It may be a little too early about this, but Ken Rosenthal at least lit the pilot light on the trade speculation when he said that the Giants may be ready to deal some arms:
And yes, he does acknowledge that Bumgarner and Smith might be dealt closer to the deadline. If that’s the case, then this proposal doesn’t make sense. Were the Braves to trade for Bumgarner now, they would be getting about 25 starts from him vs. maybe 12 starts if he were acquired at the end of July. Same with Smith. Accordingly, 25 starts of Madison Bumgarner, logically speaking, should cost a lot more than what he would cost at the deadline. You’d be getting him for almost a full season.
Both pitchers are going into their walk years. Bumgarner is at a modest $12M salary for 2019, and Smith is making $4.25M in his last year of control. So both pitchers would simply be rentals. That’s another thing to be taken into consideration.
Regardless, with many bullpens in disrepair, and Bumgarner easily predicted to be one of — if not the — best starting pitcher available at the deadline, teams will be lining up to acquire both in a package deal, especially considering the amount owed.
What Gets a Deal Done?
It’d be extremely difficult to part with any of our elite pitching prospects for a rental, even two. So while Mike Soroka, Touki Toussaint, Kyle Wright, and Ian Anderson would undoubtedly be a coveted headliner for any deal, I’m assuming that AA is simply not willing to deal any of those. I’d also speculate that Cristian Pache is off-limits as well.
Austin Riley
This would be obviously the hardest but conceivable talent to part with. But other teams will be willing to deal someone with Riley’s value to land these two pitchers, so I don’t think you’re getting a deal done not including Austin Riley
Bryse Wilson
Of all the non-elite pitching prospects, Wilson is the most traceable. Until something changes, Kolby Allard is worth more to us than another team just to simply see what’s gong on with him. Same with Luiz Gohara. Joey Wentz and Kyle Muller aren’t yet at a point where there value can really take off, though that could change by the summer. Wilson simply makes the most sense as a player another team would like but we’d be willing to part with.
Freddy Tarnok
I like deals where, if you’re giving out grades for players, you’re essentially trading an A, B, C, and D player. Tarnok has just enough potential but still unproven to be the C player in this deal. I’d be happy to deal him off as the third-best player in a deal for these guys.
Jacob Webb
Since the Giants would be looking to add pitchers immediately to their pen, Webb makes sense as someone they could plug in there and see if he has anything. And for a contending team, we just have too many pitchers we’re trying to see whether they can work for us. Let them go do that for a team not looking to contend. And if Webb becomes a strong reliever, then good for the Giants.
I agree that Wilson should be up to help the bullpen. However, otherwise, we only have 4 SPs on the roster, and Touki was just optioned. So unless they call Newk back up or DL someone so they can grab Touki back, who joins the rotation?
Also, I am stupid because Mike Foltynewicz is a starting pitcher for the Atlanta Braves.
Don’t give up on Josh Donaldson just yet.
Off day tomorrow.
Speaking of Folty he threw 90 pitches today and into the 6th inning. He gave up 6 runs in the first 2 innings (yuck) but settled down and didn’t give anything else up after that.
The AAA baseball is now the same as the major league ball. This is a long overdue change. It eliminates the “Wisler has a 2.38 ERA at Gwinnett, why does he keep teasing us?”. No, now it’s apples to apples. AAA HR’s are through the roof. This allows scouts and player development personnel to do their jobs.
Fried is getting squeezed.
Home plate umpire missed 2 calls already that hurt the Braves. “Strike 3” to Dansby was 6 inches off the plate.
This umpire sucks.
Wisler was ruined by us. Fried better be thanking his blisters because they would’ve probably rushed him too if he had been healthy.
He had both Santana and CarGo struck out looking.
This umpire has called four very clear strikes as balls against Fried. He absolutely sucks and the Braves are getting robbed by this clown. He missed the call to Swanson too as noted @8. Fried got out of the inning but threw about another innings worth of pitches more than he should have
I would have liked to have Snitker come out of the dugout on that last one. That was something I always liked about Bobby.
Hard to be much worse than this.
And yet the ump just gave a high strike on that first pitch to Joyce. Be consistent in your suckage please.
I hope the umpire didn’t decide to be petty after Dansby argued.
LOL keep saying we should bench Donaldson by June 1 Roger.
I love you, krussell.
You guys made Donaldson angry.
Roger said that?! C’mon Roger.
How many injuries do the Yankees need to get to before we actually start feeling sorry for them? I say 90.
Freezing cold take by Roger (sorry Roger lol)
Guys, I don’t think this Donaldson signing is going to work out.
@22 Please don’t do this on my comments. 🙂
I mean, definitely do it on Chief Nocahoma’s though. We’re going to have a 5-man rotation by the end of the year of pitchers he has specifically written off.
Fried is the real deal. Great composure after that first inning. Abandoned the high (strike!) fastball and adjusted really well. Very impressive.
Braves, please…
Adam, how did you get your GIF to work the other day? What am I doing wrong?
Josh Donaldson how has a 139 wRC+.
Fried is pitching a really good game and is still not getting the high strike. He would be utterly dominant if he was. If he stays healthy I think he has at least as much potential to be a TOR as anyone else we have who has reached the majors.
They had a LHP SP velocity leaderboard earlier in the broadcast. There may have actually been another Brave, but I know Fried was on there. I think he was 3rd around 93/94. That’s why I’m so high on Gohara. A lefty who can sit 94/95 (I was wrong, to braves14’s point, that he could sit higher) is extremely valuable.
Probably also why they don’t want to give up on Newk. Could you imagine having 3 LHP in the rotation all in the top 6-7 in velocity all with the potential to become Chris Sale? That’s clearly where they’ve been trying to get with this rebuild, and they’re not far.
That’s a terrible scoring decision. Should be an error on Acuna. He had it completely in his glove and let it slip out. And Fried responds beautifully anyway.
Donaldson, Kakes, and McCann have all been looking quite good. So AA’s moves are all looking very defensible. The only real problem is the moves he neglected to make. This team seems to be in a lot of blowouts, and with this offense I’m fine with that. But I don’t trust this gasoline house gang in anything resembling a close game.
After that 1st inning umpshow, Fried has not walked anyone. Incredible.
Say what you want, Folty, Gausman, and Fried, whatever “number” starter you want to say they are, they belong in a contender’s rotation. They just need to figure something out with Touki, Wilson, Soroka, Teheran, and Newcomb plus anyone from the outside.
Let’s guess how many runs Biddle will give up.
Solid Grybo from Biddle
Biddle should get charged with the 2nd run for his stupid walk (yet again)
@33 I agree. That’s a great position to be in. Soroka is the real deal. He’ll make it four. That will leave about 30 starts that will be need to be made among Gohara, Newcomb, Touki, Wright, and Wilson. That’s fine. I trust two of those will produce.
Looks like we are finally getting some benefit from the Upton to Padres trade.
Fried
J. Peterson (bust)
D. Peterson (bust)
Mallex (flipped for Gohara who the jury is still out on)
High-upside pitching prospects you get in a trade are lottery tickets. That’s a pretty good hit rate.
@38 I don’t believe the Petersons are true busts. It’s true they are neither stars nor even real regulars (at least, yet, for David). Both have made the majors and Jace is having a solid career as a 25th/26th player – especially filling in on rebuilding teams.
Mallex, on the other hand, is a regular and is starring so the “flip” may yet be worse than the first trade.
All four were legitimate prospects and Fried was a #1 for the Pads at the time.
Just the fact that all 4 have reached the big leagues is pretty impressive. Plus, you got a Hall of Famer on that list.
Recapped.
My guess is that Wright will do a passable job this year.
To all those mocking me for Donaldson’s breakout tonight, I hope Josh was reading this blog and did get mad at me. That’s cool. I really would love to see him succeed with aplomb. Unfortunately, I missed the game as I had something resembling a real life tonight….. I did look at the pitch chart for the two HRs and, on the first, he hit a breaking ball low inside-middle and on the second HR a FB up and in the middle of the plate. He did nothing to prove he can cover the outer part of the plate or handle breaking pitches on the outer half. Of course, he had another K, too (on three outer half strikes). According to FG (before today’s game), Donaldson has the second highest K rate of all the regulars including both catchers. He walks a lot, has a great OBP for the 2-hole, and occasionally hits a ball hard, but he has a hole in his swing and is susceptible to being pitched well. He does not look like the Donaldson of Blue Jays fame. I hope I am wrong or, if not, that he can correct the hole in his swing. Are we going to get $23M of value out of him? The jury is still out. I would think his best AB was the single where he hit a low outside changeup.
With regards to Camargo, I realize he has not hit his stride yet, but I expect his numbers to be better within a month and the calculus will be different.
We are obviously still waiting for Freddie to hit a few HRs, too. He’s hitting fine, kinda like a souped up Markakis with tons of walks, singles, and doubles. That’s not exactly what we are expecting, though.
Oddly, I am not wavering on my love for Max Fried. He remains our best pitcher and most likely to be our true ace by the end of the year. The contrast between him and Julio when Julio gave up four after getting a 4-run lead is just immense. After he got an early 5-run lead, he threw shutout ball through 6 and only really gave up a solo shot in the 7th (leaving a man on first not even in scoring position). By the end of June, we will be in Cy Young talk and Fried will be looking a lot like Blake Snell from last year.
With regards to the two first inning walks, they were examples, again, of Braves pitchers getting to two strikes and not being able to put batters away. I still think that has to do with pitch calling and catcher targets – especially considering what Fried was able to do the rest of the game.
With regards to the article, a MadBum/Will Smith trade would be fantastic and would be worth a lot. Just having them available to try for an extension seems more realistic than trying to pick them up via free agency. I would only prefer a Greinke/Bradley trade because they are more controllable. It’s certainly worth treating a Giants trade as if we had a better than 50/50 chance of extending either or both of them, considering today’s FA climate. In theory, we might still be able to afford Kimbrel too.