Braves sniffing around on Yelich, Realmuto

[Chico]

I'm not so sure I want to take Chen back in a Yellich trade even if it would mean keeping some prospects. One of the biggest things Yelich brings is his affordability. He's owed $7 million in 2018, $9.8 million in 2019, $12.5 million in 2020, $14 million in 2021, and has a $15 million team option for 2022. That's controlling him from age 26 through age 30 at a fairly reasonable price.

But now add Chen to that. Chen is owed $17.3 million in 2018, 2019, and 2020 (he has a $16 million vesting option based on him pitching 180 innings in 2020 which almost certainly wont happen). There's a good bet that if we take Chen in return, we get zero contribution from him.

If we get nothing from Chen, all of a sudden the true cost of Yelich is $24.3 million in 2018, $27.1 million in 2019, and $29.8 million in 2020. Even if Chen comes off the books after 2020 and Yelich's price for 2021 and 2022 drops back to just his contract, that's still a ton of money.

You get a good picture of the difference if you average out over the years of Yellich's contract.

Without Chen- Average of $11.66 million per year
With Chen- Average of $22.04 million per year

Yelich is an excellent baseball player, but he's not a superstar. He's a guy who will hit .280 with an .800-.850 OPS and 20 HRs.

Then there's the fact that he would be moving from center in Atlanta. When Acuna gets here there's a good chance that Yelich is playing left. That waters down what he does even more.

So here's the question, if Yelich was a free agent and wanted a 5 year deal at $22.04 million per year, would you sign him to play left? I wouldn't. Add in the fact that we wouldn't just be allocating a huge portion of our payroll to getting Yelich, we'd also still have to give up a fair amount of talent in return and I have to say no thanks.

First of all I'd defeinitely sign a 26 year old Yelich for 5/110 if he were a free agent.

I think you're looking at Chen's contract wrong. There is a lot of deffered money in there. It would cost us $52M over the next 4 years not counting the 2021 option. I also think he's good for at least 3 WAR over the next 3 seasons so I'd put the sunk cost at about $30M

[Chico]

because the players demand a trade. because the marlins are tanking and rebuilding.

I think you could potentially get a below market deal and then make up some of that difference with guys like Rio Ruiz or Wisler who can cheaply be run out every day.

It's possible, but after being put under the microscope I'm thinking the Marlins are not looking to give any below market deals right now.

[Russ2dollas]

If that’s the case I don’t honk it makes sense for the Braves to kick in $100M in prospect value while still being non-contenders.

Liberty let us go over budget to get Santana. With all that has gone on, if we get a chance they might pay for good PR.

If we could get Yelich and Frazier for 3B I feel like we will be WC contenders. You can add up the WAR but:

Yelich
Acuna
FF
Frazier
Albies
Flowers
Inciarte
Swanson

Tehran
Folty
McCarthy
Gohara
Newk/Sims/etc/etc etc

Marlins in total tank mode should get you to win 12+ out of 19 games there.

[clvclv]

You didn’t “figure” anything. The Marlins were reported to not be interested in watering down the values of Yelich or Realmuto in this article by Frisaro:

https://www.mlb.com/marlins/news/mar...rs/c-264094664

“At this point, the Marlins are basically at their projected payroll of under $100 million. There is no urgency to deal Yelich, who has $43.25 million remaining on a contract that runs through 2021, plus a club option for '22.

Realmuto is entering his first year of arbitration, and isn't eligible for free agency until after the 2020 season.”

“the Marlins are not looking to water down the return for either player”

In fact, you likely regurgitated that on these boards right after reading it on mlb.com, as is typical for you.

Stop trying to pass off the ideas and work of others as your own. You don’t have any ideas worth sharing, so just stick to listening to XM radio.

I'd never seen that article before now, but thanks for finding it.

Of course the criticism of my opinion is always interesting to hear from someone who might've had his last original thought before he knew Dave Cameron or Keith Law existed. You really are one of Trump's lackies that surfs the net looking for someone that makes disparaging remarks about him, aren't you?

Does your Mom use Clorox to get the cheese puff stains out of your tighty whities???

[Super]

Liberty let us go over budget to get Santana. With all that has gone on, if we get a chance they might pay for good PR.

If we could get Yelich and Frazier for 3B I feel like we will be WC contenders. You can add up the WAR but:

Yelich
Acuna
FF
Frazier
Albies
Flowers
Inciarte
Swanson

Tehran
Folty
McCarthy
Gohara
Newk/Sims/etc/etc etc

Marlins in total tank mode should get you to win 12+ out of 19 games there.

What about adding Realmuto as well?
If we were to add Yelich, Realmuto, and Frazier, I think we'd have a good shot at the playoffs. Our infield would be ridiculously good, and the outfield would become really good once Acuna came up. Would need some luck in the pitching deparment.

[striker42]

First of all I'd defeinitely sign a 26 year old Yelich for 5/110 if he were a free agent.

I think you're looking at Chen's contract wrong. There is a lot of deffered money in there. It would cost us $52M over the next 4 years not counting the 2021 option. I also think he's good for at least 3 WAR over the next 3 seasons so I'd put the sunk cost at about $30M

I don't think you can count on Chen giving us anything if we were to take him. I think we'd have to do the calculus as if he's not going to contribute because there's a very good chance he wont.

I'd sign a 26 year old Yelich for that amount...as a center fielder. I might even do it as a right fielder. I wouldn't do it as a left fielder.

The more I think about Yelich the less I'm convinced he fits. He's an excellent center field option but we already have Inciarte and Yellich is not displacing Ender in center. If you move Yelich to left he's less of a commodity.

[rico43]

Keeping in mind that pot usage is way up in 2018....

Dan O'Dowd speculates that there is deal all but done:

BRAVES trade Tyler Flowers, Sean Newcomb, Kolby Allard and Austin Riley

MARLINS trade Christian Yellch, J.T. Realmuto, Martin Prado, Brad Ziegler and W.Y. Chen.

Holy mother of God, what a deal that would be. BUT I'm s little skeptical Braves would deal two lefties. Maybe Anderson stead Allard?

[Enscheff]

Is there any possible way to make a Yelich/Realmuto trade without watering down the cost with bad contracts? I'm not sure that there is if we don't include Albies or Acuna. How much surplus value do those two have combined? Just doing a quick look at it, it has to be in the neighborhood of 180 million dollars. And I think that is a pretty conservative estimate. Its honestly probably closer to 200 million. A trade like that would absolutely gut our farm system. Lets look at what it would take to get to 180 million in surplus value, without including Albies or Acuna.

A 60 grade pitcher carries about 34 million in surplus value (according to Fangraph's chart). I'll be super generous and give a 60 to 3 Braves pitching prospects (note that I actually don't think all three are 60 grades).

So if we include Soroka, Gohara, and Wright that gets us to 102 million. I'll even give us an extra 15 million there since Gohara has already made the majors and is extremely impressive. So 117 million.

A 55 grade pitcher is about 22 million. So lets once again be super generous and throw two "55" grade pitching prospects in there: Allard and Wentz. Including those two gets us to 151 million.

Outside of Acuna and Albies, we don't have a hitter anywhere close to a 60 grade. But once again, lets go super pozzy and say that we have two 55 grade hitting prospects: Riley and Pache. They aren't, but assuming the Marlins hold them in high esteem or something one of them is worth about 38 million. So now we are finally there! That is 189 million in surplus value.

The problem is that its possible Yelich and Realmuto are worth a bit more than that, just going off the calculator I used they are worth about 194 million. But even if the value is slightly lower, we are going to have to pay a premium to acquire them. So we need a little extra. So I'll throw in someone like Brett Cumberland to get us there.

So now the trade looks like this:
Marlins receive: Luiz Gohara, Mike Soroka, Kyle Wright, Kolby Allard, Joey Wentz, Christian Pache, and Brett Cumberland.
Braves receive: Christian Yelich and JT Realmuto

There is no universe in existence where I even come close to accepting this deal. I do realize that this is a very rough outline of what it would take. I'm just showing how cost prohibitive a trade like this would be. I was even really generous with the value of our own prospects and the cost was still stunning. But in all likelihood the Marlins are terrible enough that this could get done for more in the range of 150 million in surplus value and/or ask for a major leaguer in return to water down some of the value. But even then it would be a major hit to our farm system. I didn't watch us be terrible for 3 years and put together a top 3 farm system for 3 years of Realmuto and 5 years of Yelich when we aren't even ready to compete yet.

The more I think about it, the more I'm in the camp of not wanting any part of either player.

I think the total surplus is in the $150M-$180M range, but you're right...without taking bad money to lessen the prospects cost, acquiring both would require the largest prospect package traded in recent memory.

It is extremely unlikely they are both traded in the same deal to the same team.

[Enscheff]

I'm not so sure I want to take Chen back in a Yellich trade even if it would mean keeping some prospects. One of the biggest things Yelich brings is his affordability. He's owed $7 million in 2018, $9.8 million in 2019, $12.5 million in 2020, $14 million in 2021, and has a $15 million team option for 2022. That's controlling him from age 26 through age 30 at a fairly reasonable price.

But now add Chen to that. Chen is owed $17.3 million in 2018, 2019, and 2020 (he has a $16 million vesting option based on him pitching 180 innings in 2020 which almost certainly wont happen). There's a good bet that if we take Chen in return, we get zero contribution from him.

If we get nothing from Chen, all of a sudden the true cost of Yelich is $24.3 million in 2018, $27.1 million in 2019, and $29.8 million in 2020. Even if Chen comes off the books after 2020 and Yelich's price for 2021 and 2022 drops back to just his contract, that's still a ton of money.

You get a good picture of the difference if you average out over the years of Yellich's contract.

Without Chen- Average of $11.66 million per year
With Chen- Average of $22.04 million per year

Yelich is an excellent baseball player, but he's not a superstar. He's a guy who will hit .280 with an .800-.850 OPS and 20 HRs.

Then there's the fact that he would be moving from center in Atlanta. When Acuna gets here there's a good chance that Yelich is playing left. That waters down what he does even more.

So here's the question, if Yelich was a free agent and wanted a 5 year deal at $22.04 million per year, would you sign him to play left? I wouldn't. Add in the fact that we wouldn't just be allocating a huge portion of our payroll to getting Yelich, we'd also still have to give up a fair amount of talent in return and I have to say no thanks.

If Yelich were a FA today going into his age 26 season he would nearly double that 5/110 contract you wouldn't give him.

[Enscheff]

First of all I'd defeinitely sign a 26 year old Yelich for 5/110 if he were a free agent.

I think you're looking at Chen's contract wrong. There is a lot of deffered money in there. It would cost us $52M over the next 4 years not counting the 2021 option. I also think he's good for at least 3 WAR over the next 3 seasons so I'd put the sunk cost at about $30M

There is a small (but real) chance that Chen performs very similarly to Teheran over the next 3 years.

Swapping Markakis/Teheran for Chen/Yelich is almost certainly an overall upgrade using any reasonable projection system. It is almost salary neutral as well...which is why the Braves would have to kick in so much prospect capital to make it happen.

[striker42]

If Yelich were a FA today going into his age 26 season he would nearly double that 5/110 contract you wouldn't give him.

Probably. but the question is whether it would be smart for the Braves to pay that for a left fielder that projects to put up a low .800s OPS.

Again, if we didn't have a center fielder then I'd be all for investing that in Yellich. But he's not playing center with Ender around and probably not playing right with Acuna on the horizon. I think allotting that much of the payroll to a left fielder for the production he'd bring is a mistake.

[bravesnumberone]

Keeping in mind that pot usage is way up in 2018....

Dan O'Dowd speculates that there is deal all but done:

BRAVES trade Tyler Flowers, Sean Newcomb, Kolby Allard and Austin Riley

MARLINS trade Christian Yellch, J.T. Realmuto, Martin Prado, Brad Ziegler and W.Y. Chen.

Holy mother of God, what a deal that would be. BUT I'm s little skeptical Braves would deal two lefties. Maybe Anderson stead Allard?

Link?

[Super]

Keeping in mind that pot usage is way up in 2018....

Dan O'Dowd speculates that there is deal all but done:

BRAVES trade Tyler Flowers, Sean Newcomb, Kolby Allard and Austin Riley

MARLINS trade Christian Yellch, J.T. Realmuto, Martin Prado, Brad Ziegler and W.Y. Chen.

Holy mother of God, what a deal that would be. BUT I'm s little skeptical Braves would deal two lefties. Maybe Anderson stead Allard?

too good to be true

[Enscheff]

Probably. but the question is whether it would be smart for the Braves to pay that for a left fielder that projects to put up a low .800s OPS.

Again, if we didn't have a center fielder then I'd be all for investing that in Yellich. But he's not playing center with Ender around and probably not playing right with Acuna on the horizon. I think allotting that much of the payroll to a left fielder for the production he'd bring is a mistake.

Again, this notion that Yeluch is a good defender is silly. He is, at best, an average OF defender based on every metric available. In fact, he is a career negative in defensive value.

The bulk of his value comes from offense and base running. He is roughly 20% better than a league average hitter, and he's just now entering his prime.

He is an excellent player while not being a very good CFer. Not signing him because Inciarte is an elite defensive CFer is not logical.

[Enscheff]

Keeping in mind that pot usage is way up in 2018....

Dan O'Dowd speculates that there is deal all but done:

BRAVES trade Tyler Flowers, Sean Newcomb, Kolby Allard and Austin Riley

MARLINS trade Christian Yellch, J.T. Realmuto, Martin Prado, Brad Ziegler and W.Y. Chen.

Holy mother of God, what a deal that would be. BUT I'm s little skeptical Braves would deal two lefties. Maybe Anderson stead Allard?

Pretty sure this is the purely speculative trade proposal we have already been bashing at TC haha.

Mr. O'Dowd fails to understand the Braves can't take on $40M in 2018 salary to make this deal.

[msstate7]

Keeping in mind that pot usage is way up in 2018....

Dan O'Dowd speculates that there is deal all but done:

BRAVES trade Tyler Flowers, Sean Newcomb, Kolby Allard and Austin Riley

MARLINS trade Christian Yellch, J.T. Realmuto, Martin Prado, Brad Ziegler and W.Y. Chen.

Holy mother of God, what a deal that would be. BUT I'm s little skeptical Braves would deal two lefties. Maybe Anderson stead Allard?

Someone here would have a bowman size order of crow to eat if this is true. Not getting my hopes up though...

[msstate7]

About that this supposed trade... keep in mind that Newcomb was sitting at 100 mph against the Marlins (I was there). They might be higher on him than most haha

[striker42]

Again, this notion that Yeluch is a good defender is silly. He is, at best, an average OF defender based on every metric available. In fact, he is a career negative in defensive value.

The bulk of his value comes from offense and base running. He is roughly 20% better than a league average hitter, and he's just now entering his prime.

He is an excellent player while not being a very good CFer. Not signing him because Inciarte is an elite defensive CFer is not logical.

I think Yelich provides decent defense in center with a bat that is very much above average for that position. If you move him to left he'd probably be one of the better defensive left fielders but his bat would be much less special there.

I wouldn't be broken up about a Chen and Yelich trade. I just wonder if that's the best use of our resources.

[Enscheff]

I think Yelich provides decent defense in center with a bat that is very much above average for that position. If you move him to left he'd probably be one of the better defensive left fielders but his bat would be much less special there.

I wouldn't be broken up about a Chen and Yelich trade. I just wonder if that's the best use of our resources.

Can't fault you for that line of thinking. Any deal like that would almost certainly swap one of the current rotation members for Chen, and he will very likely be a downgrade for that rotation spot...while being vastly more expensive.

A trade involving Chen made more sense before the Braves acquired McCarthy and Kazmir. The Braves could have easily slid him into the rotation. The order of events makes me think a trade for Yelich/Prado/Chen with the Marlins was AA's first choice, but when they stalled after the Stanton backlash, AA moved onto his trade with the Dodgers and got McCarthy/Kazmir/Culberson.

Now a trade with the Marlins likely involves only Yelich and Prado, with the Braves sending a painful prospect package back the other way. It could happen, but it would hurt, and I still don't think the Braves would contend in 2018.

[Russ2dollas]

What about adding Realmuto as well?
If we were to add Yelich, Realmuto, and Frazier, I think we'd have a good shot at the playoffs. Our infield would be ridiculously good, and the outfield would become really good once Acuna came up. Would need some luck in the pitching deparment.

I'm thinking the upgrade from Flowers to realmuto isn't worth the cost.