Happy Fathers Day.
Today’s matchup delivered a treat for all who love pitching duels. My mother’s father Roy and my dad Dub would have enjoyed the game. Jacob deGrom and Julio Teheran toed the rubber as the Braves looked for the improbable sweep. I wish Gramps and Pops had been here to share it with me while the Old Righthander, Pete and Skip made the call.
The Braves won 6-0. Julio was superb. If Atlanta must be represented at the All star game, Julio’s the guy that deserves to go. He mowed down the Mutts with alacrity through eight, allowing only Michael Conforto to reach base safely with his third inning leadoff single. Every other Met came up empty for the day.
The Braves hit today. Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis led the bats. Freddie reprised his hitting fool, going four for five; and Nick played like he doesn’t want to be delenda’ed. The special Fathers Day uniforms looked great, but the day belonged to Julio the Magnificent. Despite his near perfecto, he also had a single and two sacrifices. Pretty good work for our 25 year old ace.
Enjoy the rest of your day, take tomorrow off and let’s get together Tuesday in Miami.
Mallex Smith broke his thumb. Get ready for Jeff Francoeur: Everyday Player.
Alex, please delete the “through eight” in the fourth sentence of the third paragraph. I’m a dumbass.
I blame Rob Cope.
Awful for mallex. There goes half the reason I watch the braves this year. Hopes and prayers for a speedy and complete recovery.
If we don’t lose another game, and the Nats continue to play .620, we’ll overtake them for first around August 15.
Mallex plays the game with joy, for sure. He’ll be back soon, I hope. The thought of Frenchy playing daily makes my stomach hurt.
@5, See, I think it’s unlikely we catch them before September 1st.
The past three games have produced enough Met-fan tears to tide me over for 2016. Still want the first overall pick. We’ve come so far already, no reason to give up now.
@8, Yeah. If the only games we win the rest of the year are to run the table against the Mets and Nationals and then maybe win a few spoiler games to ruin the best laid plans of the Cubs, I’ll be a happy guy looking forward to that #1 pick in next year’s draft. More than happy.
I’m getting duplicate comment, even if my comment never posts…
Johns
Selling high
Its do or die
Julio, goodbye?
Yep, this one is on me. I gave Mallex the kiss of death.
I can’t imagine a fractured thumb taking less than a month to heal. At least one month of Jeff Francoeur makes my head hurt. Maybe we’ll call up that stud outfield prospect from the minors…
Rob Whalen is having himself a season at AA. Also Newcomb and Toussaint had great starts this weekend.
Alex, I think Braves Journal has been hacked. According to the site, the Braves have just swept the Mets and have just won 4 games in a row and not against the Marlins. I am not a security expert by any means but this is alarming to say the least. If for some reason I start to believe these obviously false scores are true I may develop some, you know…….. hope.
DO NOT TRADE JULIO TEHERAN. That is the guy you build a pitching staff around.
Bummed about Mallex. Full time Frenchy? I must have angered the Gods.
Help me out on this. Maybe I missed something, but didn’t Mallex stay in the game to run bases after getting hit? It looked obvious he was hurt pretty bad. Like I say, we were celebrating Father’s Day and I may have missed him getting removed, but if not, I don’t understand him staying in the game for even 5 minutes.
He ran and scored after getting whacked, but Jeffy took over in left after our third out.
@15-16
This is what gives me hope that it was a hairline fracture and he won’t be gone long.
Newcomb, more importantly, also gave up NO walks in 7 IP. He’s yet to have a game this year where he’s issued no walks.
I thought so with Mallex. It just seems like with a broken thumb, a bad slide would easily double the recovery time. Curious.
@17, That’s not entirely true. In his June 10 start he gave up no walks in 5 innings. Unfortunately, despite (or because of) all that accuracy he gave up 10 hits…
@19 Oh, must have missed that one. He does have some really unique lines.
coop…special recap…how precious to view a baseball game and have it relate to you in that way, those memories…thanks for sharing.
@11
awesome, you have been drafted.
@12, yeah, that guy.
What’s his name again?
@23, All we know is that we’re going to trade 3 pitchers to get him.
Mike Breen
in his attempt to set the scene
has his effect diminished
calling several plays before they were finished.
great game/theatrical conclusion.
Since Chipper retired, LeBron has pretty much been my favorite athlete. This is the closest I’m going to get to “my team” winning a championship for the foreseeable future unless the Gators win the CWS or surprise some people in football. Good for LeBron.
LeBron’s block will go down in history as one of the biggest plays of all time…
So, at this point who WOULD you still trade Julio for? I’m not advocating that we do, in fact at this point, I’d keep him to build around.
How interesting that of all seven games played only the last was close. The best for last.
And, yes, that block!
@27 29 An incredible play. Who else makes that play? I don’t follow the NBA but last nights game was spectacular.
Not happy that Mallex got hurt but the kid needs a lot of seasoning. Very low baseball IQ. If we weren’t so terrible, he’d be learning his trade (baserunning, taking pitches) in the minors for two more seasons).
Not a Frenchy fan by any means, but he’s every bit as mediocre as the current version mallex.
@28, Some combination of Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, Yoan Moncada, Anderson Espinoza.
Moncada just got promoted to Double-A.
What’s up with Dansby?
Long season blues, Smitty. Playing every day is different than playing twice a week, and the season goes on and on.
@35
Okay
What’s wrong with Albies?
I’m starting to wonder if the Braves rushed Swanson and Albies. They have been struggling.
For Swanson the jump to AA is supposed to be the hardest and he hasn’t really been a professional for that many games.
As for Albies he is still only 19 or 20.
I think both of them will eventually get it together but it does show that there are very very few sure things as far as prospects go.
Swanson was hitting well for the first few weeks at AA. Then he went in a slump.
Players who are clearly more than suitable for their level struggle sometimes too. It’s even a good thing, in a sense, that they’re struggling now because learning to adjust to pitchers’ adjustments and learning to play with nagging injuries (who knows, that could be the culprit right now) are valuable experiences.
The lesson to learn is not to jump to conclusions. Or do we need some copy/pasting from earlier threads this season about how Dansby/Ozzie/Blair (lol) needed to be in Atlanta.
I still don’t have a problem with Blair being in Atlanta, even with how bad he’s been. From what has been written (and my reaction to his father writing blog pieces) is that his problem is between the ears. I don’t think he has to work through that when he’s pitching well in AAA.
Dansby, from a total professional games standpoint, and Ruiz and Albies are all young for their levels. Based on their performance in the level previous, they earned the opportunity to be promoted. Same thing with Sims. He dominated in AA, earned the opportunity to pitch in AAA, and then… earned the opportunity to go back to AA. I don’t really have a problem with how any of our players have been handled. The argument for Mallex working on his baseball IQ could definitely have merit, and I do think his previous is more based on need than him having earned it. Of course, the argument for Blair needing to learn the mental game at the big league level could work the same way for Mallex, so what do I know?
Maybe we should trade Dansby and Albies for Gattis before it’s too late.
I think Mallex is fine. He was one of those football-first kids so he’s just behind on reps. He’s got the talent to hold his own at the big league level, and there’s no one in AAA he can stand next to and learn first-hand from like Inciarte. Learning on a losing big league team is probably the best possible solution for a guy who’s skills outpace his experience, because as bad as we are, at least the game is full-speed.
On a recent radio broadcast, Don Sutton was suggesting that the Braves should hire someone like Maury Wills to work exclusively with Mallex to improve his baserunning. His convalescent period could actually be really helpful in that regard. Get a personal baserunning coach — remember when they got Otis Nixon to work with Rafael Furcal? — and then spend some serious time in the film room and work on improving his instincts.
@43
I agree. He’s gotten some reps at the ML level, he’s seen that he can’t steal bases at will (he stole 88 bags in 120 games in 2014), and now he can just study and learn. He was only 6 of 11 in SB attempts in the first half of his tenure, but he’s been 8 of 10 since. A lot of that was influenced by simply not over-sliding the bag, but he’s already had a big improvement. He would have been a 2.5+ WAR player this year had he not had this injury. He’s a gamer. It’ll be sad to go from him to Frenchy for a while.
But don’t forget! Hector Olivera arrives August 1st! Don’t blink!
Rob Whalen is dominating AA
@39, it wasn’t so much whole threads as just krussell saying Ozzie and Dansby needed to be up. The thread mostly consisted of people arguing against that.
Rob Whalen does, indeed, look fantastic. While now would not be a good time to evaluate some trades, the KJ/Uribe trade is looking really good with how Whalen and Gant have played.
Why has Jenkins not appeared in a game yet? I thought it was our general MO to get a recent call-up into a game immediately.
I’ll take a BB/9 under 4 any day from this bunch. Rob Whalen for staff ace.
Jon Heyman:
braves will have deal w/No. 3 overall pick Ian Anderson for about $4M. approx $2.5M slot savings helped w/wentz/muller/etc
@47, we might also reflect on the rending of garments that happened here when we traded KJ and Uribe for Gant and Whalen.
Only saving $2.5m on Anderson makes the math a little fuzzier. Thanks to Stu’s spreadsheet, we see the Braves are already $2.44m over slot, without accounting for Anderson or comp 2 pick Cumberland.
So for simplicity, let’s say the savings on Anderson even out exactly the over-slot spending so far. If the 8th, 9th and 10th rounders all sign for a paltry $10k each, the Braves will save $486.4k on these picks. That can be added to $838.9k slot for Cumberland, allowing us to pay him $1.325m. This math would mean we can’t offer any more late rounders over $100k. Any flaw in the estimating here, either by saving more on Anderson or Cumberland, would be what we could theoretically offer over $100k to a late rounder. Any money above $10k given to the 8th, 9th or 10th rounder would have to come from Cumberland.
@47, I rended my garments over that trade. Ruined a really cute cocktail dress. That was because I found enjoyment in watching Uribe play baseball, and I also enjoyed the familiarity of having a great guy like KJ having returned to the Braves (who wasn’t doing too bad with the bat, either). I was also still under the delusion that the Braves were going to remain competitive.
When the Braves pulled the trigger on the KJ/Uribe deal, we were five games under and in terminal decline, though we didn’t know it at the time. Only 11 games before that trade, we were at .500 and only 4 games out in a division stocked with lousy competition. 4 games after that, we lost Grilli (who would likely also have returned great value in a trade, as well as he was pitching).
In retrospect, it was absolutely the right thing to do.
Ya know, I’m kind of excited about Cumberland. The guy rakes. He could be in Atlanta, if he develops, by 2018. At the end of the day, the Braves will do what they’re going to do for 2017 based on the money they pump, so that’s that.
I’m also pretty excited about Dustin Peterson. He’s approaching an .800 OPS at 21 years old in AA, so he’ll definitely climb the prospect charts.
But I’m pretty concerned about Albies’ defense. He’s got 14 errors so far this year, so I’m interested to see if the shift to second helps. I really have to wonder if any production he could possibly provide in 2017 could be offset by either players that we already have, or a cheap FA. He’s probably a 1 WAR player, if that, in 2017.
51—My current guess is that Heyman’s info isn’t quite right. A few days ago, Bowman or DOB said something about Anderson being expected to sign for roughly half of his slot value. I took that to mean $3.5ish million. $4 million seems like too much of a stretch to call it in the neighborhood of “half.” Guessing it’s something like $3.75 million, which is kind of close-ish to “half” and could be called “$4 million” in shorthand. Sort of.
I also remain a bit skeptical of that $275K figure reported for 15th-rounder Zach Becherer. That just seems a little high for a guy taken in that round, with that profile.
Braxton Davidson is starting to hit some.
@52 – I am with you. I hated the trade. I am glad that it looks like a win for the Braves. I have a strange affinity for Kelly Johnson. For some reason I really like him as a player.
@54 – $3.75m makes a lot more sense. I don’t know anything about Becherer or really anyone in the lower rounds, but I want to believe the Braves actually like some the late-round guys they drafted and I want them to have dollars left to grab a guy or two down there.
What are we looking at down there anyway? I imagine a lot of prep arms from Northern schools that we want to get before they go to juco and get re-drafted?
@53 – I’m excited to see Cumberland, too. I’d like to see him in High-A but if they really believe he can stay behind the plate, I imagine he’ll start lower and work on skills.
I’m buying on Peterson too. He looked good before the bus-crash and I choose to believe that this is him finally “getting back to normal.” I want to see Albies, Swanson, Ruiz and Peterson in the every day lineup mid-summer next year.
I don’t know much about many of those guys. Of the ones I know enough about to be intrigued by, two (16th-rounder Josh Anthony and 33rd-rounder Handsome Monica) appear set on going to school (Auburn and U-La-La, respectively). Maybe they’ll sign the Shumpert kid; he’s interesting.
Zz
Damn I was hoping to land Handsome Monica. I would’ve called him Ha-Monica. Others would’ve called him “Mouth Harp”, misheard as “Mouth Carp”, shortened to Mo Ca, or “Mocha”.
Failing to sign Handsome Monica would be an even greater tragedy than the day we traded away Pickles Schlosser.
Julio Teheran is currently ranked 14th on Bill James’s World’s #1 Starting Pitcher Rankings, a long-term ranking system of pitchers based on Game Scores. The current top-20 (changes daily):
Kershaw
Arrieta
Scherzer
Bumgarner
Greinke
Price
Lester
Sale
Cueto
Hamels
Kluber
Lackey
Strasburg
Teheran
Quintana
Hernandez
DeGrom
Estrada
Keuchel
Verlander
It’ll take a couple more starts at least (and a bad one by a pitcher or two ahead of him) for him to climb any higher before the all-star break.
I guess Jose Fernandez or Syndergaard aren’t long-term enough to make the cut.
Swanson and Albies are fine. How would you feel if you were blocked by Aybad? They just need to persevere.
Syndergaard is #22, Fernandez #63. One of the features of the rankings is that everyone’s rating declines with inactivity, including during the off-season, so Fernandez’s injury meant his rating declined for 14 solid months. This took him past a threshold of an increased rate of decline:
“2) On days 7 to 200, if a pitcher does not make a start (for seven days or more), we reduce his ranking by one-quarter of a point for each day that he is inactive—in season or off season. During the off-season everybody moves down, but everybody moves down in lock-step, so the rankings don’t change once you get 7 days from the end of the season.
3) If the pitcher remains inactive for more than 200 days, we reduce his score by one point per day beginning with the 201st day. “
@62, but let’s be clear about one thing: Julio Teheran is not a true #1. He’s more of a #2 or #3. What does it mean when there are 30 teams and only 10 or so “true #1’s”? Does that term have meaning?
It’s sort of like saying Freddie Freeman isn’t a true starting first baseman because he’s not one of the top few.
I don’t care what number you give him, he’s one of the best pitchers in baseball, and with his contract, he’s extremely valuable. I think you could win a WS with Teheran as your ace. Look at that list. Only one of the top five has a ring.
@59 was a pocket dialed post and not a commentary by the way…
Handsome Monica
with every reason to suspect his moniker
we insist he tries out
‘tries’ we repeated, to still his willing shout.
Yeah I’ve never felt we would lose a postseason game because Teheran isn’t a top 5 ace. He could easily keep us in it. The doubts are always on the other side…how the hell is ‘this lineup’ going to score against their ace.
That said, I’ll take a couple more Teherans please.
But let’s trade him for Soler (people actually suggested this)
Baez and Contreras
Went to the game yesterday with the idea that this was gonna be this year’s Super Bowl for me (or… something more like a Dixie Cup of water after a march thru the desert).
Anyway, keeping in mind that my interest in this year’s on-the-field endeavors are about 3 things: not setting a record for futility; not getting anyone hurt; & ruining the Mets’ season as much as possible…
1, Winning 5 straight will help push the pace past 42 wins; 2, Sorry, Mallex; and 3, Well-done, fellas – and in front of a capacity crowd doing the wailing-&-gnashing-of-teeth thing. No fan moans quite like a Met fan moans, so it was nice to play the heavy again.
And, yes, another decent showing of Braves fans at Citi Field. My faves were the 3 sassy Atlanta sistas in my section sporting Swarovski-adorned jerseys & caps. And they played it right – no pointing, no big demonstrations trying to poke/prod the locals, just cheering at the right time. (“Juli-oooo!”) At games’ end, they earned some big daps from the other Braves folk in the uppers. Certainly, none of us expected such a sweet rubout weekend & we were all quietly giddy.
The Braves obviously caught this hobbled club at the right time, but I just like knowing that the Metland pity party has begun again — their fans’ collective psyche has been wounded. (It’s always ready to be wounded.) The doubt is starting to happen & that’s always heartwarming to see.
Thanks for the wonderful experience, Julio. I needed that.
LIKE BUTTON PUSHED
Zz,
we now see
not a post from the heart,
but from an entirely other part.
I can’t wait for the fall: poems about SEC football.
I like trucks.
Auburn sucks.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
the Braves suck
They might win 42
Krussell, are you a Bama fan?
No I hate them all Rob. I’m a UGA fan. I guess I never take the easy sports road.
Some damn fine poetry here
Way ahead of you Rob:
http://bravesjournal.us/?p=7389#comment-581677
Actually, rereading that thread, you were like the third person to comment after it. Maybe instead I should link you to this?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5m6Sw26gUQo
I think Mallex is going to be a major league contributor. But whoever said he runs the bases like he’s in little league spoke the truth. You generally don’t allow someone to learn fundamentals at the major league level. (This isn’t even a skill deficit as much as a conceptual deficit, and it ain’t just baserunning where he’s making mistakes that show inexperience.) The only reason we are is bc we have no better options.
And the persons you stand next to and learn from at the minor league level are called “coaches.” There are usually several assigned to each team.
Ken Rosenthal thinks the Braves should hold onto Teheran and trade Vizcaino instead.
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/notes-for-starters-atlanta-should-look-to-deal-its-closer-062016
I think we should trade Vizcaino also
And as we’re confessing sins, I too was sour on the Uribe/Johnson trade, for the reasons already expressed by others above like @47.
I got no problem trading Arodys for a sizeable return that includes a MLB ready bat or a MLB ready catcher. He’s good and going to get even better, but teams desperate for a 8th inning guy will start pressing their noses against the window. Not a fan of “sucky teams don’t need closers,” but also realize that Closers ™ aren’t needed to close. I will take a middling return if that takes Julio off the table in the Johns’ collective hivemind.
The Johnson/Uribe trade was, for me, one of the easiest to tolerate in the entire Coppolella era.
Could the Red Sox use Vizcaino? If so, put Teheran and Vizcaino in the same deal, and maximize your premium prospect return. If there were a way to get both Moncada and Benintendi…
Joey Meneses was Carolina League player of the week.
If only he could string four of those together.
Stu, if you continue to press for trading Julio, you’re likely to be taken off my Christmas card list.
I don’t really want to trade him. But the Red Sox are one of maybe three teams that could actually, realistically come up with a package of players/prospects that would make sense.
My thing with Julio is, he’s an incredible bargain and a very good pitcher — but he hasn’t had TJ, yet, and I fatalistically assume it’s coming for all pitchers. So, if it happens during the next five years, you only have him for like 3 more years (instead of 4.5), and at that point, he’s not quite as much of a bargain over the length of the contract, and you just don’t know exactly what you have with his arm anymore, etc….
Anyway, I like him a lot and am very happy to see he’s rebounded. But if one of these teams deep in young position players decides they really need him, you have to strongly consider it.
I don’t *want* to trade Julio either, but no matter how good the Braves’ young pitchers develop, the team’s overall success going forward is going to be severely limited if they can’t also find a way to vastly increase their position player quality. Ideally, they would find a way to acquire some big bats to play corner OF and 3B. If we internally develop some middle of the order bats (possibly Ruiz, Peterson, Riley) that’d be great but it doesn’t look like any of those guys are likely to be that level of player.
I would be open to trading Viz and Teheran to make that happen. It’d be a lot easier to stomach that trade if the Braves’ young arms keep pitching well over the next month.
As an addendum – Julio is a very good pitcher, but he’s been the beneficiary of a crazy low BABIP this season. If and when it normalizes, his ERA will look a lot less shiny. His trade value is high – maybe at its peak – right now. If there ever were a time to trade JT, this is it.
The bottom line is you can’t get better in the offense without trading useful and good players from the defense/pitching. If they can find a way to build a competitive team around Julio as the second “old man” with Freddie, fine. Julio is my favorite Brave. But I don’t know that the timeline really supports that.
Maybe this is just a “grass is greener on the other side” thing, but I feel like if the Braves had just done the simple thing and drafted Kyle Lewis at #3, we would now be talking about a much simpler rebuild path going forward – in particular, no need to consider trading Julio for a Kyle Lewis-type bat.
@94, But you just made the argument @92 for why we should trade Teheran for a Kyle Lewis-type bat. Even better, wouldn’t you rather have Benintendi than Lewis?
That’s more like it. So, the Braves have $100K more to play with than we thought.
Stu, Steve Adams at MLBTR has Cumberland’s deal at 1.5m.
I, for one, regardless of the haul will not be excited about “Matt Wisler, #1 Starter”. That’s up there with “Derek Lower, #1 Starter”.
EDIT: I didn’t mean to put “Derek LoweR”, but it so fits.
@94 I’d say I was making the case for improvement at LF/RF/3B being an essential element of the rebuild, and a higher priority than holding onto Julio. I don’t know enough to say who the Braves should target to fill LF/RF/3B; Benintendi looks like a promising player but sounds like more of a #2 hole, Swanson-esque bat (high average, good OBP, moderate power) than someone who could plausibly pop 20-30 HRs.
There is no absolute rule stating that a team must have multiple big boppers in their lineup – the Giants and Royals have succeeded in recent years with a lot of good defensive players who make quality contact and avoid Ks – but it sure would be nice to have someone aside from Freddie who can put the ball over the fence (or at least up against it) with regularity.
@98 Before his elbow started barking, Folty was looking like a top of the rotation candidate…
I’ve been seeing/hearing lots of “sure we’ll take Teheran, but we won’t give you any of the prospects we think will be good in the future.”
How is it that a player who has a chance of being good and cheap for some 5 year window in the future is off limits in trade for a player who is already good and already signed for cheap for the next 5 years?
@100
Because prospects are severely overvalued, in a general sense. (Obviously, it would be impossible for us to overvalue prospects, since that’s all we have right now.) I think if you took a poll of GMs around the majors and you gave them the choice of a projected No. 2 starter currently in AA and five years of Julio Teheran, more than half would take the prospect. That’s insane to me, but I think that’s what we’re dealing with.
I think at a certain point we need to stop selling young very good cost-controlled players multiple years before free agency. Our starting rotation is teetering on the edge of disaster, and if Bud Norris turns back into Bud Norris, it will be a disaster. Julio is worth more to us than he is worth to another team.
Julio is worth more to us than he is worth to another team.
Definitely don’t agree with this. I mean, for starters, there’s the win curve, on which we are…not at the top.
I’m sympathetic to the argument that we shouldn’t be looking to trade the only obviously-above-average starting pitching we have, but no one on a team this bad should be off-limits.
I don’t want to trade Julio, but if you’re able to get a good bat or two, I just think you have to. I’d rather count on one of Fried, Allard, and Soroka to turn into Teheran than count on Braxton Davidson to turn into Andrew Benintendi.
97—Thanks! We were right!
@102
I agree. However, if say the Pirates want to toss us Glasnow, Meadows and Elias Diaz, I’d listen
@105, I just can’t believe that there’s any chance in the world the Pirates would trade us Glasnow for Teheran. Hey, if that were on the table, I’d take it too. I just don’t think that the Braves are remotely likely to get a return that makes a Teheran trade worthwhile.
@103, agreed that no one should be off-limits. But just as we’re much lower than other teams on the win curve, Julio is a #1 to us but just a #2 to other teams. So we’re not going to get a Shelby Miller return for him — that was essentially an A- prospect, a B+ prospect, and a solid everyday regular for a pitcher who is more or less exactly equivalent to Julio. In actuality, I would be surprised if we got more than the Andrelton Simmons haul in return for Julio, especially considering how pitching-rich the league is widely perceived to be, and how everyone in baseball is expecting some regression from him based on his fundamentals.
I say that he is worth more to us than he is to other teams because, over the rest of the year, they may see him as a 2-win player; for us, he’s about the only thing holding us back from the abyss. Developing quality major league starters awfully hard. We developed Julio and now we need four more. If we get rid of him, we’ll need five more, EVEN if he is not a member of the next winning Braves team. Given the rate of pitcher attrition, that fifth quality starter will probably require at least three high-quality prospects in Triple-A. We have a lot of high-quality prospects, including the teenagers we just signed a couple of days ago, but a lot of them are in A-ball.
As I see it, getting rid of him pushes the timeline for the next competitive Braves team out by at least a year, whereas a team acquiring him is merely getting a couple of wins. That’s why I think the absolute value for us of keeping him is higher than the absolute value for someone else acquiring him.
@106, it seems like we’re already in the abyss, and I don’t quite see all the value that Teheran to us has given where this team is, but I do agree that we are unlikely to get equal value for Teheran, which is why I would be reluctant to deal him.
Unless we get a major haul for him that includes bat(s), I wouldn’t bother. We can just as well trade him next year or the year after. That’s one thing about trading established players. The receiving team seems to value them about the same regardless of how long they’ll keep them. In other words, a season of Teheran seems to fetch the same as 5 seasons on the trade market.
By the way, Benintendi’s pre-draft comp that I saw was Nick Markakis, but he’s off limits anyway…
106—Well, I don’t think anyone would be in favor of dealing him for something comparable to the return for Simmons — and I also think the market for him will bear significantly better than that.
And while I think it’s possible that trading Teheran would push the competitive timeline back by a year, I also think it’s possible that it wouldn’t, if you’re getting an ML-ready hitter or two in return. I’m not talking about taking A-ball lottery tickets in exchange for him.
@108
If someone blows our doors off (see Glasnow, Meadows and Elias Diaz) then we should move him. I feel the same way about Freeman.
AAR @ 106,
Even if a team sees Julio as a 2 win pitcher, then he is still very valuable because of the contract. JT gets paid 3.5 this year and averages 9 over the next 3. Then, team option for 12 million.
So, surplus value at 7 mill per win is 5.5 this year, 15 over the next 3, and IF he is at least that good, 2 mill on the option. So, 23 mill. That is a massive amount comparing to prospects.
Trading for Julio for a team with no other “holes” in the rotation that had a good pitcher on an expensive contract go down might not make sense. Or at least, they would possibly flip him again. But if you don’t see at least 4 slots covered for the next 3 years and you feel you are contending, he is very useful.
I see receiving Julio as “two trades” each of which has value. 1. this year at 1.5 mill to cover a hole in a contending team’s rotation. 2. 3 years at average of 9 per year with an option on top for a pitcher in the lower half of the top 30. Part 2 is better than Shelby. And, part 1 is worth a player also.
Comparing JT to Shelby is not so accurate. Shelby had not had as many good years as Julio and “bad Julio” has been a 4 / 5.
But, there is a good case that Julio is a 3 to 4 win pitcher. And out of everybody looking for pitching, probably at least one team agrees.
So, I agree that if it is not a haul, you don’t make the deal. But I think there are strong odds on a haul.
AJC has their “if we trade Julio” up and 90% are proven though mediocre Major Leaguers. Either an elite and a near elite prospect (elite near the majors) or a 3 year cost controlled Major League bat at a position we have a hole (catcher, left field, 3B) or forget it. Then, look at the pitching next year
109—Alex is right that Glasnow’s not happening. No one’s trading a premium, ML-ready pitching prospect for him. But teams that don’t have such pitching prospects and need pitching might well trade a hitter or two to acquire it.
Back to the point about timelines: If all the Braves had gotten for Miller was Inciarte, it wouldn’t have moved the competitive timeline back at all. If the Braves swap a 3- or 4-win pitcher with 4+ years of remaining control for a 3- or 4-win hitter with 4+ years of remaining control, the timeline doesn’t move. If they get more than that, the timeline does the opposite of go backwards.
Great, bonerface.
Cliff @110, Shelby and Julio are pretty good comps for one another because they came through the minors at roughly the same time, occupied similar places on the BA prospect rankings, debuted around the same time, had setbacks around the same time, and similarly had very good seasons as young pitchers but have otherwise had up-and-down careers. Shelby’s 2013 and 2015 are very similar to Julio’s 2013 and 2014. So it makes sense to think about their hauls comparably.
If we traded Julio and all we got back was Inciarte, I’d scream. If we got someone awesome, I’d be all ears. But awesome bats are awfully hard to come by these days. Like, we’re not getting Mookie Betts for Teheran. We tried hard to get A.J. Pollock when we traded Shelby, and that was with the team that ultimately gave us the most lopsided trade deal since Pierzynski for Francisco Liriano and Joe Nathan. I doubt that we’re getting an ML-ready bat of that quality for Teheran.
But, hell, I wouldn’t mind being wrong.
@112, at least they actually got him this time!
@113 Shelby and Julio may have started off at similar places but their paths have diverged significantly – Shelby came up as a power pitcher and had an excellent season (2013) but since that time his K rates have generally dropped as BB rate rose; as good as Shelby was for the Braves last year, he only managed a 2.34 K/BB in 2015 (2.19 K/BB career) which is not at all impressive.
By contrast, Julio is far better as generating strikeouts and avoiding free passes – 3.83 K/BB this year, 3.14 K/BB career. Julio’s only real bugaboo is flyballs, which can lead to HRs. That said, those flyballs also lead to a low BABIP and Julio’s been a 3-ish ERA guy for his entire MLB career, with the exception of the first 15 or 20 starts of 2015.
In summary, Julio is objectively a better pitcher / more valuable asset now than Shelby Miller was this offseason. Throw in the fact that he’s got more team control at a cheaper rate than Shelby, and I don’t think you can really call them comparables.
Right. Teheran and Miller are under entirely different contracts. And I don’t think when people are using the term “ML-ready bats” they mean a player like A.J. Pollock, who was already more or less an established star — and not to mention, someone the DBacks were depending on. I, at least, mean someone like Austin Meadows or Benintendi, who fit better into the window we’re trying to create and is also blocked.
Cole Hamels is (was?) a couple wins better than Teheran, but also seven years older and paid at market rate unlike Teheran. Look at the haul the Phillies got for him and Diekman (their Vizcaino). We’re fortunate in that we can afford to wait until some team coughs up something similar.
Right. The comparison that I have in my mind is the deadline deal the Cubs made a couple of years ago to trade Samardzija for Addison Russell, who was a clear blue-chip prospect. (Really, it was Samardzija and Jason Hammel for Russell, Billy McKinney, and Dan Straily.)
I guess what it comes down to is that I emotionally don’t want to trade Teheran for a guy like Russell — or even a guy like Russell and another good prospect. (I don’t mean literally a guy like Russell: shortstop appears to be the one position we have covered.) And while, in a vacuum, selling high on Teheran is likely to yield talent into the organization that will be higher than the talent out, I have a serious concern that continuing to beggar our major league team is going to yield higher-than-expected costs: we can’t predict just how high the attrition rate will be for the prospects in our system. The only thing we know for certain is that we have very few good players other than Julio. As a fan, I can’t bear to think of how bad the team will be without him. As an analyst, I know that the Law of Unintended Consequences is in full effect.
Behind a veil of ignorance, I think it would be a bad idea to trade him. If we get blown away, I could change my mind. But getting blown away is rare these days.
The competitive window doesn’t shift if you trade Teheran or Freeman. It’s all about the early 2020s. What trading them does do, however, is clue the fan base in as far as that timeline goes.
Congrats to Coppy et al for finally successfully calling up Bonifacio. 8-10 weeks? Get well soon Mallex.
Stu,
Callis: “And here’s a couple of @Braves senior signs: 8th-rder Taylor Hyssong for $10k, 10th-rder Marcus Mooney for $5k. @MLBDraft”
Bonifacio was given uniform # 64, just in case he was getting any ideas.
For the first comment about the game, I will note that Jace Peterson hit his first home run of the year and the seventh of his career.
The Braves have successfully procured a tie ball game.
Ya know, I kinda like Snitker’s use of the pen. He plays the match-ups well.
Wow, Jace is a freaking gamer all of a sudden.
It’s annoying to watch Ichiro get an infield hit, but I gotta admire a 42-year old man who can leg it out like that.
Aybad played it ok too. He earned it.
dang marlins are going to cost us the first pick!
Braves went 2 GB to +3 over the Twins in record time.
Can’t even tank properly for that #1 pick.
Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.
That’s one of them there six-game win streaks.
NICE! This was a great win. 6 in a row.
Good for Jace. I’m glad he’s putting it together.
*gasp* The Braves are on pace to win 56 games!
Play of the Game.
AJP giving Vizzy the full treatment after none out two on in the bottom of the ninth- the walk looked awful(some don’t).
Whatever he said, transformation.
@128
What’s so important about this number one overall pick? Is there something particularly exciting about the fifth best high school arm in next year’s draft or something?
@133
I couldn’t care less about another top-5 pick. The transcendent talent simply doesn’t come consistently from the top-5 picks (and even the top 1 or 2) to lose another 15 games. I’d rather see the development of 8-10 players causing the team to win an additional 15 games vs. the alternative.
Seriously, take a look at what it took to get a win tonight. Bud Norris, a guy who has trade value, had to pitch reasonably well. If he does that every other start, you can get a prospect who’s just as likely to be as good as a top-5 pick at the trading deadline. Ogandi, Alvarez, Withrow, Chevanka, and Vizcaino all had to pitch well. If you had 15 more games like that, you would have some serious trade value with one or few of those guys. That’s worth more than a top-5 pick. Jace has a big game. 10-15 of those and THAT has trade value worth the value of a top-5 pick. And that’s just today. If you won an additional 15 games in 2016, then you would have so many more players playing well that it would be crazy to play for a pick.
Like I said, first place, August 15.
Our front office doesn’t really care about the first overall pick itself as much as they care about the slot money that comes with it. Unless there’s a Harper sitting there at 1-1, I’m pretty sure that we don’t go for the “best player available” but more the most first day talent we can grab with the money we have. I’m not really sure if this is an argument for or against the importance of getting that 1-1 pick.
Recapped.