Nick Swisher is thrilled the Braves released him...

[goldfly]

Nick Swisher is thrilled the Braves released him

Tim Casey of Vice Sports spoke with Nick Swisher, who is currently at Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre in the Yankees organization, waiting for his shot. It’s been a rough couple of years for Swisher in which he’s suffered through knee injuries, ineffectiveness and anger from Indians fans for not living up to the contract the club gave him.

He was shuffled off to Atlanta last year, played poorly and did not make the team out of spring training this year. But he’s still happy that the Braves, the worst baseball team in over a decade and serious contenders to be the worst baseball team in the modern era, thought that he wasn’t good enough:

“Being released by the Braves in the long run is gonna be the best thing that ever happened to me, man . . . I’m actually happy that it did happen because after seeing what’s going on over there, I don’t know if that’s where I would want to be right now.”

Guy is stuck in Scranton and, at best, has the chance to be a bench bat for a last place Yankees team and he’s still happy he’s not in Atlanta. Man, what a year.

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/05/12/...artner=ya5nbcs

[thewupk]

we are horrible

[nsacpi]

The FO will have quite a selling job to do this off-season if they elect to do anything but bottom-fishing in the FA market.

[mfree80]

And despite those who believe the young future stars should not be up this year... This is exactly why they should. The Braves need to show that the rebuild is proceeding and to show there is hope on the horizon.

[nsacpi]

I wonder if it will be harder or easier to get players like Prado and McCann (who has a no trade) to come back to Atlanta. They experienced some good times here, but I have the feeling there has been a long-term reputational cost from what the FO has done in recent years.

[Julio3000]

And despite those who believe the young future stars should not be up this year... This is exactly why they should. The Braves need to show that the rebuild is proceeding and to show there is hope on the horizon.

I just do not understand this reasoning at all.

[Preacher]

And despite those who believe the young future stars should not be up this year... This is exactly why they should. The Braves need to show that the rebuild is proceeding and to show there is hope on the horizon.

And this is why rebuilds tend to fail, people get too caught up in the short term.

If you don't have the patience to see this through; then what was the point in doing it?

[57Brave]

there is a reason Swisher is in Scranton playing AAA hoping for a call up to (the not that much better than the Braves) Yankees instead of in KC

Scratch the surface little deeper and we would see Nick Swisher is fulla **** and had it been offered would be playing in Richmond.
hoping for a call up the the Braves.

[mfree80]

I just do not understand this reasoning at all.

Nsacpi is suggesting that no good FA's will sign with the Braves as now constituted. That is correct. I believe they will however, consider signing with a young team with promise that needs a couple of good FA's to turn the corner to competitiveness.

I think the FO wants to send a message that the rebuild is working by putting a better team on the field later this year than what we see now.

[nsacpi]

Nsacpi is suggesting that no good FA's will sign with the Braves as now constituted. That is correct. I believe they will however, consider signing with a young team with promise that needs a couple of good FA's to turn the corner to competitiveness.

I think the FO wants to send a message that the rebuild is working by putting a better team on the field later this year than what we see now.

They will have a selling job to do. The sales pitch could take the form of moolah or it could take the form of powerpoint presentation outlining what is coming up through the farm system or some other form.

The thing I wonder about is the message perceived by how quickly they moved Kimbrel and Simmons after they signed extensions. There wasn't a no-trade in those extensions but there is an implicit commitment by the parties when those kinds of deals are made. Now its caveat emptor. Maybe it is the reason why no attempt was made to extent Miller, though that turned out well. I wonder if Inciarte or Vizcaino would entertain an extension this off-season.

[smootness]

Richmond

.....

[smootness]

Free agents sign with bad teams all the time. And I think most players understand what we're doing and what we have coming soon.

[Julio3000]

Free agents sign with bad teams all the time. And I think most players understand what we're doing and what we have coming soon.

Yeah. MLB players may not be the brightest, on the whole, but they've mostly mastered the concept of object permanence. They don't have to see Dansby Swanson playing SS for the Braves in order to believe that he exists.

But taking your reasoning a tad further, mfree—signing some second-tier FA in the winter of 2016 is worth shortening the effective competitive window for the team?

[50PoundHead]

And I'm glad the Braves released Nick Swisher.

[Julio3000]

And I'm glad the Braves released Nick Swisher.

Yeah, I'm thrilled we released him, too, as far as that goes. Win-win.

[The Chosen One]

I just do not understand this reasoning at all.

I do.

Getting an extra year out of a player isn't going to really help us if we can't afford them. If Liberty doesn't pony up and splurge, we're not gonna be able to extent Dansby, Ozzie, Wisler, Blair, etc. We're gonna be in the same situation in 5 years as 2014. Try to keep one good player out of the core and trade away the rest. Hopefully the FO will have drafted better by then so we don't need to trade everyone.

Lastly our clock has already started. Someone mentioned here a few weeks ago that for pitchers, their clock starts immediately because their arms are gonna bust bad at some point. We can't realistically expect all of Folty, Wisler, Blair, Newcomb, Sims, Jenkins to 1) Be productive major league staraters and 2) All of them will survive and stay healthy (no tj or shoulder surgeries). Considering our track record lately we have the worst count in baseball in terms of TJ

So with that being said, because of the fact our young pitchers are questionable, I'd rather our best prospects that are super close to the bigs go ahead and get their bumps and bruises here instead of AA and AAA.

I always wonder what would have happened if Medlen, Minor, and Beachy didn't get hurt so much. I don't think Wren would have gotten canned yet and I don't think they would have broken up the band so soon.

[mqt]

I do.

Getting an extra year out of a player isn't going to really help us if we can't afford them. If Liberty doesn't pony up and splurge, we're not gonna be able to extent Dansby, Ozzie, Wisler, Blair, etc. We're gonna be in the same situation in 5 years as 2014. Try to keep one good player out of the core and trade away the rest. Hopefully the FO will have drafted better by then so we don't need to trade everyone.

Lastly our clock has already started. Someone mentioned here a few weeks ago that for pitchers, their clock starts immediately because their arms are gonna bust bad at some point. We can't realistically expect all of Folty, Wisler, Blair, Newcomb, Sims, Jenkins to 1) Be productive major league staraters and 2) All of them will survive and stay healthy (no tj or shoulder surgeries). Considering our track record lately we have the worst count in baseball in terms of TJ

So with that being said, because of the fact our young pitchers are questionable, I'd rather our best prospects that are super close to the bigs go ahead and get their bumps and bruises here instead of AA and AAA.

I always wonder what would have happened if Medlen, Minor, and Beachy didn't get hurt so much. I don't think Wren would have gotten canned yet and I don't think they would have broken up the band so soon.

I disagree with the idea behind the bolded. The fact that we can't extend the entire core is exactly why managing their service time becomes so crucial. If Swanson is what we think he can be, I'd want to maximize the amount of prime years we get from him since extending him would be crazy expensive in that scenario. I don't mind letting a couple of the pitchers get their lumps this year, but the top-end talent like Swanson and Albies I want nowhere near Atlanta this year.

[bravesnumberone]

I would be thrilled too if a team was paying me 15 million not to play for them because they were damn dumb enough to take on it.

[Julio3000]

I do.

Getting an extra year out of a player isn't going to really help us if we can't afford them. If Liberty doesn't pony up and splurge, we're not gonna be able to extent Dansby, Ozzie, Wisler, Blair, etc. We're gonna be in the same situation in 5 years as 2014. Try to keep one good player out of the core and trade away the rest. Hopefully the FO will have drafted better by then so we don't need to trade everyone.

Lastly our clock has already started. Someone mentioned here a few weeks ago that for pitchers, their clock starts immediately because their arms are gonna bust bad at some point. We can't realistically expect all of Folty, Wisler, Blair, Newcomb, Sims, Jenkins to 1) Be productive major league staraters and 2) All of them will survive and stay healthy (no tj or shoulder surgeries). Considering our track record lately we have the worst count in baseball in terms of TJ

So with that being said, because of the fact our young pitchers are questionable, I'd rather our best prospects that are super close to the bigs go ahead and get their bumps and bruises here instead of AA and AAA.

I always wonder what would have happened if Medlen, Minor, and Beachy didn't get hurt so much. I don't think Wren would have gotten canned yet and I don't think they would have broken up the band so soon.

But to bring them up for what amounts to public relations? Seems like the antithesis of strategy. It would be hard to believe folks who say they have a plan if they made a knee-jerk move like that.

[thewupk]

I disagree with the idea behind the bolded. The fact that we can't extend the entire core is exactly why managing their service time becomes so crucial. If Swanson is what we think he can be, I'd want to maximize the amount of prime years we get from him since extending him would be crazy expensive in that scenario. I don't mind letting a couple of the pitchers get their lumps this year, but the top-end talent like Swanson and Albies I want nowhere near Atlanta this year.

I agree with this. Also the idea of staggering your call ups makes sense too. Whenever it happens I don't want Albies and Swanson to come up at the same time. Half a season of service time at the least just so they don't even hit arbitration at the same time. This is what mid market teams like Atlanta have to take into consideration if they want to remain consistently competitive. Playing the service time game is something that they have to exploit going forward.