What Hart Hath Wrought

[Braves1976]

If I were Kimbrel, Freeman, or Simmons I'd be thoroughly disappointed.

Didn't Simmons post a sad face on twitter shortly after the Justin Upton trade? Plus CJ who is never shy about his feelings posted "this sucks" or something to that effect.

That said, maybe we'll get a CJ vs AJ fight a la Major League style (movie that is). If so, I'll be cheering for CJ in that one: "Kick his arss CJ!"

[video=youtube;0RfMVu-bfng]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RfMVu-bfng[/video]

 

[mossy]

Didn't Simmons post a sad face on twitter shortly after the Justin Upton trade? Plus CJ who is never shy about his feelings posted "this sucks" or something to that effect.

That said, maybe we'll get a CJ vs AJ fight a la Major League style (movie that is). If so, I'll be cheering for CJ in that one: "Kick his arss CJ!"

An AJ fight might be the highlight of our season. I'll root for CJ.

 

[Braves1976]

An AJ fight might be the highlight of our season. I'll root for CJ.

Yea. I could also picture TP getting mad about it and jumping in to break it up, then that would be quite a show.

 

[EstebanBugatti]

Didn't Simmons post a sad face on twitter shortly after the Justin Upton trade? Plus CJ who is never shy about his feelings posted "this sucks" or something to that effect.

That said, maybe we'll get a CJ vs AJ fight a la Major League style (movie that is). If so, I'll be cheering for CJ in that one: "Kick his arss CJ!"

Why stop there? I'm sure BJ would like to get some hits.

 

[Tapate50]

We won't get as little from CF as we did last year. BJ won't have a long leash, and any stiff we plug in will give us better production.

 

[NinersSBChamps]

Markakis is marketable in the honkey community.

 

[NinersSBChamps]

Who is AJ?

 

[holden]

Not sure where the "we'll be as good as we were last year" is coming from.

Our offense might be about the same, but that's because guys will have better years to balance out the talent we lost. Our defense will be significantly worse, which, as noted above, will hurt our pitching. Pitching is the one thing we might do at an above-average level, but we'll be very young again. Miller wasn't great last year. Our bullpen won't be any better and might actually be worse. We have only a moderate amount of pitching depth.

I guess I don't see where the optimism is coming from. I think we're about a 70 win team.

 

[zbhargrove]

Not sure where the "we'll be as good as we were last year" is coming from.

Our offense might be about the same, but that's because guys will have better years to balance out the talent we lost. Our defense will be significantly worse, which, as noted above, will hurt our pitching. Pitching is the one thing we might do at an above-average level, but we'll be very young again. Miller wasn't great last year. Our bullpen won't be any better and might actually be worse. We have only a moderate amount of pitching depth.

I guess I don't see where the optimism is coming from. I think we're about a 70 win team.

I'm not very optimistic, either... but Miller did change his approach mid year and had a fantastic last third of the year.

 

[Tapate50]

Who is AJ?

Our new backup C

 

[Julio3000]

I harped on starting rotation depth last offseason, and we turned out to have a spit-and-baling wire rotation that was damned good and remarkably free of injury. Minor missed time early, and Wood didn't get a whole year in the rotation, but otherwise, we were remarkably whole. I'm with Dalyn—I doubt we'll be so fortunate again. I really like our top four, and I'd be happy if we added some depth.

I'm more optimistic than some, but I don't see us being better than last year. Sure, it could happen, but I don't think it's likely. I do expect improvement from BJ, CJ, and Simmons, but even if we call Markakis a wash we're still going to miss the Diesel Upton.

 

[blueagleace1]

Base-running is super important, and its Fredi's fault Heyward didn't steal more bases.

Heyward is more marketable than Freeman IMO, mainly because of skillet.

This couldn't be anything further from the truth. At the Major League level, the only time a manager directly effects a stolen base is when they want to make sure a player steals the base no matter what. Guys (especially someone like Heyward) at that level have the green light and can steal a base anytime.

Essentially, a manager is never going to tell a player not to run (they know when not to attempt to steal), but would give the steal sign to make absolutely sure that a player runs at that exact time.

 

[blueagleace1]

Vogelsong would be okay. He is pretty much exactly the minimum of what we need. Veteran. #5. Capable of 180 innings and not much more. And sure, there are a few (not a lot) guys who can start for a couple weeks, but they aren't going to win or carry the team. That's what I'm saying. We got incredibly lucky last year with Harang and now it seems like we are seriously considering Russell as a #5 option. If we REALLY had a lot of arms in AAA capable of being the fifth starter (even for a few weeks), Russell wouldn't be an option.

Teheran
Wood
Miller
Minor
Hale
Russell
Martin

That's pretty much what we're looking at right now, and it's also why they are seriously considering Russell.

Other guys to add to that list who offer us some depth at the fifth starter spot are:

1. Chien-Ming Wang
2. Ian Thomas
3. Gus Schlosser
4. Daniel Rodriguez (he would only be used in a dire situation IMO)
5. As [MENTION=7]thethe[/MENTION] mentioned below Hursh could be available in an emergency

Not saying those guys are going to be a solid option by any means, just stating that we have some guys that could eat some innings if the need were to arise. I will say, there is no such thing as having too many starting pitchers, especially #5 type guys who could be had on a minor league deal and who wouldn't require a 40-man roster slot until the time of their call up.

I also think the reason they're considering Russell at that #5 slot or maybe even a long man, is because of how good he was in that "start" against the Phillies and the fact he's shown in the past the ability to get righties and lefties out not because they don't have someone else. Just my opinion.

 

[zitothebrave]

It's a travesty that this late into his career he hasn't made a serious effort to shorten-up and tighten-up his swing. All that untapped potential. With his natural strength and a Pete Rose type swing could hit 40 HRs..

This post reads....I'ts a travesty he won't change something that makes him a productive major league player.

Sure if he makes some changes he could improve, or he could suck massively. He's a good hitter without your ideas, and the issue is that people often focus on the wrong things when fixing someone's swings. There's 3 things that actually matter when you're swinging, timing, you're entering the ideal swing plane with the correct body positioning, and confidence. Changing a swing of a successful major league player is almost certainly changing one of those 3. We've seen what tinkering with BJ's swing brought about, ****.

 

[zitothebrave]

I really don't see much of a difference from last years team. Awful offense and good pitching. The only difference is our outfield defense is worse (How much depends on who we end up having in LF) and our infield defense will be better.

However, while the hitting could certainly be worse the pitching has an even better chance of being better. Another year or maturity for Teheran/Wood, obvious bounce back in Minor and another young power arm that could be rounding into form.

I have a feeling that our fifth pitcher is not on our roster right now so overall I would say the pitching could be really good again if not better.

The hitting "could" be worse? Are you ****ing high? We're worse in RF, probably worse in LF (certainly worse if we trade Gattis) and cataclysmically worse at catcher. Only shot to be better is to have a massive turn around from BJ and CJ. Which I wouldn't bet on. If anything, we're more exposed in the lineup I expect the bad hitters to struggle even more since people won't have to even think about anyone but Gattis and Freeman as threats.

 

[thethe]

The hitting "could" be worse? Are you ****ing high? We're worse in RF, probably worse in LF (certainly worse if we trade Gattis) and cataclysmically worse at catcher. Only shot to be better is to have a massive turn around from BJ and CJ. Which I wouldn't bet on. If anything, we're more exposed in the lineup I expect the bad hitters to struggle even more since people won't have to even think about anyone but Gattis and Freeman as threats.

Our offense was dreadful last year. Just knowing how baseball works I could easily see it being the same as last year. Thats not to say the players on the field are better than the players we had on the field last year. Its just that the performance of that current year (BABIP fluctuations) could lead to a comparable season in production.

 

[thethe]

This post reads....I'ts a travesty he won't change something that makes him a productive major league player.

Sure if he makes some changes he could improve, or he could suck massively. He's a good hitter without your ideas, and the issue is that people often focus on the wrong things when fixing someone's swings. There's 3 things that actually matter when you're swinging, timing, you're entering the ideal swing plane with the correct body positioning, and confidence. Changing a swing of a successful major league player is almost certainly changing one of those 3. We've seen what tinkering with BJ's swing brought about, ****.

Good hitter is a bit of an overstatement.

 

[zitothebrave]

Ervin Santana was okay last year. Had some runs of being very good, but on the while he was pretty average to below average.

But there is value in getting innings at even that rate. I get that. Just saying I won't be all that surprised if we can replace that.

With that said... I would stunned if we even won as many games as last year. Even with bounce back seasons, our division is much better than it was last year.

Santana had better peripherals than Julio.

Santana had a 3.39 FIP 3.47 xFIP and 3.63 SIERA. I don't think Shelby Miller will replace that, maybe Minor can, but that doesn't take into consideration the risk of regression from Julio who's ERA massively out performed his FIP largely because of a very low BABIP that is likely not repeatable.

Only way our rotation is better than last years is if Miller posts a better season than his best in the majors, Minor posts his best season and Wood is healthy, that's it. We had a fantastic season last year as a rotation. our issue wasn't our rotation (4th best in the NL) it was our offense (5th worst in the NL) which we only made worse by ditching Jason and Justin. Which i'd be OK with, except they did the dumb thing and signed MArkakis rather than just go Nuclear.

 

[zitothebrave]

Good hitter is a bit of an overstatement.

No it isn't. Jason spent all his career but 2011 as an above average for his position hitter, which as RF being an offensive first position, makes one a good hitter. He's not a great hitter, never said that but someone who's a virtual lock to be around a 120 wRC+ is a good hitter who I'd love on my team when you add in his defense and speed.

 

[zitothebrave]

Our offense was dreadful last year. Just knowing how baseball works I could easily see it being the same as last year. Thats not to say the players on the field are better than the players we had on the field last year. Its just that the performance of that current year (BABIP fluctuations) could lead to a comparable season in production.

Our offense will almost certainly be the worst in baseball. We were terrible last year, but still better than the Phillies, Reds, Diamondbacks, and Padres. WE'll be below those teams this year almost for sure. Phillies and D-Bags are the only teams who may stay below us. And we won't have our top notch defense either. We lost at least RAR wins from Jason to Markakis. And that's not getting made up anywhere, unless we trade Gattis and start like Constanza in LF or something like that, which then our offense will be the laughing stock of baseball.