Braves Trade Heyward, Walden to Cardinals for Miller and Tyrell Jenkins

It still amazes me that some people just wanted to give Heyward a blank check. Yes his defense is elite and he's young. But what if his bat stays the same and doesn't progress? Bc his defense will decline one day (father time catches everybody), we can't pay somebody 20+ million a year for potential. Somebody will overpay for him but I'm glad it's not us. We see what bad contracts are like now and how it's handcuffed us.
 
Heyward contract would never have been the albatross that BJ and Uggla were but it was still the smart move to make this deal.
 
I don't know if Hart stops here, but if he does, he's cleared an everyday spot for Gattis. Our real problem is the ****ty Upton. I wouldn't mind signing Bonifacio to play center, trading Melvin and eating $40m of salary. Reading the tea leaves, that's not where we're going.

Where I think he's going is to give Peraza 2B - job is his to lose - and give Seitzer a shot at fixing Melvin and CJ. I think there's a very good chance he reaches CJ. If we get to Memorial Day and Mel is at a buck-eighty, they'll put a replacement level guy there. I'd like to resign Bonifacio for a lot of reasons, that being the chief one.

Peraza 2B
JUpton RF
Freeman 1B
Gattis LF
CJohnson 3B
Simmons SS
Bethancourt C
MUpton CF
P
 
Precisely. Braves did this because they read the tea leaves and it was clear Heyward was not going to take any less than market value.

I think it was clear the year before he intended to get paid. He may have loved Atlanta, but we offer $120m and the Yanks offer $160m, that love ain't gonna matter.
 
Our OF defense is going to suffer a bi next year. Heyward is that good out there. He will be missed but again the return for one year of Heyward was very solid.
 
I don't know if Hart stops here, but if he does, he's cleared an everyday spot for Gattis. Our real problem is the ****ty Upton. I wouldn't mind signing Bonifacio to play center, trading Melvin and eating $40m of salary. Reading the tea leaves, that's not where we're going.

Where I think he's going is to give Peraza 2B - job is his to lose - and give Seitzer a shot at fixing Melvin and CJ. I think there's a very good chance he reaches CJ. If we get to Memorial Day and Mel is at a buck-eighty, they'll put a replacement level guy there. I'd like to resign Bonifacio for a lot of reasons, that being the chief one.

Peraza 2B

JUpton RF

Freeman 1B

Gattis LF

CJohnson 3B

Simmons SS

Bethancourt C

MUpton CF

P

Relative to last year's team, we've replaced Heyward with Bethancourt and the hydra at second with Peraza. I think Peraza will give up more than the hydra but not enough to make up for the dropoff from Heyward to Bethancourt. Of course better seasons from the holdovers could help narrow the gap. I think Simmons and Chris Johnson should bounce back to something about midway their 2013 and 2014 hitter performances. The most obvious candidate for a positional upgrade is center. I would be satisfied with just simply moving a chunk of BJ's contract but we may be able to upgrade as well.
 
it was still the smart move to make this deal.

How's the Kool-Aid this AM?

John Hart is like Jim Jones. Or John Schuerholz, considering he's actually the one who successfully duped us all into believing that being pilfered by your enemy is a natural byproduct of poor decision making.

It's little wonder to me, anymore, why the media and pundits deride the Atlanta fanbase for being lazy and uninvolved.

Bottoms up.
 
Just because you don't recognize that Miller and Jenkins have great value doesn't mean that baseball people don't. They do, they are controllable and have high ceilings.

We did well to get that much from one year of Jason honestly.

It is very apparent that baseballs view of Heywards value is very different from what this board thinks it is.

This is so. Nobody doesn't like Heyward, but he didn't- and likely won't- become what we all hoped in 2009. This is a good deal with a chance to be an excellent deal.
 
How's the Kool-Aid this AM?

John Hart is like Jim Jones. Or John Schuerholz, considering he's actually the one who successfully duped us all into believing that being pilfered by your enemy is a natural byproduct of poor decision making.

It's little wonder to me, anymore, why the media and pundits deride the Atlanta fanbase as being lazy and uninvolved.

Bottoms up.

Yeah, lets keep Heyward for one more year and lose him for a draft pick. Now thats a winning formula!
 
How's the Kool-Aid this AM?

John Hart is like Jim Jones. Or John Schuerholz, considering he's actually the one who successfully duped us all into believing that being pilfered by your enemy is a natural byproduct of poor decision making.

It's little wonder to me, anymore, why the media and pundits deride the Atlanta fanbase as being lazy and uninvolved.

Bottoms up.

If Shelby Miller wins 60 games with a 3.25 FIP over the next four years and Heyward signs with the Yanks next year, who got hosed?

If Walden stays injured forever and Jenkins becomes anything, that's just the turbocharger on the deal. We didn't get hosed. Enough with the epic fleecing language.
 
Relative to last year's team, we've replaced Heyward with Bethancourt and the hydra at second with Peraza. I think Peraza will give up more than the hydra but not enough to make up for the dropoff from Heyward to Bethancourt. Of course better seasons from the holdovers could help narrow the gap. I think Simmons and Chris Johnson should bounce back to something about midway their 2013 and 2014 hitter performances. The most obvious candidate for a positional upgrade is center. I would be satisfied with just simply moving a chunk of BJ's contract but we may be able to upgrade as well.

Good analysis. Hart also points out that "some guys just need to play better."
 
If Shelby Miller wins 60 games with a 3.25 FIP over the next four years and Heyward signs with the Yanks next year, who got hosed?

If Walden stays injured forever and Jenkins becomes anything, that's just the turbocharger on the deal. We didn't get hosed. Enough with the epic fleecing language.

Wouldn't that depend on how St. Louis performs in 2015? Their GM acknowledges the trade was a short term gain.

Have you been sucked up into that vacuum of 'future ready' vapidity as well?
 
St Louis is alot closer to winning a WS than we are/were. So them going for it makes more sense then us keeping him and repeating 2014.
 
for stud pitchers.

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If Shelby Miller wins 60 games with a 3.25 FIP over the next four years and Heyward signs with the Yanks next year, who got hosed?

If Walden stays injured forever and Jenkins becomes anything, that's just the turbocharger on the deal. We didn't get hosed. Enough with the epic fleecing language.

I think there is some upside from Miller and Jenkins as you describe. The most likely outcome however is that Miller is a 2-2.5 WAR pitcher per year while with us and that Jenkins does not pan out. In that scenario we get a surplus (Miller's output minus his salary) of 5 WAR. The Cardinals get Heyward's surplus this year of about 3 WAR (he is being paid as a 1.5 WAR player and I'm expecting him to be a 4.5 WAR player) plus a surplus of about 1 WAR from Walden over his two years of contractual control, plus the value of a the draft pick which from the various studies I've looked at is worth about 2 WAR. So the Cardinals net 6 and we net 5 WAR. Those are obviously my estimates. Other people will have a different view.

There are two other aspects to this. One is upside and downside relative to the point estimates. I think our end of the deal has more of both because of the longer period we have the players under contractual control. The other is the discount factor. Most of the surplus for the Cards will accrue in 2015. Ours is more spread out over the future, so you want to discount that to some extent.

Bottom line is that this trade is more favorable for the Cardinals.

I like doing this kind of analysis because it takes the emotion out of it. Heyward has been my favorite Brave the past few years. I can see his flaws as a player as well as his strengths. But I liked the way he played and how much he cared. I tried not to let that enter into the assessment above. As I noted, other people could reasonably reach different conclusions about the appropriate valuations of the players involved as well as the draft pick. It isn't a slam dunk for the Cards, but chances are it will work out better for them.

Oh one more thing. If you think there was any significant probability that Heyward would have agreed to a below market deal to stay in Atlanta the trade becomes much worse from our perspective.
 
I like doing this kind of analysis because it takes the emotion out of it. Heyward has been my favorite Brave the past few years. I can see his flaws as a player as well as his strengths. But I liked the way he played and how much he cared. I tried not to let that enter into the assessment above. As I noted, other people could reasonably reach different conclusions about the appropriate valuations of the players involved as well as the draft pick. It isn't a slam dunk for the Cards, but chances are it will work out better for them.

Oh one more thing. If you think there was any significant probability that Heyward would have agreed to a below market deal to stay in Atlanta the trade becomes much worse from our perspective.

Good words.
 
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