Megathread: Braves lose Maitan, Bae and 10+ plus International Sanctions.

[Tapate50]

My guess is it was Seand Rodriguez and that was partly why he was traded back to Pittsburgh. I have zero evidence to back that up tho

It was a pitcher, can’t remember who

[chop2chip]

At this point, if we keep the 8th pick next year then I think we will be fine. While losing Maitan would be horrible, he’s still a good 4-5 years away and our most risky top prospect.

And what’s ironic is if this is what had to happen for the Braves to modernize their front office, then this scandal is worth it regardless of the sanctions.

[Enscheff]

My guess is it was Seand Rodriguez and that was partly why he was traded back to Pittsburgh. I have zero evidence to back that up tho

SRod was traded because the Braves can’t afford him. Same reason MAdams will be traded.

[Heyward]

At this point, if we keep the 8th pick next year then I think we will be fine. While losing Maitan would be horrible, he’s still a good 4-5 years away and our most risky top prospect.

And what’s ironic is if this is what had to happen for the Braves to modernize their front office, then this scandal is worth it regardless of the sanctions.

It would suck to lose Maitan but Austin Riley is big league ready pretty soon. He's been tearing the cover off the ball in AFL. Maitan is at best MAYBE ready for 2020 callup if he progresses really well.

I'm a big fan of AA so if this had to happen, so be it.

If we can keep the 8th pick, and other prospects, this isnt a death sentence by any means.

[clvclv]

It would suck to lose Maitan but Austin Riley is big league ready pretty soon. He's been tearing the cover off the ball in AFL. Maitan is at best MAYBE ready for 2020 callup if he progresses really well.

I'm a big fan of AA so if this had to happen, so be it.

If we can keep the 8th pick, and other prospects, this isnt a death sentence by any means.

Riley's absolutely going to be a flop - Keith Law said so after the blackjack dealer finished blowing him.

[Hudson2]

It would suck to lose Maitan but Austin Riley is big league ready pretty soon. He's been tearing the cover off the ball in AFL. Maitan is at best MAYBE ready for 2020 callup if he progresses really well.

I'm a big fan of AA so if this had to happen, so be it.

If we can keep the 8th pick, and other prospects, this isnt a death sentence by any means.

I agree. Losing Maitan will suck but he’s no sure thing at all. Getting AA may be worth losing him over bc i have a lot more faith in the team now then i did a month ago.

[Heyward]

Rumor from Shanks is this: The punishment is a 2 year international ban then a 50% reduction in international spending for 5 years. Says Braves keep Maitan.

[striker42]

Rumor from Shanks is this: The punishment is a 2 year international ban then a 50% reduction in international spending for 5 years. Says Braves keep Maitan.

That's actually pretty harsh.

[50PoundHead]

That's actually pretty harsh.

If that's the punishment, I'd almost prefer that they lose Maitan instead.

[CJ9]

Rumor from Shanks is this: The punishment is a 2 year international ban then a 50% reduction in international spending for 5 years. Says Braves keep Maitan.

So no player loss or draft picks?

[thethe]

If that's the punishment, I'd almost prefer that they lose Maitan instead.

What is the 50% off of?

I'm not sure I'd rather lose Maitan who has been billed as a generational talent. There was also a brief video on Maitain in the Instructional League taking swings and he was noticeably thinner. That first year coming over and having access to all types of fast food will often times result in increased weight gain. Hopefully, he has been able to keep that in check and produce results that most thought for him.

[thethe]

Its a long way before Maitan is in the same discussion as Acuna but that is what his build up is in reality.

So the question for the board is would you rather have Acuna and no signings for 5 years or signings for 5 years?

I'm taking Acuna and hopefully the same will play out with Maitan.

[nsacpi]

That's actually pretty harsh.

Very harsh. But we keep Bae.

[Heyward]

If that's the punishment, I'd almost prefer that they lose Maitan instead.

But if we lose Maitan, will we also have a punishment of no signings for a couple years?

[Heyward]

The question is, Maitan and no signings for awhile or no big ones.

Or lose Maitan some others, and a lesser ban period?

If Shanks is right.

[clvclv]

That's actually pretty harsh.

Harsh, but arguably fitting if the transgressions were as bad and as widespread as rumored. Even before Manfred, the league wanted to clean a bunch of this mess up across the board - somebody THAT IT ACTUALLY HURT was going to be made an example of at some point since the Boston penalties didn't scare anybody.

You can still argue that taking Maitan away should have never been a consideration - we've heard the rumors that a mystery team wanted to come in at the end and try to outbid us for him, but have never seen anything concrete that backs that up. This could mean just that - it was hot air. Doesn't mean we should be let off for hiding him away assuming we did, but it'd be overly harsh to take away a player we were the highest bidder for because we picked up his living expenses for a little bit - just add those receipts to his signing bonus and tack that amount on to the overage penalty we should have paid.

This will be one of the places I bet AA devotes more resources as time goes by - much more money devoted to international scouting since we're really going to have to find those diamonds in the rough, and a shift to less eyes and more technology stateside.

[CJ9]

Getting way ahead of myself, but if the 50% thing happens, it might make sense to just dive into the first class we are eligible to sign again and have a similarly large group to what we signed in 2016. If we are going to have 50% for those five years, I think it makes even more sense to go well over our budget in one year.

[zitothebrave]

Signings. While Maitan could be legit, let's look at some other "legit" prospects. I will of course eliminate pitchers because TINSTAPP

Jesus Montero, Desmond Jennings, Pedro Alvarez, Travis Snider, Cameron Maybin, Colby Rasmus, Delmon Young, Lastings Milledge, Brandon Wood, Jurickson Profar (billed as the Andruw Jones of Shortstops, and I'll stop there as most of the guys since then who aren't great are still pretty young (Profar is still pretty young but at 24 with only 700 PA I'm OK with that), of that list the best career has been Colby Rasmus, and while he's had a solid career (since he came into the league he has the 93rd highest fWAR) bt his fWAR is on par with guys with several hundred less plate appearances like Andrelton Simmons (2nd round pick, 70th overall) Jason Kipnis (2nd round pick 63rd overall) and Brandon Crawford (4th ronud pick 117th overall)

And of course these were all high ranked players going into the majors, I haven't even touched on guys like Billy Rowell, Donovan Tate, or Josh Vitters, high picks who amounted to nothing.

Realize that having great prospects is important. But sometimes great prospects come in unsuspecting packages.

And of course you can't underpin the value of depth. Let's pretend that Maitan and Acuna are legit and they're 2 star players for us. That's fine. The Reds this year had 3 hitters in the top 30 of fWAR. Angels had 2, Marlins had 2. Having stud talent is great. But having a ton of talent is better. When you look at the best Braves team recently (2013) where our offense strived wasn't in our stars. Freeman, Upton, Heyward, McCann, and Simmons were all great. But what made that team great was that lineup and a rotation that clicked in Minor, Medlen, Hudson, Julio, and a solid Maholm. Not to mention when he was starting Wood was awesome. Add in an incredibly strong BP featuring 4 guys with an ERA under 3 and 50+ IP.

[chop2chip]

Rumor from Shanks is this: The punishment is a 2 year international ban then a 50% reduction in international spending for 5 years. Says Braves keep Maitan.

Source? Shanks didn’t put this on Twitter so I’m curious where you heard this supposed rumor

[chop2chip]

I will definitely take the signing restrictions. If they took away Maitan and he became a great player somewhere else, I’ll be sour about that every time I see him play. If they restrict our signings, I will never know what specific players it kept us from signing, so it will more difficult to contextualize the punishment.