Thats a fair point.
2017: A Braves Odyssey
- Thread starter nsacpi
- Start date
Thats a fair point.
Perfect Cell
Lynchburg Prospect
The economics of baseball stink!
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
I was saying that all offseason. They should have gone for broke in 2015 then had a firesale to Jumpstart the rebuilding. A full rebuilding, not the "let's shoot for .500 for a few years" rebuild.
Something like signing Lester and Headley. With the way trades or going we probably could have had Samardzjia for Elmer Reyes, the Terd burglar, Cody Martin and Aaron Northcraft.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Some additional thoughts on getting from 2015 to 2017.
Our starting point is the current roster, which is about a 75 win team. We are also 20M below budget. I will assume budget will be 30M higher by 2017. So in going from 2015 to 2017, I'm going to assume we have the current roster (and current farm system) plus 50M to play with. Let's see how it might play out.
After 2015, Uggla's salary (13M) comes off the books, as do the salaries of Callaspo, Russell and Jim Johnson (for a combined total of about 7M). So 20M of salaries come off the books.
But Freeman, Simmons, Kimbrel, Teheran, CJ and Melvin are due raises of 13M. Plus Gattis, Minor, Carpenter and Miller will get raises via arbitration (7M would be a very conservative estimate).
So the money coming off the books after 2015 might just cover those raises.
Now consider going from 2016 to 2017. Now the raises for Freeman, Simmons, Kimbrel, Teheran, CJ and Melvin are 18M. Wood joins Gattis, Minor, Carpenter and Miller as arb eligible (very conservatively that's 10M). So raises will eat up about 28M going from 2016 to 2017.
I noted at the outset we have the current roster plus about 50M as our building blocks to 2017. We see about 28M of that will be taken up by raises of the guys we currently have on the roster. Leaving about 22M to play with. By 2017 that will get us about 2 wins at the market price.
Assuming once again the current major league roster is worth 75 wins, the extra money will get us to 77 wins.
Let's next assume that the top talent that is near major league ready (Peraza, Sims and Bethancourt) gets us 5 wins by 2017. So we are up to 82.
Obviously the plan is to have a very good team in 2017 (which I assume means one that projects to about 90 wins).
How might we get there. There are a number of ways. Here are the ones that come to mind:
1) Spend more. At a 2017 market price of 10+M/win that will be expensive. But maybe the budget will go up well more than the 30M I'm assuming.
2) Win the trades and free agent signings. When we ship off Gattis, Carpenter and Minor (which many around here think is likely) we get something in return that generates more wins per dollar of salary. Obviously you always want to win the trades and free agent signings. But I'm not sure we can assume this one. It is more of a wish. We must acknowledge the possibility that we could lose the trades and overpay for the free agents.
3) It is also possible that the players on the current roster will improve and produce more in 2017 than they are projected to produce in 2015. We still have a strong young core. So there is some upside there. I look at the 2015 projections for some of our players (especially Gattis, Wood, Teheran and Miller) and I think they might be a bit low. So maybe the current roster and guys in the upper levels of the minors will produce more than I'm assuming in 2017. But we must be honest and say there is downside risk too. One of the young starters could go down for example.
4) Cannibalize the farm system (sort of the reverse of what we have done this off-season). Trade valuable prospects who are not quite major league ready for players who are.
So here is my math 75+5+2+1+3+4=90. 75 is the starting point. 5 is from the near-major league ready prospects. 2 might be what we get from having a higher budget. 1 is the extra win we might get by being especially astute in trades and signings. 3 is from some of our current players out-performing projections. And 4 wins is what we might have to extract via cannibalizing the farm system to get to a team that projects to win 90 games.
Now I know there are a lot of assumptions here. But I think this little exercise illustrates the challenges the front office is facing as it points to 2017.
A couple more thoughts: If we focus on college players with our top picks in the 2015 draft, one or two of them could contribute in 2017.
Finally, going through this exercise makes me think we have much more of a chance for success if we point to 2018. Why? Some of the younger/injured talent are more likely to be ready then: Fried, Albies, Grosser, Fulencheck, Davidson. Also the guys we take in the 2015 and 2016 drafts are more likely to contribute in 2018. Also the Melvin and CJ contracts expire after 2017, freeing up 24.5M. Some of that will have to be used to pay for raises, but at least half will be available to sign new players.
Ok. I lied when I said finally. There is one last option. We haven't exercised that option yet, but it is out there. This would be to use some of the payroll for 2015 and 2016 to pay forward the Melvin and CJ contracts. Companies do that all the time when they write down non-performing assets. It allows them to wipe the slate clean and make future earnings reports look better. By paying forward some of the Melvin and CJ contracts we would free up some 2017 budget for other purposes.
Oh one final thought. Sorry to do this. But going through this exercise suggests to me that in reality we are much more likely to have a team that projects at about 85 wins in 2017 than one that projects at 90 wins.
Our starting point is the current roster, which is about a 75 win team. We are also 20M below budget. I will assume budget will be 30M higher by 2017. So in going from 2015 to 2017, I'm going to assume we have the current roster (and current farm system) plus 50M to play with. Let's see how it might play out.
After 2015, Uggla's salary (13M) comes off the books, as do the salaries of Callaspo, Russell and Jim Johnson (for a combined total of about 7M). So 20M of salaries come off the books.
But Freeman, Simmons, Kimbrel, Teheran, CJ and Melvin are due raises of 13M. Plus Gattis, Minor, Carpenter and Miller will get raises via arbitration (7M would be a very conservative estimate).
So the money coming off the books after 2015 might just cover those raises.
Now consider going from 2016 to 2017. Now the raises for Freeman, Simmons, Kimbrel, Teheran, CJ and Melvin are 18M. Wood joins Gattis, Minor, Carpenter and Miller as arb eligible (very conservatively that's 10M). So raises will eat up about 28M going from 2016 to 2017.
I noted at the outset we have the current roster plus about 50M as our building blocks to 2017. We see about 28M of that will be taken up by raises of the guys we currently have on the roster. Leaving about 22M to play with. By 2017 that will get us about 2 wins at the market price.
Assuming once again the current major league roster is worth 75 wins, the extra money will get us to 77 wins.
Let's next assume that the top talent that is near major league ready (Peraza, Sims and Bethancourt) gets us 5 wins by 2017. So we are up to 82.
Obviously the plan is to have a very good team in 2017 (which I assume means one that projects to about 90 wins).
How might we get there. There are a number of ways. Here are the ones that come to mind:
1) Spend more. At a 2017 market price of 10+M/win that will be expensive. But maybe the budget will go up well more than the 30M I'm assuming.
2) Win the trades and free agent signings. When we ship off Gattis, Carpenter and Minor (which many around here think is likely) we get something in return that generates more wins per dollar of salary. Obviously you always want to win the trades and free agent signings. But I'm not sure we can assume this one. It is more of a wish. We must acknowledge the possibility that we could lose the trades and overpay for the free agents.
3) It is also possible that the players on the current roster will improve and produce more in 2017 than they are projected to produce in 2015. We still have a strong young core. So there is some upside there. I look at the 2015 projections for some of our players (especially Gattis, Wood, Teheran and Miller) and I think they might be a bit low. So maybe the current roster and guys in the upper levels of the minors will produce more than I'm assuming in 2017. But we must be honest and say there is downside risk too. One of the young starters could go down for example.
4) Cannibalize the farm system (sort of the reverse of what we have done this off-season). Trade valuable prospects who are not quite major league ready for players who are.
So here is my math 75+5+2+1+3+4=90. 75 is the starting point. 5 is from the near-major league ready prospects. 2 might be what we get from having a higher budget. 1 is the extra win we might get by being especially astute in trades and signings. 3 is from some of our current players out-performing projections. And 4 wins is what we might have to extract via cannibalizing the farm system to get to a team that projects to win 90 games.
Now I know there are a lot of assumptions here. But I think this little exercise illustrates the challenges the front office is facing as it points to 2017.
A couple more thoughts: If we focus on college players with our top picks in the 2015 draft, one or two of them could contribute in 2017.
Finally, going through this exercise makes me think we have much more of a chance for success if we point to 2018. Why? Some of the younger/injured talent are more likely to be ready then: Fried, Albies, Grosser, Fulencheck, Davidson. Also the guys we take in the 2015 and 2016 drafts are more likely to contribute in 2018. Also the Melvin and CJ contracts expire after 2017, freeing up 24.5M. Some of that will have to be used to pay for raises, but at least half will be available to sign new players.
Ok. I lied when I said finally. There is one last option. We haven't exercised that option yet, but it is out there. This would be to use some of the payroll for 2015 and 2016 to pay forward the Melvin and CJ contracts. Companies do that all the time when they write down non-performing assets. It allows them to wipe the slate clean and make future earnings reports look better. By paying forward some of the Melvin and CJ contracts we would free up some 2017 budget for other purposes.
Oh one final thought. Sorry to do this. But going through this exercise suggests to me that in reality we are much more likely to have a team that projects at about 85 wins in 2017 than one that projects at 90 wins.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
Focusing on college players is part of what got us into this mess.
Agreed. If you're trying to replenish the upper levels at this point, you do so in any Gattis/Minor/Kimbrel deals. In the event there's a high-end upside college arm that slips to us in the First Round this season I can see scooping one up to buy time for guys like Cabrera, Caicedo, Fulenchek, Torres, etc., but I think we desperately need to go back to approaching the draft by taking the best player available (selecting pitching over hitting in the event there's a "tie" of course).
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
So if they suck for the next five years, will you consider this Mukaki Rebuild an utter disaster?
Tapate50
Well-known member
I'm going to thank every post you throw the term "Mukaki Rebuild" into.
Absolutely. If this team isn't on the cusp of the playoffs by the end of 2016 then there are big issues. Unless of course the farm is rated a top 5 system.
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
So if we suck in five years but the farm is rated in the top five, would that make this a successful Mukaki Rebuild?
No. 5 years in baseball is way too long to suck. This team needs to be ready by 2017 or have a top farm system to make the future look promising.
