an absolute must. I think we’ll do that, but it takes 5 years.
Rob Cope @ 28,
In fact WAR is back checked constantly and formulas were tweaked in the early days of that.
As I remember, actual wins deviate from actual WAR of individuals added back together, by less than 2 wins a year most of the time. A big variant is efficient and good relief pitching because WAR doesn’t measure the actual value as well as other indexes. There is a leverage index that gives almost no credit for holding 3 innings when the team is already down 3 runs and high credit for a 1 / 3rd inning by ground ball (out) with bases loaded and 2 outs. By FIP or xFIP a ground ball is a “meh” event. But if it actually ends a big threat, then it is very valuable.
For starting pitchers and starting position players the assumption (and relatively proven) is that the effects of situation come close enough to balancing out over a season and that granular “what did this player do” data begins to state value better and better.
On aging curves, JC did a lot of work on that about 8 to 10 years ago. Some of that is linked on this site. His estimate was peak for superstar players around 29 and for so so players around 27 and for the “only able to hold a roster spot with short playing time for a few years” around 25. Pitchers closer to 25 even for great pitchers. I saw some more recent work about a year ago that indicates that in the “post PED testing era” that the oldest group of players has not aged as well.
Another thing about aging for an NL club is there is no DH spot to clean up for “bad wheels.” Each player ages differently. Any one of the various effects of aging could be the one that brings a particular player down. For a guy like Braun on the Braves, if he loses too much defensive value, you can’t play him, even if his offense declines very slowly. But an AL team can continue to get value.
I’m with Sam — Braun’s an interesting target, a high-dollar guy on a small-market team who is likely to age pretty well. He stole 24 bases in 28 tries last year: he can’t play defense and never could, but he’s a pretty good athlete, and guys as good as him tend to age gently.
@27, the problem I have with your definition of “reliable starter” is that it strikes me as arbitrarily restrictive. First of all, reliability is hard. Injuries are the only reason that Minor, Medlen, and Beachy stopped being effective starters (and Medlen may be back to being an effective starter), and I just don’t blame injuries on the front office.
Second, it sounds like you’re saying that the Braves are not good at developing aces, since they haven’t developed any aces since Glavine and Smoltz. Minor produced 3.5 fWAR in 2013, and Teheran produced 3.2 fWAR (3.9 rWAR) in 2014; those are pretty good number 2 starters. Wood produced 2.6 WAR in both 2014 and 2015; that’s a pretty good number 3 starter. And so on.
If you’re pointing out that they haven’t developed Matt Harvey (4.4 fWAR in 2015) or Stephen Strasburg (4.0, 3.3, 4.4, and 3.4 fWAR from 2012-2015), then I agree with you. But most teams in baseball look pretty poor by that standard.
And the notion that we have a 75 win core right now is totally absurd. This is a below replacement level roster. None of these guys except for possibly a few pitchers are going to be on the next great Braves team.
@50
I agree. There are like 6-10 guys in all of baseball that are Aces. It has more to do with talent than anything else.
May barber said there is a deal being discussed where Shelby Miller, Jace Peterson and Nick Marakis go to the Giants for Matt Duffy and Joe Panik
Your barber would do better to just focus on that cowlick, in this instance.
@53
I would do that deal in a heartbeat.
Would Jace Peterson have more value at SS? Seems like his glove is solid and he might have the range to play that position.
@55, I do not believe Jace Peterson can handle shortstop at the major league level. Not enough arm.
First, well done, Sam!
Second, I would love to see a bunch of kids get a chance to play this spring. All positions open for competition. A sense of discovery, rather than dismay.
It could be messy, it might be ugly. But with no illusions, we’ll see some real ballplayers develop. I hate losing as much as anybody, but I think we’ve bottomed out.
Ready for spring. Go Braves!
#56 – You may very well be right.
What is a realistic return for Miller if the Giants and Dodgers have interest?
I don’t know the Giants or Dodgers farms at all, but three arbitration years of Shelby Miller is enough to get a good, close-ish position prospect for whom there isn’t an opening for the next year on the major league team OR a young-ish above-average major league contributor behind whom there’s a great prospect knocking down the gate, plus a sweetener of some kind (damaged goods prospect, relief prospect, flippable major league reliever, etc.)
I just found out that Gary Sheffield is Jason Grilli’s agent.
Here’s his agency’s website: http://www.sheffieldmanagementgroup.com/index.php?content=press
Puig and Seager. Make it happen, Coppy!
@58
Miller is probably our best trade chip. I think we could get a ton for him.
I think we could definitely get Puig if we wanted him. Do we want him?
@62, True. But he and Teheran are the guys I don’t think are worth trading.
Uh, yes. We want Puig. I mean, we do want offense, right?
And of course Miller and Teheran are the chits who will bring you real value for an offensive piece in return. The rest of the league aren’t utterly stupid. You can either trade unproven prospects to teams looking to rebuild*, or proven talent to teams looking to be competitive**.
* This generally involves taking on contracts; call it the “Braves Way 2015”
** This generally requires giving up some talent you have a prospect close-to-ready to fill, while they give you back something you don’t have internally, and vice versa.
Puig and Seager would be quite a coup, but I don’t think the Dodgers will trade Seager for anything. Puig is a good target, but he’s not enough for Miller by himself, given his baggage and inconsistency.
Shelby will be traded for prospects. Probably Teheran too. They’ll shop Freeman but I really don’t think he’s got that much value due to his contract – we are probably better off keeping him and hoping.
It’s all about the timelines. Pitching and hitting has to be there at the same time. Our pitching is incubating right now and some of it is just a year or two away. The hitting is probably three or four years away.
Yes we’ll certainly trade some of that pitching for hitting, but you don’t make that move until we’re “ready”. It’ll look like the other side of what we did with JUpton and Heyward. Rent a year for a bat. Doing that this year or next doesn’t make sense. It will at some point though.
@64, I should have added “at the cost of a very good starting pitcher” to my question of whether or not we want Puig. If it’s a question of just having him or not, then: duh.
I think trading Shelby or Teheran would be the quickest way to turn this perplexing rebuild into an utter morass, unless we compensate by signing a 1/2 starter. You absolutely cannot, if you can help it, send an unripe pitcher out to start 4 out of 5 games. The consequences on the W/L record, on the bullpen, on the morale of the team will be enormous if you do.
I wouldn’t give up Shelby for Puig. He cant stay healthy.
Kolby Allard had a one level fusion after his GCL stint. The Braves say he will be ready by ST. I doubt he is. It could be longer if it didn’t correct the problem.
This is a big deal that our medical guys missed on.
I guess this is why Coppy needs so many
Bowman already trying to downplay the news
Good times
Beat me to it
@mlbbowman: The #Braves will need to add Mallex Smith, John Gant and Johan Camargo to their 40-man before tomorrow’s Rule 5 protection
@50 – Good points, Alex. I pretty much agree with you. I think I strayed from my original point which was that the Braves have his reputation as being one of the best in the league at pitching development, and I don’t think recent history validates that narrative. If an org is among the best at developing pitchers, then they would have some more top 20 pitchers to show for it.
Your point on injuries is where I’m not fully on board. I’m not convinced pitcher health isn’t a coaching/scouting skill.
If it is a skill, then the many, many injures to Braves pitchers would seem to indicate that the Braves don’t have that skill – again in direct conflict with the narrative.
If it’s not a skill and pitcher injuries are blind luck, then I have serious concerns with a baseball organization building their rebuild strategy around such risky assets as pitching prospects.
MikeM @74,
Pitching development can also mean finding hidden assets and turning them into gems. That is what was up with both Medlen and Beachy. Also, somewhat with Minor.
However, I am inclined to believe that our bad run of pitcher health is so sufficiently outside the norm as to make me believe something or some things aren’t right in the system.
@74, great points. This is why I scratch my head about loading up on pitching. It seems like a lot of guys run into arm trouble before they really get a chance to be big leaguers. It seems like the guys who have pitched for several years in the bigs are less likely to run into serious arm trouble. The operative word is *seems*–I may be wrong, but it sure seems that way.
If that’s the case, then it almost certainly makes more sense to develop position players and sign free agent pitchers. They pitchers may be overpriced, but at least they’re not hurt.
In Allard’s case, he had back issues. A fusion is a big deal (no matter what Bowman says) and should have been identified by a medical review.
Maybe it was and the Braves don’t care.
However, I am inclined to believe that our bad run of pitcher health is so sufficiently outside the norm as to make me believe something or some things aren’t right in the system.
It’s baffling that we’ve convinced ourselves we’re good at handling pitchers post-TJ. I don’t know if I’d say we’re outside the norm, but we haven’t exactly figured things out either. The best I could say is, we feel like our luck will even out from here.
I think two things combine to make our pitching injury woes of late stand out. First, we had an insane run of GOOD luck in the 90s. The only real loss we suffered as a starter was Smoltz. Maybe Avery if you go back that far. Maddux and Glavine were just spectacularly healthy all the time, and Millwood/Neagle were horses too. We then flipped that coin and got super unlucky the last few years with Hanson, Jurrjens, Medlen, Beachy, and now Minor. Probably missing some too. I’m not sure it’s coaching or scouting (though finding “hidden gems” and then getting them to dominate a couple years in the bigs may lead to more injuries), and I’m not sure it’s not.
As of a couple of years ago, we were extreme outliers in TJ cases. Whether that’s still the case, I don’t know, but it’s not like we’ve solved it.
I think Medlen, Beachy, and Venters are further reason to second guess our medical staff’s ability to work with TJ arms
Rosenthal on Fredi’s future with the Braves:
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/atlanta-braves-fredi-gonzalez-contract-extension-2016-111915
@80-82
Exactly. And if we were so well-versed in dealing with TJ, why didn’t we sign Venters, Beachy, and Medlen after the fact?
Because they were coming back from 2nd surgeries (in Venters’ case 3rd surgery) and none of them had a success probability to justify their minimum arb contract requirements.
I mostly agree with all of that. I don’t think it’s entirely ridiculous to suggest that, to the extent that pitcher injuries are not just a fluke of dumb luck, the Braves are not good at preventing them.
That said, assuming that pitcher injuries are neither 100% luck nor 100% preventable, I tend to think that the Braves’ front office should get more credit for discovering pitchers who have one good season than they should lose credit if those pitchers subsequently get injured.
However: Yasiel Puig is an incredibly good baseball player and if he can be had then we should get him. As Sam says, guys like that are what all this pitching depth is for. There’s no way in hell that the Dodgers are trading Corey Seager, but if the Mariners could be inspired to part with Kyle Seager, I’d take him in a second. He’s a quiet monster.
Puig would be a nice get and would kinda fit in with our quest to become Cuban-National-Team-North.
Keep in mind that our pitching “surplus” is not actually realized yet. Half these guys are un-tradeable or sell-low-candidates due to injury risks. We may actually need the full compliment just to harvest 2 or 3 keepers. At the least they’ll need to pitch a season to establish value.
@83 I have a pet theory that the Braves view Fredi as a bridge/ caretaker until the team is once again competitive, and will keep extending him a year at a time until we’re close, then thank him for his service.
I’m going to go all Chuck LaMar on everybody and say Miller for Puig and Seager or NO DEAL.
@83
The Braves usually have been a year to year on those deals.
Yep. Just about every single one of our pitching prospects needs a good year in 2015 to build value.
The good news is, time’s one thing we’ve got plenty of.
LOL!! So last Friday (the 13th of all things) was the renewal deadline for season tickets in order to keep your seats and secure the “lowest price”. I just got an email telling me the deadline had been extended to the 20th! I guess they are getting desperate…
@91
Yup…aside from the recently acquired Newcomb,the rest have some taint.
Toussaint: poor showing after being acquired
Tyrell: injured during the season with same injury that’s plagued his past (granted,it was short)
Sims: Poor MILB numbers before promotion (odd)
Fried: Tommy John
Wisler: poor MLB numbers
Banuelos: re-injured
Folty: poor numbers and a blood clot
Allard: just had 2nd back surgery (ugh…)
Z.Bird: Still walking houses
@93
Certainly you’re not marketing any of these players as finished products. They’re prospects. Will most of them have more value next year? Probably, but you trade a couple-few of them to get you the major league player you want today. And if all of those were finished products, we wouldn’t have gotten so many of them as cheaply as we had over the last 12 months.
Yeah but when you cash them in right now you aren’t getting much back. The idea is for them to increase in value first, then cash them in. Flipping them doesn’t do anything for us, unless you think everyone else in baseball is just dumb and TheJohns are just gonna fleece people left and right.
Who in their right minds is gonna trade us a great (or even good) hitter for a bunch of hurt AA guys with no track record? Maybe you get a rent-a-player about to hit FA. Maybe it’s part of a salary dump. It’s not going to be high-impact right now. The hope is that changes in a year.
Yasiel Puig isn’t exactly Albert DeSalvo, but I wouldn’t wanna root for him on my club either.
Touki Toussaint
control is so fluki, a taint.
As much as it matters
some ascribe to cultured Creolian chatters.
Yasiel Puig
a Hit and a Contract, so why the intrigue?
from Havana the Mob
made it clear they’re just doing their job.
@ 93
when was Allard’s second surgery, prognosis?
‘the bigger they are, the allarder they fall.’
Sigmund Freud
would have been more than a little annoyed
by various Braves
who periodically broke down in waves.
“Getting much back” is all relative. Yes, if we hold onto everyone another year, we should see more appreciation on the aggregate. But Wisler and Jenkins’ values have increased in the last 12 months, and you’re not “flipping” them. More buy and hold. I do agree about Fried, Folty and Banuelos; their current injury concerns hurt their value too much in the short-term, and Folty and Banuelos are probably worth more to us getting to pitch during a down year.
I would look at trading Jenkins if he was a piece towards an established major league bat. Newcomb makes sense as a “flip” candidate if you buy the “trade for pitching to use as a universal trade currency with other clubs” thing. To a lesser extent, Bird, Whalen, and Ellis. I’d also look to trade Perez in there somewhere too. Just too many options for rotation/bullpen in 2016 and beyond for him to have a major use long-term.
I think the strat is going to try to mimic the Mets in that we’ll attempt to assemble a kickass pitching staff and then just flat out buy the missing bats at the appropriate time.
Our spare parts that don’t make the cut for the kickass pitching staff might turn into the 2019 versions of Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe. But we’re gonna buy a Cespedes or two.
Trading any of those guys @93 would be a sell-low, a strategy the Braves would be unwise to follow. The pitchers the Braves could sell high on is a short list:
Shelby Miller
@49…
‘even if his offense declines very slowly’
Joe P has a column this week on Peyton Manning and his apparent precipitous decline in his late thirties. In it he claims the mistake players make is to assume as they age their decline will be gradual so they can, in effect, manage it and decide when to pull the plug in such a way and time that melodrama and its embarrassments are avoided- vide Manning though who could not do just this.
Posnanski says, as though it were fact, that when it starts to come apart, to slide off the table, it happens quickly for all athletes at the far end of their quota of years. There can be no controlling it.
Two questions. From what we collectively know of our sport, our team, has this been the case generally?
And, what about the rest of us? Substitute 60’s/70’s for 30’s.
Will somebody explain to me why we’re talking about “established major league bats?”
We did not trade Heyward and Upton to turn around and trade the prospects away for older more expensive and not as good versions of Heyward and Upton.
Which is to say, we’re not trading for Ryan Braun.
We’re going to graduate pitchers and we’re going to trade away the ones closest to free agency, for ML-ready but unestablished bats. We’ll sign a free agent or two. We’ll hope some of our prospect hitters turn out. Then, after we’ve traded our most tradeable pitchers, signed what free agents make sense, and seen what prospects turn in to hitters… THEN we will trade prospect pitching for established hitters.
The Braves will not compete for the playoffs in 2016. They will not sign or trade for 32 year old hitters making real money. Teams in our place on the competitive cycle trade away veterans for prospects, they don’t trade prospects for veterans. The marginal win value for a team to win 75 games instead of 72 isn’t very high.
@103 Yes.
Recency.
Apparently the Braves are going after expensive relievers. An odd use of resources unless they plan on flipping them at the deadline getting a Kimbrel-sequel return back.
“The Braves will not compete for the playoffs in 2016. They will not sign or trade for 32 year old hitters making real money. Teams in our place on the competitive cycle trade away veterans for prospects, they don’t trade prospects for veterans. The marginal win value for a team to win 75 games instead of 72 isn’t very high.”
32 year old hitters making real money are the new market inefficiency.
Yeah. Okay. I’ll just take this bullet for anyone else who might not want to. Ryan Braun is a more valuable player than Jason Heyward, and I don’t care how much dWAR in RF separates them.
Jason Heyward has created more runs than Ryan Braun each of the last two seasons. He’s 6 years younger. He’s been able to stay on the field more. He can play center field if you need him to, which makes him much more versatile.
So, yeah, actually he’s a better offensive player, a more practical player, and one who isn’t likely to fall off a cliff before his contract is up.
ON TOP OF WHICH Braun is a damn mess anywhere you play him in the field.
But yeah, from 2010-2012 Ryan Braun was a better player than Heyward (was or is right now.)
Nope. The only way you get to that conclusion is to overvalue dWAR and project Heyward beyond any offensive levels he’s actually shown.
Or you just look at the last few years on their baseball-reference pages…
Braun created 74 runs in 2014. Heyward created 86.
Braun created 88 runs last year. Heyward created 89.
Back in 2013, when both players had shortened seasons (for very different reasons) Braun was averaging 6 runs created per 27 outs, whereas Heyward averaged a measly 5.8.
K.
But Braun could bounce back? Heyward could backslide with the bat?
It’s not impossible that Braun could outhit Heyward so drastically in 2016 that the rest of the package could even out. I wouldn’t take that bet for the next 3 years running, but if we’re just talking next year: wouldn’t make my head spin.
Not that we’d need that to happen if we acquired Ryan Braun. He’s a good player. He could be a great player again for one or two seasons.
The downside to a Braun acquisition would be the $40 million we’d owe him for his 35-36-year old seasons in 2019-20
Heyward Journal is pretty much all we have left.
Yeah, the only way you get to the conclusion that Braun > Heyward right now is to decide not to value outfield defense at all. And also what @110 says.
It’s not my money, but I would rather spend $195 mil on Heyward’s next however-many seasons and keep the prospects than to trade prospects for some of Braun’s decline. Gonna have to spend somewhere at some point, and hard to imagine a better fit for that money that Heyward right now.
Motion to tell Liberty Media that from now on it’s Adam R’s money.
I would sign Andruw just cuz.
I believe 40 man rosters had to be set by midnight for December’s Rule 5 draft.
The Braves added Gant and Mallex Smith. Only top 30ish prospect we left unprotected was Johan Camargo, but he’s no real risk to be taken.
We left 2 slots on the 40 man open. Any one see any articles yet highlighting the best players left unprotected?