Braves acquire RHP Touki Toussaint & Bronson Arroyo for Filthy Phil Gosselin

[jpx7]

All hail John Hart.

Not to go all [MENTION=7]thethe[/MENTION]: but damn.

[blueagleace1]

It amazes me the talent (75% prospects plus Miller, Maybin, and Peterson) we added to our organization over the last 8 months. I mean just the prospects alone are mind-blowing. I know that all of these won't pan out but just look at this list of prospects we've added...

1. Matt Wisler
2. Touki Toussaint
3. Mike Foltynewicz
4. Max Fried
5. Rio Ruiz
6. Richardo Sanchez
7. Manny Banuelos
8. Tyrell Jenkins
9. Arodys Vizcaino
10. Mallex Smith
11. Dustin Peterson
12. Andrew Thurman
13. Jose Briceno
14. Jordan Paroubeck
15. Daniel Winkler
16. Aaron Kurcz
17. Kolby Allard*
18. Mike Soroka*
19. Austin Riley*
20. Lucas Herbert*
21. A.J Minter*
22. Anthony Gaurdado*

*Players who were drafted this year, who should/has sign(ed), and should/could crack our Top 25 prospect list.



I mean that is an incredibly talented list of players, not to mention getting an ace in Miller, a leadoff bat and plus defender at 2nd in Peterson, and a resurgent former top prospect who could finally be displaying his true potential in Maybin, AND doing all this while remaining competitive. Say what you want about John Hart and Co. but he has turned this organization around. The future is bright in the ATL (or Cobb County haha)!!

[blueagleace1]

You suggested that the other day, didn't you?

Makes a lot of sense. Need help in the pen.

He'd be ideal to try my "two innings, not one" standard to try and take some strain off relief arms by having guys go two, pitch and warm up less often.

As much of sense as it makes, I just don't think we can give up on Folty as a starter with the stuff he possesses. I guess they could put him in the 'pen for the remainder of this season and let him go into 2016 and spring training as a starter.

[Heyward]

Joe Sheehan ‏@joe_sheehan
If the #Braves go 72-90, John Hart might still be Executive of the Year.

[CrimsonCowboy]

After reading more message board posting and tweets, have to do another one of these:
Braves fans:

Diamondbacks fans:

The rest of baseball:

[cajunrevenge]

So we could have Withrow and Arroyo back in September to help the pen.

[GovClintonTyree]

Interesting article on Touki's father, (Dany, Sr.)who was one of Aristide's lieutenants, before becoming his fall guy for lots of unsavory stuff:

http://www.aristide.org/articles/ToussaintCase.htm

There's more on him heading up Haiti's Secret Service, suspicion of murder of a political opponent (not charged), drug dealing and running for President of Haiti in 2006 in between stints, believe it or not, in exile working in a convenience store in Miami. It's often hard to tell the bad guys from the good in some of these Haitian twists and turns.

Toussaint L'Ouverture was the leader of the slave revolt in 1791 that resulted in Haiti being the first free black state in the Western Hemisphere. They're descended from him.

Apparently B-Ref has his name wrong, or it was changed. His given name is Dany, which might not have been a great survival strategy in some parts of Haiti - or South Florida, for that matter.

[GovClintonTyree]

It amazes me the talent (75% prospects plus Miller, Maybin, and Peterson) we added to our organization over the last 8 months. I mean just the prospects alone are mind-blowing. I know that all of these won't pan out but just look at this list of prospects we've added...

1. Matt Wisler
2. Touki Toussaint
3. Mike Foltynewicz
4. Max Fried
5. Rio Ruiz
6. Richardo Sanchez
7. Manny Banuelos
8. Tyrell Jenkins
9. Arodys Vizcaino
10. Mallex Smith
11. Dustin Peterson
12. Andrew Thurman
13. Jose Briceno
14. Jordan Paroubeck
15. Daniel Winkler
16. Aaron Kurcz
17. Kolby Allard*
18. Mike Soroka*
19. Austin Riley*
20. Lucas Herbert*
21. A.J Minter*
22. Anthony Gaurdado*

*Players who were drafted this year, who should/has sign(ed), and should/could crack our Top 25 prospect list.



I mean that is an incredibly talented list of players, not to mention getting an ace in Miller, a leadoff bat and plus defender at 2nd in Peterson, and a resurgent former top prospect who could finally be displaying his true potential in Maybin, AND doing all this while remaining competitive. Say what you want about John Hart and Co. but he has turned this organization around. The future is bright in the ATL (or Cobb County haha)!!

It's actually kind of remarkable for just the sheer amount of activity.

[goldfly]

Me reading about this trade:

[VirginiaBrave]

When we are hoisting the big trophy within the next 4-5 years, maybe multiple times we will all put John Hart on our favored Braves list ans he will earn his spot in Braves HOF. Pitching and depth the Braves Way...

[thethe]

I'm not even sure how to react to this deal. Looks like yet another steam from the powerhouse front office.

[smootness]

It amazes me the talent (75% prospects plus Miller, Maybin, and Peterson) we added to our organization over the last 8 months. I mean just the prospects alone are mind-blowing. I know that all of these won't pan out but just look at this list of prospects we've added...

1. Matt Wisler
2. Touki Toussaint
3. Mike Foltynewicz
4. Max Fried
5. Rio Ruiz
6. Richardo Sanchez
7. Manny Banuelos
8. Tyrell Jenkins
9. Arodys Vizcaino
10. Mallex Smith
11. Dustin Peterson
12. Andrew Thurman
13. Jose Briceno
14. Jordan Paroubeck
15. Daniel Winkler
16. Aaron Kurcz
17. Kolby Allard*
18. Mike Soroka*
19. Austin Riley*
20. Lucas Herbert*
21. A.J Minter*
22. Anthony Gaurdado*

*Players who were drafted this year, who should/has sign(ed), and should/could crack our Top 25 prospect list.



I mean that is an incredibly talented list of players, not to mention getting an ace in Miller, a leadoff bat and plus defender at 2nd in Peterson, and a resurgent former top prospect who could finally be displaying his true potential in Maybin, AND doing all this while remaining competitive. Say what you want about John Hart and Co. but he has turned this organization around. The future is bright in the ATL (or Cobb County haha)!!

It really is unbelievable. I get that we gave some real talent away, but one year of Jason Heyward, one year of Justin Upton, Evan Gattis, and Craig Kimbrel really shouldn't net you all of this.

I get that there will still be some who believe we should have stuck with what we had and tried to make a go of it again and then re-sign either Heyward or Upton, and that's a legitimate opinion to have. But one thing you can no longer take issue with is that we have gone all-in on the rebuild and done an incredible job of stockpiling young talent. You can disagree with the strategy, but you can't disagree with the execution.

I hated the Heyward move at the time and didn't like the idea of rebuilding, but then I took a step back and loved the Upton and Gattis deals on value alone (and the Heyward deal is a good one in hindsight). But I was still kind of on the fence because I thought we needed to go all-in and didn't really understand why we were hanging onto Kimbrel. Well, good grief, we have taken the plunge and it has turned out better than I could have hoped.

Adding Miller, Wisler, Fried, Folty, Toussaint, Sanchez, Jenkins, Banuelos, and Allard just from a pitching perspective in this short a time-frame is honestly kind of mind-boggling, to say nothing of Ruiz, Mallex, Peterson, Peterson, etc. It's just unbelievable at this point. Our farm system has to be considered an absolute top 3 in baseball now, especially with the guys the Cubs and Astros have graduated to the majors.

[Runnin]

The FO deserves credit not only for making this deal, but also for finding this deal in the first place. I'm excited to see what will happen in the next 42 days.

[thethe]

Do negabraves still exist?

[jpx7]

Do negabraves still exist?

Sure, such as that term deserves relevance—but this trade is nonetheless pretty much all-upside.

[blueagleace1]

One more point about this deal..

The only way we got Toussaint was to take Arroyo and his contract, which may seem like a lot of money to some at $9.5 million this year and $11 million next or a $4.5 million buyout. BUT when you factor in the pro-rated salary of this year (approx $5.5 million) plus the $4.5 million buyout (we all assume this is the route they take) that equals out to a TOTAL of $9 million for Arroyo. The kicker is the fact that Arizona gave Toussaint a $2.7 million signing bonus, so subtract that from the $9 million, which comes out to $6.3 million. So for all intensive purposes we got Arroyo and Toussaint for Phil Gosselin and $6.3 million.

Hope I didn't confuse anybody but I just wanted to point out the fact that Arizona just paid Toussaint a $2.7 million signing bonus.

I love the trade, although I (like many of you) like Goose better than Ciriaco and thought he could become a very good utility player such as Martin Prado.

[thethe]

This trade is very reminiscent of the type of trade that the OKC Thunder made when Presti took over. Absorb salary to get long term prospects.

The absolute best part about this deal for me is that it screams Liberty is willing to spend money. This is literally spending anywhere from 7-12M dollars on a baby that may or may not make anything. I think the true budget the Braves will have in the future is going to surprise some people. If the team makes the playoffs in 2016, which I believe they will, I can see the Braves having a payroll of 130+ going into the new stadium.

[Russ2dollas]

so we bought a top 100 prospect for 14 million?

[JCarbo76]

One more point about this deal..

The only way we got Toussaint was to take Arroyo and his contract, which may seem like a lot of money to some at $9.5 million this year and $11 million next or a $4.5 million buyout. BUT when you factor in the pro-rated salary of this year (approx $5.5 million) plus the $4.5 million buyout (we all assume this is the route they take) that equals out to a TOTAL of $9 million for Arroyo. The kicker is the fact that Arizona gave Toussaint a $2.7 million signing bonus, so subtract that from the $9 million, which comes out to $6.3 million. So for all intensive purposes we got Arroyo and Toussaint for Phil Gosselin and $6.3 million.

Hope I didn't confuse anybody but I just wanted to point out the fact that Arizona just paid Toussaint a $2.7 million signing bonus.

I love the trade, although I (like many of you) like Goose better than Ciriaco and thought he could become a very good utility player such as Martin Prado.

You didn't just say that, did you? You "should of" said "for all intents and purposes".

[thethe]

so we bought a top 100 prospect for 14 million?

Where are you getting 14?