I think there's a bit of a disconnect where people say Freeman is too good and valuable to be traded then turn around and say the Braves couldn't get value for Freeman in a trade.Originally Posted by 50PoundHead
Freeman is one of the top 20 offensive players in baseball. And his contract raises his value because, while he's paid well, he's paid reasonably through his prime and is controlled for for 4-5 more years. That has value to a team who is competing now. They can accept the possible performance decline 4-5 years from now for premium performance now. That talent profile is wasted on the Braves since his prime years will be when the rest of the Braves aren't good and when the rest of the Braves become good (theoretically) Freeman will begin an expensive decline.
Trading him this offseason if the right deal is available is better to me than at the trade deadline because it would free up money to allow the Braves to take on other money and talent from other organizations that are looking to shed payroll. So, for instance you trade Freeman, add the talent acquired from that, then make a trade with the Marlins for Ozuna (similar offensive talent to Freeman but at 1/2 the cost) PLUS other parts the Marlins want to shed like Tazawa at a reduced talent cost. Then, if you are AA, you turn around and move Ozuna for even more talent. Then when Tazawa, Markakis, etc - all the bad contracts that can't be moved this offseason get flushed out after 2018, AA has $50-$75M to spend in the best FA class of the last 20 years, right at the real emergence of the first wave of rebuild talent.
Taking that approach means 2018 is tanked. But that works as well since the punishment from MLB, whatever it is, will almost certainly affect cash available to spend (fines), loss of some talent that had been stockpiled for the rebuild, and likely exclusion from the International market for a period of time. If the Braves finish with a top 3 draft position in 2018, then that mitigates much of the desired effect of the MLB punishment.
I don't think you can take a linear approach to rebuilding, saying I've got my core (or base) so that's covered, now I have to add to that, etc over a period of five years. That approach doesn't account for the positive or negative associated with those counted on to be the "base." Players get older, play better, play worse, get injured, have personal issues, etc. Keeping Freeman, Inciarte, Teheran, etc (essentially all players who will either be too old or out of control by the time the team can expect an influx of young talent waves in concentration levels great enough to reasonably expect the team being good enough to begin a window of contention) creates the illusion of the team being better than it really is for the casual fan and provides some fan satisfaction achieved from individual performance, but really does very little to advance team goals which is to win a lot of games, pennants, WS.
AA is in a perfect situation to finish the rebuild in the right way given all the offseason negative publicity. He can say, with all the bad that's happened, we think we need to slow things down a bit, re-align, and move forward building the team that Atlanta needs.
As a comparison, look at Dale Murphy. He was one of the most valuable players in baseball and was kept through the majority of the late 80's Braves rebuild to keep packing in those 5,000 fans each night at FC. They trotted him out there until his skills fell off at 32 then tried to trade him and essentially got nothing back. Murphy wasn't around for the Braves success because the timing of his career was off from the timing of the Braves strategy. What if the Braves had traded him for an A ball Barry Bonds?
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