Implications of the Trade

Chico said:
I like the trade on our end no matter if Heyward gets paid big time or not. I just don't think he's worth it. It's just an opinion. There's a good chance a team with money to spend might think he's worth it.
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And that's a far more sensible statement than the last 10 pages or so.
 
gilesfan said:
The point boils down to the Braves not wanting to pay Heyward what it would take to sign him. Thus, they decided to trade him for a pitcher (likely a 2-3 type starter with a few more years left on his deal). There is no need to say dumb stuff about Heyward not being worth xxxxxxxx, because you are simply trying to justify the deal by negating the type of player Heyward is. If you are happy with Miller/Jenkins as the return, sobeit. Heyward is a really good player and will get a **** ton of money; that's simply the bottom line. This he only gets paid for defense and yada yada yads is simply dumb.

Its similar to the Olivera trade. There is no need to knock Wood; he's a hell of a young starter. Claiming he's reached his peak or is about to blow his shoulder out is simply trying to make yourself feel better about the deal.
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gf, as I recall, you've been as hard on Heyward as anyone on this board at junctures.

But the fact that is still almost inescapable is that it's not that the Braves didn't want to pay Heyward; it was going to take some serious financial gymnastics to put together a large enough pile of money to get him signed (and we still would have needed pitching in 2015). My primary criticism of Wren is that I always believed him to be too impulsive and not having an overall blueprint of what he wanted the franchise to look like long term. I am concerned that Hart was too impulsive early in his tenure as well, so I'm not letting him off the hook. Hart just inherited a really lousy situation in terms of salary commitments, team needs, and overall financial constraints.
 
50PoundHead said:
gf, as I recall, you've been as hard on Heyward as anyone on this board at junctures.

But the fact that is still almost inescapable is that it's not that the Braves didn't want to pay Heyward; it was going to take some serious financial gymnastics to put together a large enough pile of money to get him signed (and we still would have needed pitching in 2015). My primary criticism of Wren is that I always believed him to be too impulsive and not having an overall blueprint of what he wanted the franchise to look like long term. I am concerned that Hart was too impulsive early in his tenure as well, so I'm not letting him off the hook. Hart just inherited a really lousy situation in terms of salary commitments, team needs, and overall financial constraints.
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Well, I think the money was there. Uggla + Markakis is $24M a year.
 
sturg33 said:
Well, I think the money was there. Uggla + Markakis is $24M a year.
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Yup and Justin Upton's contract expires after 2015. And of course there was the option of moving Kimbrel and/or Teheran as they started to get expensive. So it seems to me that trading Heyward was not something forced upon the front office by salary constraints that were impossible to get around. A choice was made plain and simple.

If we have the financial flexibility to sign someone like Price this off-season, it is hard to argue that we couldn't have extended Heyward.
 
50PoundHead said:
gf, as I recall, you've been as hard on Heyward as anyone on this board at junctures.

But the fact that is still almost inescapable is that it's not that the Braves didn't want to pay Heyward; it was going to take some serious financial gymnastics to put together a large enough pile of money to get him signed (and we still would have needed pitching in 2015). My primary criticism of Wren is that I always believed him to be too impulsive and not having an overall blueprint of what he wanted the franchise to look like long term. I am concerned that Hart was too impulsive early in his tenure as well, so I'm not letting him off the hook. Hart just inherited a really lousy situation in terms of salary commitments, team needs, and overall financial constraints.
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Yep, I have been hard on Heyward. I always felt like he had the talent to be in the conversation of one of the best players in the game. Have to come to the realization that he's a great defender and above average bat and when factoring in what those are going for these days, it's 20-25 million. The Braves 'could' certainly pay it, they are paying Freeman close to it (post arby) and are paying Maybin/Olivera/Markakis a total of 28 million next year. I'm fine with the notion that the Braves didn't want to pay it (just disagree that he's not "worth it" and would rather have gotten different players in return) The argument that they couldn't pay him or that he's not that type of player is just wrong.

The team still needs pitching as it is and are essentially in the same boat as they have simply replaced Wood with Miller.
 
nsacpi said:
Yup and Justin Upton's contract expires after 2015. And of course there was the option of moving Kimbrel and/or Teheran as they started to get expensive. So it seems to me that trading Heyward was not something forced upon the front office by salary constraints that were impossible to get around. A choice was made plain and simple.
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True, but we'd still need a pitching staff.

I agree that Hart kind of played the off-season backwards.

PS--I didn't like the Markakis signing. I don't think he's the dog crap some people contend, but he's not a guy you bring in when you're in the midst of a re-building project.
 
thethe said:
Only Miller is better than wood imo and Jenkins looks to be close.
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Jenkins is really underwhelming. Guys that can't miss bats and walk a lot of batters tend to have a pretty rough adjustment to the majors.

In the last 3 years:

Wood: 8.3 k/9, 2.6 bb/9, 0.65 hr/9, 3.14 ERA, 3.15 FIP, 3.40 xFIP, 6.4 WAR
Miller: 7.4 k/9, 3.2 bb/9, 0.91 hr/9, 3.14 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 4.03 xFIP, 5.4 WAR
 
50PoundHead said:
True, but we'd still need a pitching staff.
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From a big picture strategic point of view, I think the front office has been blind to the fact we are in an era where pitching is relatively easy and cheap to acquire. We picked up Harang and Santana late last spring on one-year deals. Harang was available throughout the past off-season. Did we have a need to pick up all four of Miller, Foltynevich, Banuelos and Wisler. One or two would seem to me to have been sufficient for 2015 along with a veteran acquisition. We also had Williams Perez and David Hale for depth. We practically gave Hale away.
 
nsacpi said:
From a big picture strategic point of view, I think the front office has been blind to the fact we are in an era where pitching is relatively easy and cheap to acquire. We picked up Harang and Santana late last spring on one-year deals. Harang was available throughout the past off-season. Did we have a need to pick up all four of Miller, Foltynevich, Banuelos and Wisler. One or two would seem to me to have been sufficient for 2015 along with a veteran acquisition. We also had Williams Perez and David Hale for depth. We practically gave Hale away.
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And if the goal is contending, I don't see that strategy as working for 2015 (if that is indeed the argument). Harang has regressed. Other options: Masterson, Wandy, etc., have all pretty much s*cked and Hale hasn't been that good either.

I realize it's all rolling the dice to some extent, but given Minor's status, we would have had to replace 600 innings or thereabouts.

In retrospect, the ideal situation to me would have been to package the Uptons, send them somewhere for some pitching, put Gattis in LF, get a decent 4th OF, and go from there.
 
nsacpi said:
The Dodgers didn't find it too expensive picking up a very good young cost controlled pitcher recently.
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I'm not sure we really know how costly that acquisition was for them yet. If Olivera turns into a middle of the order hitter than it certainly cost them alot.
 
giles called Heyward an average hitter just last year. Now he's "a very good hitter," after his season this year which hasn't been a ton better than last year's.
he is a good hitter. i wouldn't add a "very" to that. he has the potential to be a really good hitter still.
 
I think Hart may be finally waking up to the fact we are in an era where pitching is relatively plentiful and hitting relatively scarce. This is what he said after the Olivera trade.

“You look out onto the market and it’s just tough to find those bats.”

It took him a long time to realize this and I think it will cost us.
 
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