Kimbrel As A Trade Candidate

[Dalyn]

Im never a fan of trading our best hitters.

You do have to consider that aspect now. What would this lineup look like without our #4 and #5?

[UNCBlue012]

No clue why people still insist that the team needs to trade BJ/CJ.

It actually would be smart to keep BJ at least without eating any contract. If you're going to tank, at least tank and keep the money. But, I actually think BJ won't be too bad this year... and I'm serious. Not having JUP around will probably help exponentially. I could see .245/.320 with 15-20 homers and 30 steals.

[Knucksie]

I understand the logic of trading Kimbrel if we are blown away by a proposal that brings a TON of good young controllable talent back with high upside, you'd have to consider it...but I will say this

after watching Wohlers give up our back to back World Series
after watching Rocker give up the lead in a pivotal game 1 World Series 1999
after watching Kolb, Reitsma, & Wickman try to attempt to save games

all the while watching

Smoltz be automatic in a time when we no longer had the horses to carry us farther in the playoffs
the Yankees dynasty essentially being built on the reliability of closing games starting with Rivera/Wetteland and then Rivera
and now Kimbrel essentially being one of the best closers potentially of all time and one of the nastiest guys in the game

I just WOULDN'T do it. We are indeed building for the future, acquire the necessary talent to do so, and mesh it and built around one of the few givens in the organization right now...and that is GAME OVER night after night. It's easy to build a pen around guys like Smoltz, Wagner, & Kimbrel...and has a physiological effect on the entire team and pen when you know you have that guy and has an increase in returns.

Look at it this way...if the Braves had a more reliable option as closer (say Smoltz) in the 90's, we have 1996 WS in the bag. We probably have another one in addition to that. Without that slider hung to Leyritz, the history book would be considerably different today...I'm confident the Braves go on and continue to march towards more WS, all the while I doubt the Yanks dynasty happens. George was already putting pressure on Torre after going down 2 games in the 96 WS, and I think the organization instead of hanging on to their young core (Williams, Posada, Rivera, Jeter, etc) would have started trading some of those assets for more desirable known but past their prime guys. JS probably doesn't go into reinvent wheel the next spring training.

And Hart should understand all of this. The guy had the World Series trophy taken out of his hands in 1997...by you got it, Jose Mesa.

If he (or we) are confident that we can build a team that can get to that point (lead late in games in the World Series) then we need to keep the guy.

Ask the Tigers about having a viable closer. They've arguably built the one of the best well rounded teams in the game with offensive firepower and a phenominal starting rotation, but neglected the bullpen. If they had Joe Nathan (in his prime) a few years earlier they probably got a WS ring to show for it. Instead they tried to patch it with past their prime Joe Nathan, and look at how that worked out.

This is a lot to go through, but are you suggesting that Wohlers was at least part of the problem? He was still lights-out at the point in his career. In that game vs. the Yankees, it was more indicative of Cox's lack of confidence in the rest of the bullpen.

Nevertheless, as great as Kimbrel has become, there would be other serviceable options to fill that role, if he ever departed. WS champs do not necessarily require "elite" closers, esp. with the construction of the modern bullpen.

[Millwood1Hitter]

This is a lot to go through, but are you suggesting that Wohlers was at least part of the problem? He was still lights-out at the point in his career. In that game vs. the Yankees, it was more indicative of Cox's lack of confidence in the rest of the bullpen.

Nevertheless, as great as Kimbrel has become, there would be other serviceable options to fill that role, if he ever departed. WS champs do not necessarily require "elite" closers, esp. with the construction of the modern bullpen.

Even though he was most dominant, I was always on edge when Wohlers came into the game, I didn't trust the guy. To me, he didn't have the psychological edge needed to overcome extreme obstacles. Now you may say, that's easy to say, sitting here today knowing what transpired not only in that World Series and later when Wohlers completely lost it...but Wohlers was a one trick pony. Great fastball, average slider, ok split and mentally weak. Bobby knew it, the organization knew it, take the slightest of focus away from him and he was a trainwreck. One has to look no further than 1 year earlier in Game 4 of the 1995 World Series, guy looked like a deer in the headlights out there, and couldn't record an out in Cleveland and had to be rescued by Pedro Borbon. Despite being good, and having some dominant season's, Wohlers is not even in the same league compared to Smoltz & Kimbrel or Rivera or a number of other closers for other teams. In fact, he is indeed, a classic example of filling the closer's role with a lesser known talent. It ended up costing us.

Now, despite being in the middle of giving up the game and the WS, Mark was not the lone culprit or reason why we lost that World Series. That onus can go on a number of guys including Neagle not being able to get past the 5th with a big lead, Belliard bobbling the ball, and the failure of JS and the front office to put together a viable bullpen with a number of options to compliment that dominant starting staff to give Bobby late inning options. After Borbon went down, we had no other reliable late inning guy besides Bielacki, & Terrell Wade, of whom needed to be used because of Neagle's inability to get past the 5th. Who else was Bobby to go to...Brad Clontz, the guy that got clobbered the night before? Steve Avery was pretty much toast.

The Yanks had Rivera, we didn't. They also had Wetteland at the beginning of the dynasty, whom was better than any closer this organization had prior to Smoltz.. And the Yanks organization was also able to and smart enough to realize the importance of the middle innings, and filled it with guys like Lloyd, Stanton, Nelson, Grimsley, and Mendoza while our FO neglected it (and relied on Mazzone to reclaim scrap pieces off the garbage pile) and it cost us dearly year after year.