Waiver deals....

[Southcack77]

I dont think we will trade for or sign an elite catcher...the better course imo is to bring back two veterans like Flowers and Suzuki...not necessarily those two though

our organizational philosophy should be to grow our own stars and surround them with solid veterans that dont tie our hands financially...we should prioritize extenting guys like Acuna and Albies, presuming this can be done on team friendly terms

If you want to operate like a small market team, extending players probably isn't the best idea in terms of flexibility or maximizing their surplus value.

Better to pay them as little as possible and trade them when they get near the end of their control for other prospects.

The only exception being when a player is willing to sign away future years at what are clearly below market rates that would not be especially harmful to the club even in the worst case scenario.

[GeorgiaGirl]

If you decide to not go too far catcher wise and simply go cheaper veteran (Flowers...Hundley?), then you're kind of playing with fire with your offense. After Freeman and Acuna/Albies hopefully, it's a bunch of ???? given age (if Markakis is returning), and questions about hitting a side of pitching (Camargo, Swanson, Inciarte).

Catcher is trash though today, so maybe it doesn't mean much.

[thewupk]

The second part is not a particularly realistic scenario if you are especially worried about it.

I'm not.

[Southcack77]

If you decide to not go too far catcher wise and simply go cheaper veteran (Flowers...Hundley?), then you're kind of playing with fire with your offense. After Freeman and Acuna/Albies hopefully, it's a bunch of ???? given age (if Markakis is returning), and questions about hitting a side of pitching (Camargo, Swanson, Inciarte).

Catcher is trash though today, so maybe it doesn't mean much.

Correct. Maybe you pick a good pair of platoon candidates and get lucky, but you are probably putting a ceiling of average offense (roughly what the Braves are getting this year) out of the position. Realistically, you are probably going to be below average.

That is going to put more pressure on your third OF spot, your 3B, SS, and CF offense.

But it is absolutely fine if that's what you want to do at catcher. You might want to upgrade the other positions though regardless of how much confidence you have in internal options to far exceed their expected results.

Or not. Just tread water and hope for good luck and content yourself with the fact you've followed these prospects' careers from start to finish and get to see them play out.

[thewupk]

Correct. Maybe you pick a good pair of platoon candidates and get lucky, but you are probably putting a ceiling of average offense (roughly what the Braves are getting this year) out of the position. Realistically, you are probably going to be below average.

That is going to put more pressure on your third OF spot, your 3B, SS, and CF offense.

But it is absolutely fine if that's what you want to do at catcher. You might want to upgrade the other positions though regardless of how much confidence you have in internal options to far exceed their expected results.

Or not. Just tread water and hope for good luck and content yourself with the fact you've followed these prospects' careers from start to finish and get to see them play out.

I'd be surprised if the Braves don't try to add an OF or 3B bat in the offseason. Spending money/prospects isn't an issue. Doing it at catcher is.

[Enscheff]

Paying market value for Realmuto in prospects and then possibly in money isn't the best use of resources of Braves. Pass.

Agreed. The silly "only trade him if we can extend him" narrative is truly head scratching.

[Enscheff]

I fully expect the Braves to be in the hunt for Grandal until the very end. Ultimately they probably won't be the ones who give out another huge deal to a 30 year old catcher...which is probably a good thing.

I'm guessing they focus on a stopgap at 3B, and go big in LF/RF....like Pollock.

[DirkPiggler]

Agreed. The silly "only trade him if we can extend him" narrative is truly head scratching.

Especially when you add the "48 hour negotiating window" as a condition of a trade, which has to my knowledge never happened even once.

[Enscheff]

Especially when you add the "48 hour negotiating window" as a condition of a trade, which has to my knowledge never happened even once.

I'm sure it happened a few times, but folks around here toss that inane idea around like it happens all the time.

Teams trade for a player's surplus value. The honor of signing them to a market rate extension does not increase that value in any way. Players are not going to give up their chance to test the FA market and sign a team friendly extension with a team they have never even played for after talking to them for 48 hours.

As you said, it simply doesn't happen, so it's silly to mention it as a plausible scenario in trade talks.

[nsacpi]

If you want to operate like a small market team, extending players probably isn't the best idea in terms of flexibility or maximizing their surplus value.

depends on the details...but the deals we made with Freeman, Simmons, Kimbrel, Inciarte all enhanced their value.

[jpx7]

Or not. Just tread water and hope for good luck and content yourself with the fact you've followed these prospects' careers from start to finish and get to see them play out.

I’m not against pushing chips in. I just don’t think Realmuto is the guy.

[Perfect Cell]

Pass on Realmuto. If we can get Donaldson though id go for it.

[Southcack77]

I’m not against pushing chips in. I just don’t think Realmuto is the guy.

I'm not sure either.

I'm just trying to lay out the realistic options. At catcher.

And pointing out that the Braves can't really afford to have offensive question marks all over the back half of their lineup if their aspirations are to win championships.

People seem extremely confident in the Braves prospects and current players' ability to outperform all realistic expectations to the extent that no major additions are necessary or advisable.

Cool, we have a term for that.

[mfree80]

Especially when you add the "48 hour negotiating window" as a condition of a trade, which has to my knowledge never happened even once.

I remember a guy named Green (Shaun maybe?). Outfielder who was traded for with the negotiating window and agreed to a deal. Hasn't happened often though.

[Southcack77]

depends on the details...but the deals we made with Freeman, Simmons, Kimbrel, Inciarte all enhanced their value.

I'd argue Inciarte, Chris Johnson, and Teheran were not good decisions.

the others seem to be good decisions.

Rather not argue about value, because I just don't want to talk about those trades again.

[Enscheff]

I'd argue Inciarte, Chris Johnson, and Teheran were not good decisions.

the others seem to be good decisions.

Rather not argue about value, because I just don't want to talk about those trades again.

Hindsight...

You seem to make a lot of evaluations based solely on it.

Inciarte and Teheran were perfectly good value extensions. The CJ one was terrible, and we knew it the moment it happened.

[Carp]

Especially when you add the "48 hour negotiating window" as a condition of a trade, which has to my knowledge never happened even once.

Last time I remember it happening was the Johan Santana trade.

[Southcack77]

[QUOTE=Enscheff;525079]Hindsight...


We weren't discussing our powers of prognostication.

We were discussing whether it would be wise for the Braves to pursue a strategy of increasing and guaranteeing their short term obligations to players in their control years in exchange for obtaining some future years of control.

It was suggested that some of the Braves past contracts were examples of the positive aspects of pursuing extensions. I pointed out that there were other examples and suggested that not all of the contracts cited ended up being great deals.

It's precisely not the point what anyone thought about them at the time.

My point, which wasn't difficult to comprehend, is that I would not give extensions to players unless I felt I was getting a significant discount on the lower end of probable performance for that player.

Otherwise, I would suck the surplus value out of the players and toss away their desiccated corpses, or I would move them on to some other team to restock my farm system or for MLB players with more control.

In this exercise, we are under the assumption that we are operating the Braves like a small market team, for whatever reason.

[Carp]

I'd argue Inciarte, Chris Johnson, and Teheran were not good decisions.

the others seem to be good decisions.

Rather not argue about value, because I just don't want to talk about those trades again.

Other than CJ, those deals were most certainly great deals. JT and Inciarte may be declining now, but there is zero denying that their extensions created much more value to them at the time they were signed.

[Deester11]

Hindsight...

You seem to make a lot of evaluations based solely on it.

Inciarte and Teheran were perfectly good value extensions. The CJ one was terrible, and we knew it the moment it happened.

Have to agree. Whatever southcrack thinks of julio right now, it was the right move.