Elinor Wylie’s poem, Puritan Sonnet concludes:
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay;
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.
I do not know if Wylie was a baseball fan; it seems doubtful to me, but there are secret baseball fans everywhere. To me, the closing lines of Puritan Sonnet are a nice summary of the baseball year.
The GMs may be meeting with a full plate of personnel moves, the parade of postseason hardware announcements are in full swing (congratulations, Matt) but I await pitchers and catchers in February.
If Braves Journal were a commercial operation, we’d need content, More Content, but that isn’t the rhythm of baseball, at least for me. Everyone feel free to comment, we’ll throw up something like this every once in a while, and genuine news will prompt genuine new pages. I follow with interest the very sad news of Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz; the rise of sports gambling as a league-sanctioned activity may not have directly contributed to this ugly mess, but it surely doesn’t help. Innocent until proven guilty, sure, but sad either way.
I’m spending my offseason hunkered over my laptop, working furiously (with the help of my newfound assistant Claude) to get next season started with a baseball database that can answer questions which include the season being played. The fact that I find this fun may puzzle some of you, but I’m just happy to find anything fun.
College football continues apace, and college hockey has begun.
When we sign Ha-Seong Kim, or Dante Bichette, or find the Elixir of Hits Nick Allen needs to swallow, there is still stirring to be had in “sleepy winter.” Sort of like the ten times a night I get up to pee.
Thanks, JonathanF. It’s a good time to remember how fortunate we are that Braves Journal is still around after all these years.
Im sure you meant Bo Bichette but your comment is unintentionally funny since based on our history we are far more likely to sign Dante Bichette as a platoon DH
No way. Everyone knows that we’re working on Julio Franco for platoon DH.
I bet Julio can still rake though.
https://x.com/trenciarte/status/1989072363783344528?s=42
Hot Stove is heating up!
HA!
According to Peanut the pick for Baldwin, which should be around 28th-30th in 2026, will add $3 million to our pool for signees. He says we would lose that pick and the bonus money if we sign a free agent with a QO this offseason.
It’s hard to imagine AA is gonna do that. But that is the cost for Cease, Bichette, or Suarez. That kind of draft pool could really help rebuild our minor league system.
I would eat a pick and $3M in slot money for either of those 3. But I don’t think that’s the issue. Giving them $30M per is the issue. AA has really pigeon holed himself for no reason by making $22M the limit for what he’ll pay a player because of Olson and Riley.
Tigers re-sign Gleyber Torres… one-year $22.2M qualifying offer. He’s one of the 4 (out of 14) players who accepted the QO.
https://www.mlb.com/news/gleyber-torres-accepts-qualifying-offer
Man, Murphy’s injury is really complicating the offseason. He could be traded for salary relief, something substantial in return, and it would open up the DH spot. Now, he’s stuck in the DH spot, we get nothing in return, and we get no salary relief. I would think that they will do some sort of platoon bat between LF and DH to get some additional offense, then trade Murphy mid-season once his value rebounds.
Man..that trade continues to bite us in the backside. Murphy seems like a good dude and good teammate, but his scattered production and inability to stay healthy has killed any chance of even breaking even on that deal, which was suspect to begin with.
Is there an update I don’t know about? I thought he was probably going to be back for the start of the season. I understand he is rehabbing
I don’t think we should trade him personally. We’d probably have to give him away and maybe eat salary. No thanks. It was a bad trade but he has more value to us than we can get back.
https://x.com/Braves/status/1991307620335096200
I like this if Iglesias is essentially replacing the combined salaries of Johnson/Kinley and there’s another big bullpen addition to come.
I won’t like this as much if Iglesias is the closer again and there are no other big bullpen additions. He’ll be 36 when next season starts and has real potential to fall apart.
Please tell me Dubon is not the everyday SS
Dubon for Allen hot take: AA finds his Martin Prado whose only problem is that he doesn’t hit like Martin Prado. He’s not a shortstop. He is an 8th inning shortstop replacement for Nick…. oh, wait a minute.
Whatever I know about baseball, evaluating defense is the least of my capabilities. That said, fangraphs seems to say Dubon was really good at SS and 2B over the last 5 years based on Statcast fielding runs and UZR/150. The downside is he is more expensive than Nick Allen and we only have him for one season. The upside is he’s way better offensively even with a .640 OPS.
My guess is that unless Kim signs for a pillow deal or something like $30MM/2, Dubon is our starting SS. Nacho will probably get some work at 2B, 3B unless he is packaged for someone.
I see a trade for a somewhat distressed starter, maybe Sonny Gray and a couple reliever signings, maybe Pomeranz and another.
Iglesias is our closer. AA doesn’t pay 16 million for a setup man. It’s a good one-year deal. I was hoping he would come at a slight discount but after the way he finished the season I don’t think you can try to squeeze him for 2 million.
I don’t agree with letting Johnson walk. I don’t think you do better for his dollars. But let’s see what happens.
Personally I like the trade for Dubon as long as he won’t be the everyday shortstop. I guess Allen could serve as the late inning defensive replacement but it would have been a problem if he had to hit. If the MLB ever goes to a designated fielder he will be a hot commodity.
Exactly. The problem with Dubon as your shortstop is that you’re giving up Dubon as the guy who gives everybody else a day off — that guy is valuable. The problem with Dubon as the guy who gives everybody else a day off is that you now really don’t have s shortstop. I guess my feeling is that you can’t stop here…. but AA for some reason hasn’t called me with the plan.
Dubon is such an interesting pickup. It’s just yet another shortstop with a bad bat where you have to decide what you believe about WAR. He was a 2.2 fWAR player in 398 PAs last year because WAR believes that a run saved in the field is worth just as much as a run earned at the plate. And ultimately fans need to decide if that’s true. And if Weiss will indeed do a better job of utilizing versatility, giving guys time off, and working Dubon around the diamond, then Dubon is extremely valuable. And as the former bench coach with Atlanta, Weiss had to look at all of the crappy options on his bench to see what he might be able to do to create an advantage, and now he has another person on the bench.
Or he’s Ha-Seong Kim insurance. Or he’s Ozzie Albies insurance. But if you can get 2.2 WAR for the $5.8M he’s projected to make in arbitration and he might be a stopgap incase you strike out at a position in free agency, you’ve got to do that deal.
For what it’s worth, Houston fans are also really pissed off in the Houston tweet press release comments.
The only negative I see is that is $5.8M you can’t spend on a big bat. But I just don’t think a big bat is coming. Barring a huge change in the lineup, there isn’t really room for one, and there really isn’t the money for one. I expect them to try to have a really deep position player group, but Riley, Olson and Acuna are going to be your only huge power bats. The rest will be defense, speed, and .800 OPS guys if they’re lucky.
ACTUALLY, a run saved by pitching or fielding is worth more than a run produced by offensive activity (lower the “run scored environment” the more valuable each run is and pitching and fielding inherently create a lower “run scored environment”). The question should be worded “how confident I am that the available information on fielding value is accurate as compared to a much more accurate (and proven so) offensive production metric?”
He’s pretty much equivalent to that Rays SS you wanted. And he’s basically free
Astros fans should be pissed off. Dubón for Allen straight up is a clear Braves win and it appears to be a salary dump for them.
We probably would have hoped we got Iglesias back for less than $16M. But AA got played like a fiddle with relievers last offseason, so kudos to him to make sure that he got an elite guy before things got crazy. Someone wrote that Iglesias had similar offers from LA and Toronto, but he chose us. So we beat LA for a player. Finally.
I wonder if Iglesias would have chosen us if we’d given him away at the deadline.
Good question. I would assume teams have an idea of who they can trade away and get right back in the offseason and who would see that as a slap in the face.
Would have rather saved the 6m on Dubon and the 16m on Iglesias and used that money for Suarez
I’d be shocked if AA gives a 30-year old pitcher $23M for 5 years, but I guess I shouldn’t put it past him. He gave Strider $20M per.
And Dubon has played some CF, so there’s that.
In my opinion we are not signing anybody who got a QO. That includes Suarez. If it were my Monopoly money we would go big and sign Suarez and Bichette but I don’t get even a 1% vote.
In light of what I expected, I like what we’ve done so far. Maybe we can wrangle Gray plus Donovan from the Cards. We take a big salary to help lower the price on Donovan. I don’t care where he plays. I just like his OBP and I would like Acuna to DH a little
I cant see us signing a QO player either. And I am okay with the first moves. SS market is brutal, is Kim 15 million dollars a year better than the dude from the Astros? Not likely.
Still need arms though, and some a bat with impact.
https://x.com/nypostsports/status/1991692095044612249?s=46&t=WSNPrB2JyUoeKSn2PZsXZg
Surprised there’s so much talk about a first base coach, but it definitely seems like Richardson is the real deal.
Could this have worked out better for either party? We get someone to work with a lineup that has a lot of speed but untapped potential on the basepaths, and he’s a Bahamian who grew up in Florida and he’s now back in the south and out of the cold.
Plus, guys don’t steal because of their speed. They steal because they know the pitchers and catchers, and Richardson knows the NL East pitchers and catchers. And he probably knows what makes our pitchers give up SBs. This is probably a really underrated move.
Meanwhile, Dansby Swanson posted 4.5 WAR last season.
Other than my embarrassing aside about how much I wanted us to get Tim Anderson, I stand by pretty much everything I wrote here three years ago, in my big long post about why the Braves should have re-signed Dansby after his walk year: https://bravesjournal.com/2022/11/11/2022-braves-player-review-dansby-swanson/
What are you guys worried about? Atlanta has already signed Jose Suarez, Joey Wentz, Ryan Rolison, and Vidal Brujan. All of our needs for pitchers and shortstops have been addressed.
We evaluated Freddie’s HOF candidacy in his early 30’s, so I’m going to compare Olson through age-31 to Freddie.
Olson (5,100 PAs): 39.7 WAR
Freddie (6,600 PAs): 43.0 WAR
Freddie’s age-31 was “only” a 4.8 WAR season, whereas Matt just finished a 6.0 WAR season. If you take their age-28-31 seasons, it compares this way:
Olson: 20.7 WAR
Freddie: 17.3 WAR
We had questioned in Freddie’s late-20’s/early-30’s if he could sustain a HOF pace, and not only did he sustain it, he has somehow gotten better with age. His most recent 4-year stretch has been a 21.2 WAR production. He’s raised his game everywhere while adding stolen bases to his game. I don’t know if we can expect that from Matt.
But Olson is still getting better with age, and in other areas, following in Freddie’s footsteps. Freddie has lead the league in 2B’s 4 of the last 7 seasons. Last year’s leader? Matt Olson. And Olson has led the league in games played 4 seasons in a row, so I don’t see any evidence of him slowing down. I think if I had to bet right now, Olson will also be considered a Hall of Fame lock by his mid-30’s as Freddie now is.
That’s nice to hear, Rob. Thank you.
College football fans: where is Lane Kiffin going?
What’s really sad about all this, and I’m saying this as a Florida fan, is that Lane is just not worth all of this trouble. He will probably do really well with LSU or UF’s resources. But maybe he won’t. He’s never proven he can win at the highest level. He loses a lot of games he shouldn’t. And the next school will probably give him a ridiculous buyout. I’d still love to have him, but the circus has gotten a little ridiculous.
My dark horse for Florida is Lincoln Riley. The Lincoln-to-USC talk started about 24 hours before the deal was done last cycle. If USC loses to Oregon today, USC will be out of playoff contention, and there might be some chatter.
Personally I think Kiffin will stay at Ole Miss. He likes the publicity and will get a big raise. Usually coaches only leave when they swear on their mother’s grave that they won’t leave.
Re: Kiffin
Personally, I just root for a continuing coaching carousel & continued impatience at rival schools like UF & Auburn. That said, Kiffin would be an upgrade at UF or LSU – he’s still a terrific offensive tactician & playcaller. (FWIW, I’ll guess he’s going to LSU.)
My fave crazy theory was DeBoer going to Penn State & Kiffin going to Tuscaloosa.
It’s true that last year Kiffin lost 2 games he should’ve won (UK & @UF – weird games, both of them); but by the end of the season, I thought a healthy Ole Miss was as formidable as any team top-to-bottom in the country. They finally had a genuinely imposing defense (esp. their D line). If they had gotten into the CFP, IMO, they could’ve won it. Last year’s team was more talented than this year’s bunch.
This year’s Rebs are typical Kiffin-era Ole Miss: Scary offense, sieve-like defense. Still, they’re going to end up 11-1 w/ wins @Oklahoma, vs. LSU & vs. Tulane (which suddenly looks kinda important.)
I just hope that, if Kiffin leaves before the CFP, Ole Miss is in UGA’s bracket.
BTW, interesting trade btw the Rangers & Mets: Marcus Semien for Brandon Nimmo.
Yeah, I think that’s about right about Kiffin. I like Kiffin and obviously I would take him just fine. But like I said, he will come with a massive buyout and a mediocre defense. There’s really not a significant difference between Dan Mullen + Napier’s operating budget and Lane Kiffin. I would just as easy go get Kliff Kingsbury or another proven offensive mind, give him the gobs of money we gave the program during Napier’s tenure, and save the buyout and drama.
Georgia has just gotten really lucky with Richt and now Kirby. We obviously had that with Spurrier and had it for a little while with Urban. Richt loved Georgia, and Kirby rrrrreally loves Georgia. You can’t just go create a coach intrinsically loving his program like that out of thin air. The difference in Georgia and Florida from what you can control, though, has been alignment. Kirby, the boosters, and the admin have been in lockstep for a decade now. Florida’s boosters and admin have constantly feuded with its own coaches. Going back to Muschamp, HC’s have told Florida they were behind on resources. Florida was late to funding facilities, they were late to funding under-the-table payments to players, and then they were late with having a competent NIL structure. Florida will probably now be late on not giving out insane coaching buyouts if they get Kiffin.
With that said, Florida now has a roster that can compete with Georgia. Now they just need the right coach. And there are a lot of coaches that can do well at Florida, not just Kiffin.
I’m listening to David Samson here on one of his YouTube videos from his show talking about the geography stuff with international players. Samson was the president of the Marlins back when his stepfather Jeffrey Loria owned the team. Samson is probably not as much of a sheister as his FIL, but he seems to have no self-awareness.
He thinks he got no discounts for being located in Miami and being the closest team to the Caribbean. No, you just ran a shitty team with a shitty owner. I think Atlanta has benefitted tremendously for being the closest good team to play for to the Caribbean and in the southeast. Do you guys agree? I think Atlanta being on the short list of franchises players like to play for while being in the southeast has helped them tremendously with international players.
I believe we have done better than our monetary investment should have done, but we suffered so bad from both the bad quality of the last big Coppy year (all of which went away, anyway), and the sanctions that it is just now starting to move and is a little harder to see.
I think the source of that is more in the deliberate effort to get “off the beaten path” to places like Brazil, Panama, Columbia, and oh my lord, Curacao.
I’m not talking about recent history, cliff; I’m just asking in general. I think David Samson is kidding himself that being in Miami shouldn’t have been a huge advantage. If the Marlins ever positioned themselves as a great team to play for, they would do really well in Latin America the way the Dodgers are with Japanese players. Perfect example is Anaheim; they have all the geographical advantages that the Dodgers do, but people don’t want to play for them, so they see no advantage.
It shouldn’t be a shock to us that California-based Freddie Freeman found his way back in LA. I think we’ve consistently benefited from having guys from Georgia want to commit to us long-term (Harris, Olson), and I think being the closest big-spending team to Latin America has definitely helped us land commitments from Ozzie and Acuna.
Julio Teheran is one of the best players in Colombian history, behind only Jose Quintana and Edgar Renteria – the latter of whom also starred for us. (And Gio Urshela’s got the fourth-highest WAR among Colombians – it’s not a very baseball-mad country!)
Amazingly enough, Bruce Chen has the most innings pitched of any Panamanian pitcher (though, obviously, the greatest Panamanian players of all time are Rod Carew and Mo Rivera; still, Chen is one of the 15 best of his countrymen.) Obviously, the Braves have employed nearly all of the greatest Curacaoans ever. So I love thinking about this question.
Among other things, our new first base coach Antoan Richardson is one of the more prominent baseball Bahamians. The greatest Bahamian player is clearly Jazz Chisholm; at one point, the Braves employed the services of the speedster Anfernee Seymour, but he never could figure out how to hit. I wonder whether Richardson might be able to help us find a gem from his home country, too.
Not paying attention to David Samson is typically the smartest course of action. That whole organization was rife with people whose self-regard was only exceeded by their incompetence.
Would it kill you guys to bring a few wheelbarrows of grist for the rumor mill?
I have it on good authority that the Braves will be signing Dylan Cease, Kyle Tucker, AND Ranger Suarez.
UGA has had 5 head coaches since 1964; UF has had 5 (non-interim) head coaches since 2005.
Yep, impatience can be expensive, but I’m not sure that, moving forward, any school looking for the highest prizes won’t have to pony up w/ crazy buyouts. I mean, why would a top-level coach sign with a school that won’t do it? If you wanna sign an up-and-comer, you’d better guess right.
But I get the apprehension w/ Kiffin. For all we know, Ryan Day could go 1-7 vs. Michigan & Kiffin goes to Ohio State… or the Atlanta Falcons. Who knows w/ him?
The really lucky thing about UGA’s hiring Kirby Smart is that Auburn passed on him in 2012 & hired Gus Malzahn instead.
According to 247, as it relates to the current roster, Georgia is #1 in the country (w/ 13 5-stars & 57 4-stars); Florida is #12 (w/ 4 5-stars & 48 4-stars). For the 2026 recruiting class — granted, a rather fluid ranking — UGA is #3 & UF is #13.
These rankings aren’t exactly gospel, but they do indicate a bit of a difference. As with commitments to coaches, big-brand schools (like UF, Auburn, etc.) looking to stock talent had better bet correctly w/ the NIL/transfer game. When schools like Vandy & Indiana strike gold, the stakes just get higher.
So a thought on Mauricio Dubon has a career OPS+ of 85. Nick Allen: 55. The difference from Nick Allen to Mauricio Dubon (30 points) is almost as big as the difference between Dubon and Trea Turner (Career 121, difference 36 points.)
Obviously you can’t count on a guy to do what he’s always done (as evidenced by every Brave but Olson in the last 2 consecutive seasons.) but that’s a huge difference. How thrilled you’d be to go from Dubon to Turner? It’s almost as good to go from Allen to Dubon. That’s how bloody bad it’s gotten.
And Ha-Seong Kim is a career 97 OPS+… What will he cost? $15m? Is that 12 points worth an extra 9 or 10 million? I guess the likelihood he actually reaches his norms is probably better than Dubon..
I don’t know. I wonder if the team had, say, $25m total to spend on a shortstop and another bat, if we wouldn’t be better off using all $25m on the bat rather than overspending to get less bat just because he can play shortstop.
Yes, excellent point. And Kim is regressing on defense. Dubon plays SS as well as Allen. I think everyone will be very happy. We got the same 2.5 WAR shortstop without paying $20MM for Kim.
We may or may not get a great shortstop, but at least now we will have a major league shortstop.
Yeah, I can totally live with Dubon at SS. Kim probably gets more than $15M, btw.
Happy Thanksgiving Day, Braves Journal. Very thankful for you all.
On the shortstop thing, I wonder if Bo Bichette could make sense. That is pending that his defensive issues would be less noticeable at 2nd. Covers short 2 years and second 3 years on a 5 year deal. If he really drops off on fielding, you might at least get DH value.
Oh sure I would love his bat somewhere in our order. I think it will age well. I wouldn’t even worry too much about where he plays. He can play some combo of SS/2B/DH. The problem is salary and draft penalty, so I will be shocked if we even kick the tires
Gray to the Sox. Looks like we will have to settle for Skubal
Fangraphs has Brandon Clarke 86th on their top 100 and Fitts isn’t much of a prospect.
What’s the ATL equivalent of that trade? Fuentes and Lucas Bruan? I’d probably make that trade.
Happy Turkey Day, y’all…
Cease signed with Blue Jays. Looks like we get the equivalent of Profar again this year.
New Post: https://bravesjournal.com/2025/11/27/giving-thanks/