So 50% of the last 4 years he was under 120 wRC+ but yet he is a lock to get 120. Thats odd to me.Originally Posted by zitothebrave
So 50% of the last 4 years he was under 120 wRC+ but yet he is a lock to get 120. Thats odd to me.
Natural Immunity Croc
blueagleace1 (12-30-2014), Heyward (12-30-2014)
Again, fluctuations from year to year can occur that defy the actual talent level that exists on your team. You could have improvements from the horrid players last year and another leap forward for a guy like Freeman. I'm just saying lets not act like its impossible for it to happen. I see the teams as being relatively the same. Infield defense will be better with the improvements at second and catcher and the outfield defense will be worse depending on who is starting in LF>
Natural Immunity Croc
Of course it's odd to you. Heyward is a career 117 WRC+ hitter. The only thing that will keep Heyward from being at least that in 2015 is if his decrease in power continues. I am of the belief that it will not. BTW Steamer projects a 127 WRC+ from Jason. Not surprising since Jason is begging to enter his prime. Jason is a good hitter who is getting better. The lack of power imo was a by product of getting hit in the face and being forced to be a leadoff hitter. His walk rate has stablized at a 10% clip and his strikeout rate has steadily decreased.
As far as your other post. Yes the Braves could be better offensively by the simple fact that you hope center, third, short, and second improve to the point where they atleast aren't the worst in baseball offensively. Still won't matter as we shipped out two of our three best position players and replaced them with guys who aren't like to be any better than average. And the other player (Gattis) will likely see and overall drop in production since he will have to play defense in the outfield which will kill his WAR value. It's going to be a tough year to watch.
We just see it differently. I don't think the player he was in his rookie season is going to show itself again based on what I've seen the last few years of him at the plate. Of course we could all cherry pick stats but his career production drops significantly if you exclude that year. Listen, I don't know much about the mechanics of hitting. I just know when I watch the Brave/Met games Keith Hernandez always talks about Heyward being robotic and that it will always cause him to have inconsistencies, especially against lefties. I'm just going to assume he knows what he is talking about and agree that Heyward will have major issues moving forward ever getting back to that magical rookie campaign he had.
Natural Immunity Croc
Creative sample and misuse of my words. I said he's a virtual lock to be around a 120 wRC+
His career his wRC+ has been
134
96
121
120
110
averaging out to 117.
Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg
Its probably even higher since his 96 year was in limited AB's. But even still, I just don't think we are ever going to see the rookie season Heyward again. Teams figured out what his happy zone was real quick.
Natural Immunity Croc
Infield defense MAY be better. Chris Johnson had his highest UZR of his career last year, he could easily regress. Simmons should be amazeballs. Freeman will keep being around the same levels. 2B is pretty debatable though, people have this image that our 2B sucked massively last year and they didn't. Our worst defensive 2B was Pastornicky and he could be getting a lot of PT this year. If Gosselin plays, our 2B will be a noticable improvement, likely the same with Peraza but IIRC he spent his whole career on the left side of the diamond, there's often growing pains when you move to the right. If we see a healthy dose of Alberto Callaspo at 2B our 2B defense could be worse than last year. Callaspo is a butcher on his career at 2B, Sampling issues of course but he has a -9.0 UZR/150 and he's been very negative from 2009 on. He's been primarily used at 3B for a reason.
If the Braves are smart and use Callaspo at 3B vs RH and sparingly at 2B our IF defense will be better. Knowing Fredi though, Callaspo will play about 60-70% of games at 2B.
At C I don't know if I can say we are improved. I haven't seen enough from Bethancourt to say he's for sure better than Gattis right now. Down the line he will be, but in 2015, I don't know. Bethancourt still has a lot of room to grow, he's not the Molina that scouts told me he would be. So maybe we're slightly better at C, maybe we're worse at 3B and 2B to counter that though. Potentially our IF defense could be much better if we utilize primarily Peraza and Gosselin at 2B and leave Callaspo to platoon with CJ. That being said, that may be a terrible platoon as Callaspo historically favors hitting from the right side.
I'm more confident in our IF defense not improving than I am in our offense not regressing.
Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg
Rookie season Heyward is arguably league MVP. Sure that's not MVP offensive numbers, but the guys like Trout, Cutch, and Miggy who're elite offensively are not elite defensively. If you have great offensive and elite defensive that's MVP. Saying you're bummed Jason isn't one of the best players in baseball, just in that next group is the ultimate good team problem. We'll be pining for the days when we considered Druw and Jason busts cause they only were great players, not Hall of Fame locks.
Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg
I've stated what I believe. I'm not for giving guys who primary value comes from defense and baserunning a second big time contract. I'd rather give guys who have proven they can hit consistently that big second deal. Just my philosophy.
Either way, the ultimate outcome for 2015 won't be any different. We weren't winning a world series with those players and we certainly aren't winning one without.
Natural Immunity Croc
Probablly not as I don't think we'll see him post a walk rate at 14% again. However his K rate could continue to decrease and his power should return and can improve to the post it boosts his overall offensive game tremoudsly.
He doesn't have to be the hitter he was as a rookie to be a good hitter or great player. Either way you look at it we lost a ton of production on both sides of the ball when we traded out Heyward. And it's going to be missed in 2015 and beyond.
Except Jason wouldn't be getting a big second deal. It would be his first. Your concerns might be justified if Heyward was about to be on the wrong side of 30 but he hasn't even started his prime yet. He is/was the perfect candidate to lock up.
Well, what I meant is that half of his deal will be on the wrong side of 30 where those defensive/base running values will be diminished and if he doesn't become a better hitter than his contract is going to look bad. Just my personal belief. I'm certainly not close to batting 1000 when it comes to baseball knowledge.
Natural Immunity Croc
If that were to happen in the second half of a big deal I don't think it would be that bad. Average players will be making 15-20 million by then.
We could have made the playoffs with Jason and Justin on this team and some creative GMing. Once you have a ticket to the dance who knows what can happen. See Royals and Giants this year. Everyone had other teams pegged to the finals, and they got hot at the right time.
And if we suck cause say Alex Wood gets hurt. How much do we lose by tradign Justin and Jason midseason? I think we still get a Shelby Miller type, and the top prospects we got from SD, so not that much in reality.
Ignoring what happened last year, you don't think that a team with Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, Julio Teheran, Alex Wood, Mike Minor, Justin Upton, Andrelton Simmons, Craig Kimbrel, Shae Simmons, Jordan Walden, etc. can't compete as one of the top 1/3 teams in the NL?
Looking at our budget going into last year we had About 80 million tied into our roster, locking in 8 players, only Walden, Carp and Minor as arb eligible assume they make about 9 million between the 3 of them, So our maximum starting salary would have been around 97 M, if we had 110-120 in the budget we have about 20M to play in FA. Our needs are SP, 3B, and 2B in that order. I assume we can sign Masterson and Floyd for about 15M, for about 3M or so bring back Kelly Johnson.
So this is your braves 25 man assuming health
C - Gattis
1B - Freeman
2B - TLS/Peraza platoon
3B - Johnson&Johnson platoon
SS - Simmons
LF - Justin
CF - Bossman
RF - Jason
Bench
Bethancourt (playing pretty regularly as a defensive replacement and to spell Gattis)
Johnson
Peraza
Gosselin
Cunningham (asusme he's the best 4th OF option)
Then you have the if BJ still sucks option 1.
C - Gattis
2B - TLS
CF - Peraza
Option 2
C - Bethancourt
LF - Gattis
CF - Jason
RF - Justin
And I mean really sucks. Don't want to expose a lesser player if I dont' have to. Lots of options there.
Rotation
Julio
Wood
Minor
Masterson
Floyd (or prospect)
Pen
Kimbrel
Walden
Simmons
Carpenter
Russell
Avilan/Shreve
Long man.
Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg
You have to be drinking some pretty strong koolaid to even entertain the idea that the Braves will be anything but terrible next year.
For every guy that is likely to improve, there is another guy likely to have a bad year or get hurt.
I would go ahead and bank on the Braves having a protected top 10 pick in the next draft after struggling to win 70 games.
I really do think these salaries are gonna level off pretty soon. Well at least for the average players. For the star players they will continues to get big deals, but at some point teams aren't going to invest that much more money on players that are marginal improvements at best. There just won't be the continued influx of revenue to sustain that.
After seeing the very underwhelming returns for Heyward and JUp, I think I would have rather seen Hart sign Masterson and Aoki, shift Heyward to CF, and take a shot in 2015.
As it currently stands the team is going to be awful in 2015, and I don't see much hope for being competitive by the magical 2017. The returns for Heyward and JUp just didn't provide enough talent to make a difference. The Braves got 6 (?) players back in total, and none of them are going to be role 6 position players. So where is that talent going to come from by 2017 with a barren farm system? The FA market where the Braves can't compete for top talent? Doubt it.
Last edited by Enscheff; 12-30-2014 at 11:44 AM.
That's my issue as well. If we got back a top 10 in baseball prospect fo each Justin and Jason, I'd be happy. Then we trade off Kimbrel and Gattis, put the money in the bank long term and we can maybe add 10-20 mil extra down the line. Instead we got a lot of question marks. In a vacuum I'm not 100% opposed to the Jason trade as a player for player trade, I am opposed to it from a fan/marketing standpoint. Jason was our most marketable player and we let him go without top return. We'll likely make out better long term, but sometimes trades have to be about more than just the player value. No matter how good Teixeira was and with prospect flameout, we were gonna get raped in that trade because Texas held Teixeira in a higher value. We sold Jason off for the first good package we received. It's likely to work out from a production standpoint, but it's not a trade that builds confidence in a franchise. Selling off one of your best players doesn't look good. That's what teams like the Marlins, As, etc. do.
Stockholm, more densely populated than NYC - sturg
Braves1976 (12-30-2014)
It likely will at some point but right now salaries are just out of control and going nowhere but up. I mean Markakis who is likely to be an average player at best scored a 4/44 deal. It's not hard to imagine that being 4/60 in 6 years. Inflation will play a part in it as well even if actual $/WAR levels off.
So... You'd be okay with a top 10 prospect that very well could never work out... But you're not happy with Shelby Miller... An already proven MLB pitcher who was a top 10 prospect... Hasn't hit his prime yet and has 6 years of control... Okay, that makes sense
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