Grade the front office this offseason.

Anyone know where we are on the budget? I would think we're way under now.

I ask b/c I think it would be an interesting move for the Braves to get involved in laundering some contracts at the deadline. For example if you have a team that has the prospects to deal for a deadline upgrade, but no money, maybe the Braves could become a third team in the trade and effectively buy a prospect or two.

Part of evaluating this offseason will be seeing if the Braves can get any value out of Vets they signed on 1 or 2 year deals.
 
I think we had one of the best offseasons in MLB, and certainly one of the most impactful. To me, the best way to look at it is: 1.) did we have the right strategy, and 2.) how well did we implement the strategy. Here goes . . .

Strategy: B+
I love the decision to rebuild / reload at the MLB level versus going for it. I also loved the decision to revamp the scouting and player development departments. I am luke-warm on the new organizational philosophies of acquiring much more pitching than positional talent, and the extreme focus on contact skills. While both areas were of some concern in the prior regime, it feels like we're over-correcting.

Implementation: B-
The Good: Happy w/ returns for Heyward, Gattis, Kimbrel. Liked almost all of the "smaller" trades. We kept our risk exposure low on FA signings and made good use of minor-league deals.
The Bad: 4-year deal for Markakis is out of step with our strategy in several ways. I think Justin's market was misplayed a bit. Vizcaino and Callaspo transactions seemed reasonable at the time, but don't look so good in hindsight.
The Ugly: Really nothing. We've seen ugly before over the years, and there's nothing we did this year that I would put in that category.

Overall: B
 
Russ2dollas said:
Anyone know where we are on the budget? I would think we're way under now.

I ask b/c I think it would be an interesting move for the Braves to get involved in laundering some contracts at the deadline. For example if you have a team that has the prospects to deal for a deadline upgrade, but no money, maybe the Braves could become a third team in the trade and effectively buy a prospect or two.

Part of evaluating this offseason will be seeing if the Braves can get any value out of Vets they signed on 1 or 2 year deals.
Click to expand...

Cots has the Braves at 97M. Not really under budget. We have 20M in total dead money right now with 8M to QUentin and 12.6 to Uggla. What we're paying guys who actually play is pretty low. But Quentin was us buying prospects.
 
Julio3000 said:
I don't really understand this reasoning. If the deal turns out to be a bad one, having Peterson will mitigate the damage but won't make the deal any better. If you're worried about blocking Peterson or La Stella, glare at Bert Calypso or CJ.
Click to expand...

Yeah, If we didn't sign Callaspo for an astonishingly bad 3M and instead kept TLS. We could have a starting lineup of

3B - Peterson

2B - TLS

1B- Freeman

RF - Markakis

so on so forth.
 
Russ2dollas said:
Anyone know where we are on the budget?
Click to expand...

We seem to be about $10m under the speculated $110m target . . .

Position Name Proj. Salary
SP1 Julio Teheran $1,166,667
SP2 Alex Wood $520,000
SP3 Shelby Miller $535,000
SP4 Trevor Cahill $5,800,000
SP5 Eric Stults $2,000,000
RP1 Cody Martin $507,500
RP2 Andrew McKirahan $507,500
RP3 Brandon Cunniff $507,500
RP4 Juan Jaime $507,500
RP5 Luis Avilan $530,000
RP6 Jim Johnson $2,000,000
RP7 Jason Grilli $4,250,000
C1 Christian Bethancourt $507,500
C2 A. J. Pierzynski $2,250,000
3B Chris Johnson $6,000,000
SS Andrelton Simmons $3,142,857
2B Jace Peterson $507,500
1B Freddie Freeman $8,859,375
UIF1 Phil Gosselin $507,500
UIF2 Alberto Callaspo $3,500,000
LF Jonny Gomes $4,000,000
CF Eric Young Jr $1,375,000
RF Nick Markakis $11,000,000
UOF1 Kelly Johnson $1,600,000
UOF2 Cameron Maybin $7,000,000

MLB DL Mike Minor $5,600,000
MLB DL Josh Outman $925,000
MLB DL Shae Simmons $508,500
MLB DL Joey Terdoslavich $507,500
MLB DL Daniel Winkler $507,500

40-man Dian Toscano $1,100,000

Released Dan Uggla $13,250,000
Released Carlos Quentin $8,000,000
Released James Russell $606,250
$100,086,149
 
100 million dollar payroll and one of the worst rosters in the game. Tell me again why I should be excited about things moving forward.
 
thethe said:
I think you all are just haters.
Click to expand...

patrice_zps4opfcgyx.jpg
 
NinersSBChamps said:
100 million dollar payroll and one of the worst rosters in the game. Tell me again why I should be excited about things moving forward.
Click to expand...

1.) Several core MLB players under control for years to come.
2.) Significant spending capacity in 2016 and 2017.
3.) What I expect to be a consensus top 5 farm system after June draft, July 2 International signings, and MLB trade deadline.
 
I fully expect us to allocate the Cahill/Uggla/QUentin money to one star. Hopefully it's bringing Heyward back. I think our payroll next year is right around where it is now and we'll spend this season trying to unload say Chris Johnson and maybe Maybin for whatever savings we can get. Next year we'll still be bad but a bit better.

I also think we won't have guys like Gomes, Pierzdouchebag, and Callaspo as I think they're only here to maybe be trade fodder later in the year but primarily to make sure we're over our minimum budget by most standards.
 
dak said:
1.) Several core MLB players under control for years to come.

2.) Significant spending capacity in 2016 and 2017.

3.) What I expect to be a consensus top 5 farm system after June draft, July 2 International signings, and MLB trade deadline.
Click to expand...

Don't the Nats and Mets have similar ranked systems and better players now?

A LOT will come down to how they spend the BJ money they freed up. They could go right back into the same situation if they sign another BJ, Uggla, Lowe, KK, etc.
 
Russ2dollas said:
Don't the Nats and Mets have similar ranked systems and better players now?

A LOT will come down to how they spend the BJ money they freed up. They could go right back into the same situation if they sign another BJ, Uggla, Lowe, KK, etc.
Click to expand...

That's the catch.

Looking at available free agent position players. Throwing out 1B because we have a franchise one, there's not muhc out there, 2B has Howie Kendrick, Ben Zobrist, and maybe Utley if he's non-tendered. Kendrick could play 3B, Zobrist could play 3B or RF. SS features no one but maybe Desmond who would be interesting to move to 3B. 3B has Aramis who's old as ****. C has Wieters who isn't a super star. I'd sign him to something similar that we gave Markakis but on 3 years. OF has Jason, Justin, SPan, Fowler, and Austin Jackson. So we could potentially get our long term CF there. Or we have the option of adding a 2B and moving Peraza to CF. Either way I think we make a move for someone to play CF. And I think we bring in someone to play LF or RF. Our LF prospects just plain dont' exist. Toscano is our best prospect, but I would rather view him as a Markakis replacement.
 
Hart said yesterday they looked at all options and if they decided to try and win this year they were going to have to add 3 significant starting pitchers. They didn't feel like they were going to be able to sign Justin or Jason. Sounded like if they went for it they were going to have to spend a lot of money on starting pitching and they just didn't feel like that was the smart thing to do long term. Those saying that you can't do things halfway, you either try to win or go all in on the rebuild. Tell me how this isn't a full rebuild? We've traded most everyone that we can and got rid of most all the bad contracts. Uggla's contract comes off the books after this year so that's another positive. I see no reason not to be excited about this organization going forward. Unless of course you just like to make yourself miserable or don't understand what it's like to go through the rebuilding process.
 
They didn't feel like they could sign Justin or Jason? We have beat this horse dead as it is. It's a lame excuse if you ask me. We should trade Freeman too. Since we aren't going to even try to compete for at least two years why waste Freeman's mid 20s age season on a bad team? That's why Kimbrel was traded. Half of Freeman's extension is going to be wasted on a bad team. The second half of the contract is going to be downhill and his best years will be behind him.
 
It isn't a full rebuild because of Miller and Markakis. Instead of Miller we should have gotten prospects rather than osmoene approaching FA by the time we're good (I fully expect Miller to be traded off though so it kind of negates my point) and Markakis just doesn't plain make sense. We could have used his money and signed someone to a 1 year deal instead and had more money for future spending. Say like Rasmus and Stephen Drew. IF they're good we can spin them to another team, if they suck we have their money to play with next year.
 
Kimbrel was not actively shopped, the only reason he was traded was to get BJ's contract off the books. If SD wasn't willing to take on all of his salary, give us the prospects we wanted and draft pick, Kimbrel would still be here today. I don't think Hart wanted to move him. I don't think he wants to trade Freeman either but I'm sure he's willing to listen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top