Hector Olivera signs with the Dodgers

I'm fine passing on Olivera. If Olivera is going to be good, he's going to have his best years over the next two seasons and I've resigned to the fact that the Braves won't be all that good until the year of our Lord 2017. Not signing Olivera today means the Braves have a better chance at signing someone in the future when we have a better chance of competing.

Also, if Olivera plays in the OF which seems to have been the case in Atlanta, there's a chance he would have been a pretty similar player to Markakis since he doesn't seem to project as even a good defensive player, but above average offensively. That seems to be pretty similar to what Markakis is going to provide.
 
mfree80 said:
But it does mean that teams are going to have fewer of them, and having guys on base will be even more important whether you have power hitters or not. A double with two guys on base scores more runs that a solo homer. If power hitters are harder to find, teams will get better at scoring runs other ways.
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The comments from certain posters are we are "built for the future" with guys that make contact. The teams that score runs will still score runs based on two things; getting on base and hitting for power. The stockpiling of contact hitters isn't going to help that if they do not do either or both of those things.
 
chop2chip said:
I'm fine passing on Olivera. If Olivera is going to be good, he's going to have his best years over the next two seasons and I've resigned to the fact that the Braves won't be all that good until the year of our Lord 2017. Not signing Olivera today means the Braves have a better chance at signing someone in the future when we have a better chance of competing.

Also, if Olivera plays in the OF which seems to have been the case in Atlanta, there's a chance he would have been a pretty similar player to Markakis since he doesn't seem to project as even a good defensive player, but above average offensively. That seems to be pretty similar to what Markakis is going to provide.
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Problem is that the FA class heading into the 2017 season isn't looking too great (they could obviously trade for expensive players though).

If the Braves want to sign a couple top line FAs, next offseason is probably the time to do so. And they should be bad enough this year to have a protected draft pick next year, so they won't lose their first pick by signing a couple a couple legit FAs next offseason. Yes, that means guys like Price, Heyward and JUp.

If I were going to guess, I would say the Braves need to acquire a TOR starter and at least 2 middle of the order bats in their prime before 2017 to have any real chance to compete by then. Those players can be acquired through trade or FA next offseason or the one before the 2017 season, but they need to be acquired.
 
Enscheff said:
Problem is that the FA class heading into the 2017 season isn't looking too great (they could obviously trade for expensive players though).

If the Braves want to sign a couple top line FAs, next offseason is probably the time to do so. And they should be bad enough this year to have a protected draft pick next year, so they won't lose their first pick by signing a couple a couple legit FAs next offseason. Yes, that means guys like Price, Heyward and JUp.

If I were going to guess, I would say the Braves need to acquire a TOR starter and at least 2 middle of the order bats in their prime before 2017 to have any real chance to compete by then. Those players can be acquired through trade or FA next offseason or the one before the 2017 season, but they need to be acquired.
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Also keep in mind that every year there are new international free agents. I had never heard of either Moncada or Olivera until last offseason. And the trade market, like you mentioned, is also a possible option.

And the final point is that the Braves simply have to produce their own talent and use any and all funds to retain that talent at below market prices. We failed to do that with Heyward in large part because we invested in free agents (Upton and in a way Uggla even though we traded for him).
 
The mindset needs to change around here. We are not going to lose 100 games this year. From what I have seen .500 is not out of reach. We get a couple breaks, ie staying healthy above expectation and playoffs are not completely the table. 83-87 wins will be a good target.
 
VirginiaBrave said:
The mindset needs to change around here. We are not going to lose 100 games this year. From what I have seen .500 is not out of reach. We get a couple breaks, ie staying healthy above expectation and playoffs are not completely the table. 83-87 wins will be a good target.
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I'll take the under. Our team did not get better
 
VirginiaBrave said:
The mindset needs to change around here.
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sturg33 said:
Who are you referring to?

By my count, we lost Hayward, JUp, Gattis, Ervin Santana, and Harang.

We kept our worst players.

So where is the "addition by subtraction"
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Given what he's said about both Heyward and Gattis in the past. I am sure he means at least those two among that list.
 
mfree80 said:
But it does mean that teams are going to have fewer of them, and having guys on base will be even more important whether you have power hitters or not. A double with two guys on base scores more runs that a solo homer. If power hitters are harder to find, teams will get better at scoring runs other ways.
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No, teams just won't score as many runs which is what has been happening lately.

The climate in baseball has changed. Whether that is due to less steroids and PED's in use, the cycle of more dominant pitching compared to hitting, or a combination of both, I don't know. I think offensive levels are heading to where the game was in the 80's as far as runs per game goes. But that doesn't mean teams are all of a sudden going to speed burners ar the top of your lineup like you saw with the Cardinals in tha day. Smart teams still know what scores runs. That is getting on base and hitting for power.

Now power is relative to what the rest of the league is doing. Just because homerun totals and overall 'power' is less than what it was in the steroid era doesn't mean it isn't valuable. The teams that get on base the most and hit for the most power now will still score the most runs. That will always be the case regardless of where the base linefor OBP and SLG is.

Now clearly you don't have to be a good offensive team to be a good team. So yeah, you can take the royals approach to building a team. But with that average offense you built you better have great defense and pitching to go along with it.
 
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