Note from the Editor: Hello, Braves Journalers. This is your old pal Ryan. I want you to know that Jonathan is back in good standings after he promised to send me a bottle of his finest spirits for the holidays. He will continue to be allowed to frequent this establishment…for now. And….the moment you’ve all been waiting for… Tromp.
Ryan is getting mad at me for not producing the player recap pages I promised I’d produce. This is difficult for me because Yale plays Harvard for the Ivy League football championship on Saturday and I’m not exactly sure why the sports world is focusing on anything else. [Note: Ryan has for some reason held on to this vital topic. Yale beat Harvard 23-18. I will write more player recaps when I’m sobered up somtime after Thanksgiving.] So, OK. Chadwick Tromp.
There are four things you need to know about Chadwick Tromp if you don’t already. First, he is one of the better Aruban players ever to play the game. I say “one of the better” because he is clearly behind Sifdney Ponson and Xander Bogaerts, and there are Aruban cab drivers who claim that Andruw Jones is “really” Aruban. He is at least the equal of the others.
Second, Chadwick Tromp is a flat-out awesome name. Even better, his middle name is Chandler. I did a lookup for all players whose first and middle names have the same three letters. Chadwick Chandler Tromp is the 29th player in MLB history to achieve this feat.
Third, there were 102 guys who played catcher last year in MLB, or a little over 3 per team. Tromp’s -0.2 WAR ranked 77th, ahead of a number of front line catchers (MJ Melendez, Yasmani Grandal, Christian Vazquez) but, ummm… it was 6 total games. So it was about as good a performance as you get from a third catcher.
Fourth, Chadwick had a single and a double in 16 at bats. The Braves lost both the games in which he had a hit.
OK. I probably exaggerated a little when I said there were four things you “need to know.” But for a guy who’s going to catch 6 games a year, Chadwick Tromp is probably as good as any of them. He’s also as bad as any of them.
We had two other guys play catcher this year. I’ll review their years some time after the Bulldog victory on Saturday.
Some people say Tromp did a decent job, but I consider him to be too divisive overall
Yes, I’ll agree that Bulldogs in their league-title games might overwhelm any notion of Chadwick Tromp this week.
I’ll also agree that he’s got a great handle… sounds like a name for a British MP.
Go Dogs.
Signing Gray would have meant the loss of draft picks and international pool money, but how much pool money would it have been?
According to this we have almost six million to play with:
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2024-international-signing-bonus-pools-for-each-mlb-team/
It looks like we’re the favorites to land a top three player in the 2024 international class. Personally, the loss of draft picks would have been worth it for Gray but I’m not sure if it also prevented a big international signing.
To sign Gray (or any other QO player), it would’ve cost the Braves and 2nd Rd pick, 5th Rd pick, and $1MM in international bonus pool money.
MLB wants teams to spend, but if they do, they’re going to penalize the shit out of them by tarnishing their chances in the future. I will truly never understand any of this.
Well, the owners don’t really want to have to spend. Hence, they want the penalties attached.
The point of the penalties were to improve the competitive balance between the “haves” and the “have nots”. The effect seems to be restraining spending of the “haves”. In that sense Alex is right. Maybe the less desirable result but still improving balance. MLB may want teams to spend but all teams not just rich teams.
Here’s a more interesting hypothesis. “Moneyball” can help you win the regular season (e.g. the Rays) but you have to spend big to win the postseason (e.g. Phils/Rangers/etc…)
The penalties exist to give the cheap owners cover for not spending, and nothing else. “We totally would spend, but these darn restrictions and penalties, you know…” If MLB wanted spending more evenly distributed they would be penalizing the cheap teams as well, which they will never do under any circumstances.
It’s working, too, because even now you’ve got people arguing that the ability to sign a player who might be something in six or seven years is more important than trying to maximize your wide-open window. Pure silliness.
There’s also no secret sauce for postseason success, or everyone would be doing it. Build the best team you can and hope you get hot at the right time; that’s how you win a ring.
Ha! I was in a cab in Aruba and had that very conversation about AJ. Is this a common thing?
“The penalties exist to give the cheap owners cover for not spending, and nothing else.”
The internet is really full of such baseless speculation delivered with confidence, absolutes, and superlatives to make it convincing, but really it just comes off as uninformed rage.
I remember when the cap first showed up the Yankees and Red Sox were outspending everyone, dominating the playoffs and all the top stars were ending up on the Yankees. (Clemens, Mussina, Giambi are the names that come to mind)
Now with such a broad (and frankly stupid) playoff structure it’s no longer possible for anyone to dominate by spending.
Makes me think the cap is outdated and can be eliminated.
But the truth is it was never about competitive balance. It was always about deflating player salaries. Otherwise it would be gone by now.
Preach it, Reverend Jon.
@stampton, you must be new here. Braves Journal in mid-offseason form.
LOL. I’m a longtime lurker. Nobody likes billionaires and many tend to assume they’re always up to something nefarious. Same thing on the falcons forum where every time a player doesn’t get the richest contract in history they start talking about how oppressive the NFL is and how the players are treated like chattel. Every owner is different, and while they’re all self-interested, they aren’t necessarily trying to scam the players. Sure, some have colluded before, but in the free agency and information age, that becomes difficult.
If you have a crummy culture, the players know, and the fans know, and your product sucks, and your investment suffers. Even Wayne Huzienga, who was a pretty ruthless businessman, made his teams successful at least temporarily, and that is why he profited so much from their sale.
So I would say the competitive balance stuff is complicated, and there have been a lot of competing interests that brought us to where we are. It’s also true that there are always unintended consequences and perverse incentives, and in hindsight it can look foolish. To assume a vast conspiracy for what human stupidity and lack of foresight can explain is unnecessary.
I hope Sonny Gray just didn’t want to play for Atlanta and not that we just didn’t match such a reasonable deal. It’s weird if he really preferred playing with a last-place team at this point in his career but who knows.
Apparently, we’re on to Cease, which probably means trading Grissom.
Go back to the John Adcox comment on the Lopez/Nola thread. He said there that the Braves were not interested in Gray. Looking pretty prescient now.
Looking more toward Snell or Yamamoto. I would be ecstatic with either of those or Cease. That comment also said the Braves may value Grissom more than other teams so I’m not sure how they perceive his trade value.
Yeah I missed that one. Good call John Adcox. Paying Gray $25 million to pitch at age 36-37 with his durability history always seemed weird for AA, which is why I thought we would go all-in on Nola who is a horse. I would be happy with Snell or Yamamoto as well. Would love to trade for Burnes or Cease. Just please get me a plus starter this offseason and don’t start Elder or Vines for a critical playoff game.
We should trade Juan Cruz, Charles Thomas, and Dan Meyer for Tim Hudson.
I’ll second that. I’ll add that we should not trade Brett Butler and Brook Jacoby for Len Barker.
No love for Rick Behenna?
I’ll confess that I was drawing a blank yesterday on the name of the pitcher the Braves sent to Cleveland along with Butler and Jacoby. That’s embarrassing for me, because Behenna is justly famous for an all-time accomplishment. Indeed, the second sentence of his Wikipedia entry states that “He was part of what was perhaps the worst trade in Braves history.”
Let’s trade 2 all-star outfielders for one season of a malcontent center fielder