Folty came back and gave up a three-run homer to Justin Bour before a really long rain delay and also before I tuned in, so I don’t know how he looked. But the rain dropped some Miracle Gro on the lumber, and the Braves scored four in the 6th, one in the seventh, and one in the eighth, and no, I don’t understand it either.
Chase d’Arnaud played center field and went 2-for-5 with two RBI. He’s batting .276/.349/.366, has played every position but pitcher, catcher, and first base, and is basically our new Omar Infante. I don’t know if he can keep this up — especially considering that he’s a 29-year-old who had a total of 175 major league plate appearances before this year — but he’s been astonishingly valuable for us this season. So has Tyler Flowers, who batted seventh and hit three doubles.
Tyrell Jenkins pitched 2 1/3, but I didn’t see him either. How’d he look? Arodys was a little shaky, and so was Jim Johnson. But Mauricio Cabrera came in to shut the door, and I gotta tell you, a 102-mile-an-hour fastball is scary when the pitcher knows when it’s going. It’s terrifying when he doesn’t.
Beating the Marlins feels right and good. Let’s do it again.
MiLB moves ahead tonight…
Sonoma Stompers
both outfield corners will be decked in rompers
traditionalists, alas!
while Veeck as in Wreck would never let the moment pass.
@krussel from the last thread: I’m saying the Braves could trade the slots to teams that DON’T want to go over the limit, the position the Braves were in last year, but then go ahead and spend whatever you were going to spend anyway.
If you’re allowed to spend $3m but you plan to spend $10m, you’ll be banned for two signing periods and pay a tax on the $7m overage.
Why not trade $2m worth of slots, to get some lower ceiling/higher floor types, and still spend $10m in the intl market. You’re already going to be banned from two signing periods. Now you’re paying tax on $9m instead of $7m, but you grabbed a few High-A and Double-A players for your money.
@2, I agree with that plan with one caveat. If we’re spending $11 mil to buy Touki and $3 mil to buy a draft pick to overslot Cumberland, it makes sense to grab some C+ guys for our bonus pools. The only caveat is that we would, in effect, be creating competition for ourselves in the int’l market by increasing the budgets of other buyers. And if that causes us to lose even one of the guys we’re keying on, it’s probably not worth it.
@3 – very good point. I believe the slots can be sold DURING the signing period, so you could hedge your bets by waiting until after you’ve signed your favorites, but yes, you are giving teams that would otherwise be out of the market a chance to get in to it.
Who are our candidates for Saturday\Sunday starts on the mound? I thought Tyrell might get his first shot at a rotation spot, but after his stint last night, he’s probably out….?
Twitter
#Braves release Danville RHP Sean Ratcliffe, the sole player received from #BlueJays for Jason Grilli. Canadian now free to re-sign with TOR
Well that makes sense
Some fun stats:
2016 Braves vs Marlins: 7-2 (.777), season pace: 15-4
2016 Braves vs everyone else: 20-50 (.286), season pace: 41-102
TRIVIA: Two players on our team with more than 100 AB have an OPS+ over 100. One is obviously Freddie Freeman. Who is the other?
In the same vein, exactly two pitchers who have started a single game for the 2016 Braves have an ERA+ over 100. One is obviously Julio Teheran. Who is the other?
Bills?
Maybe that’s just the Braves’ way of recognizing Canada Day.
My first guess was Folty. Second guess was Bud Norris.
8—I’d guess Jace Peterson or maybe Tyler Flowers.
Beckham’s gotta be in there somewhere. Then either Jace or Flowers.
@2, that makes sense. I guess it will depend on whether we really want to go high-volume here, or if only a few top guys matter.
Dwight Howard to the Hawks… geez, are all my teams trying to make me hate them?
It’s Jace. Beckham would qualify with a few more AB.
Hawks should have signed Dwight 3 years ago–rather, he should’ve signed with them. Nice of him to let us watch his precipitous decline though. Should solidify 45 win status for the Hawks for the next 3 years
Shoulda traded Teheran when we had the chance.
The purpose of replay is to find out if there is any conceivable way to uphold the umpire’s call. Only when it would be ludicrous to do so will the officials reluctantly overturn the call.
I don’t really get the Howard fit, but that’s a shockingly-reasonable contract in this insane market. Very curious to see what the next move(s) is/are.
Aybar!
That was something
Jo Jo Reyes
DFA’d, our thoughts betray us
mixed as much they were
endurance, we should be happy to defer.
It appears the Braves picked the right time to unload Chacin, BTW. I know there was some angst (including from me) over their not hanging onto him even longer to let him build more value, but it looks like they judged correctly on that one.
Christian Yelich is such a good player but he can’t hit quite enough homers so his bat doesn’t play in the corners and he’s a terrible player, good thing we don’t have him.
So if you were one of those scouts behind home plate tonight to report on Julio what kind of written report would you send back?
.869 OPS will play at any position. Would gladly take him
@25
I’m not going to live that one down, am I?
We could have pitched Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz, and we may not have beat the Indians.
Is there a specific time/draft for tomorrow’s international signings or can teams just start signing based on agreements?
Getting Howard, keeping Horford and Bazemore while trading Millsap, Splitter and other pieces may possibly be a workable plan.
@30 starting on July 2. Oh sorry, misunderstood your question. Never mind.
Flowers got all of that, geez
Flowers Power!!!
Flowers is a pretty damned good catcher, IMO.
The Braves are not good, but I do like how this cast of characters has been playing.
I feel the exact same way. We are most definitely not good, but I’d rather lose with this bunch than a lot of other ones we’ve had.
I do like to see the ball leave the yard every now and again. I think we might be no longer on pace to be the least powerful team in history… which is nice.
Aybar has a .310/.402/.406 line since returning from the minors. Ya know, if they try real hard, they might be able to turn him into a Single-A reliever that will be released after three weeks.
@38, haha, but in all seriousness yes exactly that
And yes, flowers is actually a functional major league catcher, and we should keep him around as long as he wants to play for reasonable salaries
The Bud Norris Era is off to a good start in LA: 4 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 7 K.
Maybe that’ll turn out to be some Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz type deal.
Aybar, bases loaded, two outs.
He squared up on that ball, ya gotta give him that. But you also gotta give him the third out.
I think the best thing Bud Norris can do is continue to pitch well for the rest of the year, then sign a multi-year deal that the Braves would be crazy to give. He could end the year with a sub-3 ERA and the Braves wouldn’t bring him back. And if they were to, trading him has no bearing on that.
Chip had my hopes up a little bit there. Not quite “Line drive base hit! Caught out there!”, but close!
Dwight Howard is poison to any team he’s on, and playing the chronic crybaby is going to be his legacy. If Coach Bud can get thru to him that this is a team game (about winning), he’ll be the first one to do it.
And talk about a guy with all the physical gifts, but almost none of the drive to make himself better…
Howard always struck me as the classic pampered athlete who had his ass kissed all his life, but never actually learned how to play the game.
Ooh please let Dorn score the winning run
Jeez, boni!
The Hawks are in purgatory. The Falcons have no hope because nobody will admit they need a QB. The Braves are far far away, but they are in the best position of them all. Sad state of affairs, but such is our lot.
Perfectly fitting
What the guy misses a curve pitch down and away and barely ticks it then we throw a fast ball down the middle on the next pitch give me a break stupid
Look, you don’t lose 100 games without a dozen of these
It seems the Braves have given up on Ryan Weber. Boog speculated that Lucas Herrell could make a start this weekend. Herrell is another old, non-prospect.
Wasn’t there some oddball prospect ranking that had weber as our #4 prospect last offseason?
Happy Kevin Maitan Day, everybody.
The Boston Red Sox
are not allowed to sign any International jocks
their hand was in the cookie jar
John Henry says it’s still a step too far.
Mike Soroca
while he was on the JC team in Boca
dated a Blue Rinse Widow
who insisted nothing but hot fastballs, kiddo.
@52
Wonder what time it all goes down? It’s like National
singing day!
Last night Bowman said the period opens at 6am.
A cat on Twitter named Antonio Puesan, who works for ESPN Deportes is the only guy I’ve found posting updates yet. He had the Maitan deal done at $4.1m. He also had us signing Yenci Pena for $1m.
According to @antoniopuesan, #Braves have signed:
Yunior Severino, SS: 1.5-1.8MM
Yenci Pena, SS: 1MM
Kevin Maitain, SS: 4.1MM
#July2Update RHP Yefri Del Rosario sign with @Braves between $800/1M showed decent command and a fastball in the 90-93 mph range
#July2Update RHP Juan Contreras sign with @Braves for a $1,000,000
Would be good to see us signing more power hitting prospects.
I believe all three SS we have signed are big power guys
@58, Does this mean they don’t like Aybar?
LMAO
@59 Watch the Maitan videos. There aren’t any(many) 16 year olds on Earth that swing like that.
Maitan’s early comps are Miguel Cabrera and Chipper Jones. That should work.
Also, Pena is 6’2 185 and he’s 15. He needs to stop growing.
Okay it’s 9am, not 6am. And now Jesse Sanchez from MLB.com has verified Maitan’s signing, though for $4.25m. I think we can breathe.
@63
After watching all the Maitan videos, I do see a lot of Chipper Jones, which would be straight awesome and amazing.
If that kid is really 16, he’s going to be a megastar. You can just see it in their body language/how they carry themselves, IMO.
The As of all people got the Lazarito kid.
Source: #Braves agree to a $3.5M deal with Abrahan Gutierrez, #18 on @MLB Top 30 Int’l Prospects list atmlb.com/298HBdp @MLBPipeline
Source: #Braves agree to a $1M deal with Livan Soto, #24 on @MLB Top 30 Int’l Prospects list atmlb.com/298HBdp @MLBPipeline
I remember the first time I saw a picture of Kevin Maitan it was just a still photograph thumbnail. Kid looked like a damned baseball player. Gave me the vapors.
Bud Norris was good last night
6IP 2H 0R 1BB 8K
Compiling different sources, who don’t all have the same info, we have 7 of BA’s top 50. BA though doesn’t rank any of the Cuban players on that list.
(Sanchez says we have Yenci Pena and Puesan says we have Yefri Del Rosario, but BA has neither confirmed.)
I’m going to add to the position player prospect optimism by stating that Dansby is hitting .425/.465/.600 in his last 10 games.
@72.
The greats adjust. I suspect he got humbled a bit, and went to work, by god. Baseball’s a game of managing failure and how well you do determines how good you can be.
When can we get Maitan to Danville?
Yeah, where do all of these shortstops go? They can’t all play in the GCL, can they?
First day since the Dansby trade that it feels great to be a Braves fan.
Today is officially the Kevin Maitan day.
@75 Anywhere, beauty of shortstops
Recapped.