Braves acquire Alex Jackson from SEA for Whalen and Povse

[rico43]

Sounds like all parties have agreed that Jackson will try out catching, and they have enlisted the help of a catcher conversion specialist.


http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/john-...-with-seattle/

Absolutely one of the most insightful interviews about the whys and wherefores of these trades. Kudos to fangraphs; they still know how to hire the best.

[rico43]

it is? this sounds like they realized they just went olivera 2.0 and are scrambling to figure out what to do.

in this era of defensive metrics concerning catchers, are any of you seriously believing that they can just make a catcher on the fly? give me a break.

i take everything back i say, i guess, if the DH gets abolished. otherwise, they've picked up a poor man's evan gattis who they hope to teach to play the hardest position on the diamond to play. good luck with that.

all that and povse is still going to be a 10 year mlb pitcher so there's that too.

You realize that Jackson was a catcher much of his amateur career? If you did and just posted that nonsense anyway, I admit that I have wasted a couple minutes of my life I shall never recover.

[cajunrevenge]

It can in no way be like the Olivera **** because we didn't trade even a top 10 prospect for Jackson and we don't owe him 30+ million for a prospect that is already 30 years old. If Jackson busts we are out almost nothing.

[Russ2dollas]

No idea if the kid can catch or not.

But Catcher has to be the worst position in baseball right now. If he can catch ok and run into 20 Hrs he's an avg starting catcher right?

Apparently everyone thought he could catch a couple of years ago. They just thought the bat was so good that they wanted him to move faster and be less injury prone.

Kid has an attitude history. Nothing fixes an attitude like having to block balls in the dirt.

I still don't get why ppl hate this trade so much. It's likely that this kid flames out of baseball in a couple of years. But if he harness either his HS potential to catch or any part of his bat it's a plus for the Braves. And in the rare chance he hits 50% of his potential or more with the glove and the bat then this goes in chapter 1 of Coppy's book.

[GovClintonTyree]

No idea if the kid can catch or not.

But Catcher has to be the worst position in baseball right now. If he can catch ok and run into 20 Hrs he's an avg starting catcher right?

Apparently everyone thought he could catch a couple of years ago. They just thought the bat was so good that they wanted him to move faster and be less injury prone.

Kid has an attitude history. Nothing fixes an attitude like having to block balls in the dirt.

I still don't get why ppl hate this trade so much. It's likely that this kid flames out of baseball in a couple of years. But if he harness either his HS potential to catch or any part of his bat it's a plus for the Braves. And in the rare chance he hits 50% of his potential or more with the glove and the bat then this goes in chapter 1 of Coppy's book.

It was a worthwhile trade. Happy to have him. I think what I said upthread was, I wish the price had been other than Povse. Surely we could have gotten there with other pitchers. But perhaps not. Certain people really like Povse. Maybe Jerry Dipoto is one of them.