Mallex Smith

[nsacpi]

1) and not necessarily wrong, either, especially if the pitching you're being offered provides a higher upside than the hitting being offered.

2) this pretty closely coincides with point #1.

Teams win championships on the heels of pitching all the time.
And still none of this supports the idea that Hart and the FO suddenly just realized offense was part of baseball, too; it's just a different approach, and stocking up on pitching is hardly a new, or previously unsuccessful, strategy.

Well, we will have an opportunity this off-season to double down on the pitching strategy because there should be a glut of FA starting pitching.

[yeezus]

Well, we will have an opportunity this off-season to double down on the pitching strategy because there should be a glut of FA starting pitching.

Not necessarily a ton of great SP, though.
TOR starters are not plentiful.
Guys with a .750 OPS like JUp are more prevalent.

[nsacpi]

this is also a key point: we didn't have much of that "abundant" pitching (and I think the abundance is overstated by some). our organization needed a lot of things, pitching definitely being one of them. building on pitching is not a crazy idea.

Abundant is I suppose a subjective word.

I will toss out a few names that I think will show that we maybe overcompensated for any perceived shortage of pitching in our system: Miller, Jenkins, Fried, Foltynevich, Wisler, Banuelos, Sanchez, Thurman, Toussaint, Gant, Whalen, Winkler, Vizcaino.

I will offer an analogy: foreign exchange rates. You can think of pitchers as the euro and hitters as the dollar. It doesn't really matter whether you stock up on hitters and pitchers in a world where the exchange rate is fairly stable. But when it is shifting in one direction or another you can get whipsawed. All of the euros you might have accumulated over a period might bring back significantly fewer dollars when you try to exchange them. You can keep doubling down and keep buying euros in the firm belief that it will recover. We will have an opportunity to do that this off-season. Or you can change your mind and decide that those bats (dollars) are hard to get and you better cash in those euros even if the exchange rate has moved against you. I think we started to see this realization with the Olivera trade.

[Tapate50]

Abundant is I suppose a subjective word.

I will toss out a few names that I think will show that we maybe overcompensated for any perceived shortage of pitching in our system: Miller, Jenkins, Fried, Foltynevich, Wisler, Banuelos, Sanchez, Thurman, Toussaint, Gant, Whalen, Winkler.

I will offer an analogy: foreign exchange rates. You can think of pitchers as the euro and hitters as the dollar. It doesn't really matter whether you stock up on hitters and pitchers in a world where the exchange rate is fairly stable. But when it is shifting in one direction or another you can get whipsawed. All of the euros you might have accumulated over a period might bring back significantly fewer dollars when you try to exchange them.

Arent you the one that says we lose one quality pitching prospect as they move up a level, and use 8-9 throughout the year?

[sturg33]

I swear, any questioning of the FO strategy is met with vicious defense

[gilesfan]

To get back to the topic, I think Smith will/could be fine IF he can play CF and IF he can slot as a lead off guy. If he can't do that, then he has very little value as a starter for the Braves.

That's a good point. There is a fine line between a Eury Perez and a Mallex Smith; you hope you can get a starting CF out of the deal. If not, he's pretty worthless.

[yeezus]

I swear, any questioning of the FO strategy is met with vicious defense

is a message board not for discussing this type of thing, though? why do you complain about it? when something is said and someone disagrees, it's talked about. "vicious" is extreme. but, welcome to the internet.

[nsacpi]

Arent you the one that says we lose one quality pitching prospect as they move up a level, and use 8-9 throughout the year?

Yup.

[gilesfan]

The Cubs won't do anything till they get some pitching.

They have the 5th best pitching staff in the league behind Cards, Dodger, Mets, Nats. I really don't understand why people think the Cubs have bad pitching. (not to single you out)

[gilesfan]

Their pitching will be fine. They're 5th in the NL in runs allowed and have allowed 73 fewer than we have. Arrieta and Lester should anchor their rotation for the next several years, and all they really need is 1-2 pretty good options after that, which shouldn't be difficult to find given their money and assets.

They're just waiting now for their bats to all graduate and get some experience. In 2-3 years, their worst bats will be Castro, Russell, and Billy McKinney. That is crazy; I would give them a ton if they would give us just one of Russell and McKinney, and that's about the worst their lineup will get. And they'll have Rizzo-Bryant-Schwarber in the middle. It's going to be crazy.

The Cubs are buying a starter away from being the best team in baseball and they will have a ton of options to choose from.

[Tapate50]

I swear, any questioning of the FO strategy is met with vicious defense

Wanna talk about whats getting old....

[yeezus]

Abundant is I suppose a subjective word.

I will toss out a few names that I think will show that we maybe overcompensated for any perceived shortage of pitching in our system: Miller, Jenkins, Fried, Foltynevich, Wisler, Banuelos, Sanchez, Thurman, Toussaint, Gant, Whalen, Winkler, Vizcaino.

I will offer an analogy: foreign exchange rates. You can think of pitchers as the euro and hitters as the dollar. It doesn't really matter whether you stock up on hitters and pitchers in a world where the exchange rate is fairly stable. But when it is shifting in one direction or another you can get whipsawed. All of the euros you might have accumulated over a period might bring back significantly fewer dollars when you try to exchange them. You can keep doubling down and keep buying euros in the firm belief that it will recover. We will have an opportunity to do that this off-season. Or you can change your mind and decide that those bats (dollars) are hard to get and you better cash in those euros even if the exchange rate has moved against you. I think we started to see this realization with the Olivera trade.

I don't think many people feel we have a shortage of pitching anymore. We most definitely did before the trades, though. We had very little, and even less with TOR upside.

Your analogy may work in a vacuum. When you have next to no high-upside young pitching, and you're being offered that high-upside pitching in exchange for your bats that will likely be leaving in a year, it makes sense to take it over the lower-upside bats possibly being offered (especially if you like the idea of building on pitching, which many teams do, and many teams win with).

[nsacpi]

That's a good point. There is a fine line between a Eury Perez and a Mallex Smith

At age 22 Eury slashed .333/.373/.390 in AAA, with some impressive stolen base stats.

[Tapate50]

No one is being vicious, and no one is defending. There are many different perfectly acceptable ways to view rebuilding this team. Throwing everyone who disagrees with you into the "sheep" category is getting old. Plenty of people don't think so.

We had no pitching in the minors and could have spent on FA's, but the budget as it was didn't allow that. We needed all aspects of the game to supplement the lack of depth in the system. Pitching is whats been sold, because position players probably weren't being offered much. To assume we weren't interested in position players is just a bit short sighted and naïve.

[yeezus]

Luckily the Cubbies have $$$ to spend, unlike us. "Luckily" they got the #2 and #4 picks in great drafts (and Schwarber fell to 4). They still have very little young pitching, and I think it will hurt them. But we'll see.

[gilesfan]

At age 22 Eury slashed .333/.373/.390 in AAA, with some impressive stolen base stats.

Yeah, I know. That's further proof.

[sturg33]

I think Hart traded a lot of bats for a lot of pitchers. Now we're struggling to find bats.

Is that fair?

[nsacpi]

I don't think many people feel we have a shortage of pitching anymore. We most definitely did before the trades, though. We had very little, and even less with TOR upside.

Your analogy may work in a vacuum. When you have next to no high-upside young pitching, and you're being offered that high-upside pitching in exchange for your bats that will likely be leaving in a year, it makes sense to take it over the lower-upside bats possibly being offered (especially if you like the idea of building on pitching, which many teams do, and many teams win with).

And we shouldn't be surprised that taking this approach eventually culminates in trading Alex Wood for Olivera.

[nsacpi]

I think Hart traded a lot of bats for a lot of pitchers. Now we're struggling to find bats.

Is that fair?

It seems rather obvious that this is what has happened.

[yeezus]

At age 22 Eury slashed .333/.373/.390 in AAA, with some impressive stolen base stats.

IMO Mallex's AA stats this year are far more impressive than Eury's that year.