Braves trade Mallex and Simmons to M's for Gohara and Burrows

Enscheff said:
My issue isn't that the Braves traded away Mallex. My issue is that they traded him away for something the organization does not need at this very moment: more "stuff" pitchers with major question marks. The Braves have quite literally put most of their eggs in that basket already, and what do they have to show for it so far? The guys who were supposed to be ready by now (Sims, Blair, Wisler, Newcomb) haven't done squat. So the answer is to double down and continue to add even more flawed pitchers?
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But we also don't need another CF at the moment, having an excess in pitchers doesn't lessen their value anymore than having an excess of CFs does.

You've several times made the point that Mallex isn't less valuable because of Inciarte - which I agree with - but likewise Gohara isnt' less valuable because of Touki/Muller/Fried/Wentz/Allard ect......
 
Preacher said:
But we also don't need another CF at the moment, having an excess in pitchers doesn't lessen their value anymore than having an excess of CFs does.

You've several times made the point that Mallex isn't less valuable because of Inciarte - which I agree with - but likewise Gohara isnt' less valuable because of Touki/Muller/Fried/Wentz/Allard ect......
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Fair point.

I suppose it all boils down to how you value Mallex. I appear to be in the vast minority that thinks he was already a 2+ WAR CFer.
 
Enscheff said:
My issue isn't that the Braves traded away Mallex. My issue is that they traded him away for something the organization does not need at this very moment: more "stuff" pitchers with major question marks. The Braves have quite literally put most of their eggs in that basket already, and what do they have to show for it so far? The guys who were supposed to be ready by now (Sims, Blair, Wisler, Newcomb) haven't done squat. So the answer is to double down and continue to add even more flawed pitchers?
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The fact that none of our pitching prospects have really hit yet is precisely why it makes sense to continue to add them. You need pitching, and having waves of young pitching reduces the amount you have to invest there, so it is important to ensure you have quality pitching. The failures (and I would certainly not call any of them failures yet) of previous prospects has no bearing on the likely success of the next bunch. So stockpiling them gives you a better chance that enough hit that you continue to supplant pitching with cheap, young talent.
 
smootness said:
And my point is further proven.
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if you want to get technical with him, which you shouldn't, but if you did.. he said "no one can be THAT stupid" which is in fact calling someone stupid... it is just a passive aggressive way to say stupid. There really is some fascinating studies on passive aggressive behavior and how miserable that person is. Great reading if anyone is wanting to do some non Braves research...
 
smootness said:
The fact that none of our pitching prospects have really hit yet is precisely why it makes sense to continue to add them. You need pitching, and having waves of young pitching reduces the amount you have to invest there, so it is important to ensure you have quality pitching. The failures (and I would certainly not call any of them failures yet) of previous prospects has no bearing on the likely success of the next bunch. So stockpiling them gives you a better chance that enough hit that you continue to supplant pitching with cheap, young talent.
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The fact that none of them have panned out should be a data point showing why building around pitching is a bad idea. Watching the Mets 2016 season derailed due to pitching injuries should be another data point. Seeing most recently successful teams building around position prospects should be even more data points.

Instead, the take away is, "if these pitchers failed, let's spend even more resources getting more"?

Seems like an less than optimal conclusion to draw from the available data points.

Basically, the Braves are the only organization that thinks it's wise to spend ~75% of their player acquisition resources on pitchers. The Braves may very well be one of the most stone-aged thinking organizations out there now that the usual "dumb" teams have cleaned up their acts.
 
Enscheff said:
The fact that none of them have panned out should be a data point showing why building around pitching is a bad idea. Watching the Mets 2016 season derailed due to pitching injuries should be another data point. Seeing most recently successful teams building around position prospects should be even more data points.

Instead, the take away is, "if these pitchers failed, let's spend even more resources getting more"?

Seems like an less than optimal conclusion to draw from the available data points.

Basically, the Braves are the only organization that thinks it's wise to spend ~75% of their player acquisition resources on pitchers. The Braves may very well be one of the most stone-aged thinking organizations out there now that the usual "dumb" teams have cleaned up their acts.
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The most important aspect of a FO is not where they choose to focus, but to properly evaluate players and to maximize value at every opportunity. The first is very hard to do, and the difference between front offices there is very slim, but that slim separation can make all the difference. And based on the consensus around the league after most of the Braves' moves, it's hard to argue they haven't done a very good job of maximizing value.

Some pitching prospects will hit. It is an obvious fact that if there are good pitchers in the majors, then some prospects will hit and become good pitchers. You can either decide you will wait to see which ones do hit and spend tons of money or other assets to get them (and they still have the same injury risk as everyone else), or you can stockpile enough talent that the odds become in your favor that you will have enough hit.

Obviously if you do that, you have to find out how to also get position players, but the Braves have done a decent job of that. Freeman, Inciarte, and Swanson is a start at the major league level, and Albies/Maitan/Acuna is a pretty darn good group to have assembled in the minors. If we use our #5 pick on offense, suddenly you have the makings of a good group of position players to go with a ton of talented pitching. You can call that 'stone-aged thinking' if you want, but there are plenty of organizations that would kill for that mix of young players.
 
smootness said:
Enscheff said Mallex has 'proven beyond all doubt' he is an MLB caliber player. The fact that he has just 57 PAs against LHP is a knock against Enscheff's point, not a support for it.
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I never said I was sticking up for him.
 
smootness said:
The most important aspect of a FO is not where they choose to focus, but to properly evaluate players and to maximize value at every opportunity. The first is very hard to do, and the difference between front offices there is very slim, but that slim separation can make all the difference. And based on the consensus around the league after most of the Braves' moves, it's hard to argue they haven't done a very good job of maximizing value.

Some pitching prospects will hit. It is an obvious fact that if there are good pitchers in the majors, then some prospects will hit and become good pitchers. You can either decide you will wait to see which ones do hit and spend tons of money or other assets to get them (and they still have the same injury risk as everyone else), or you can stockpile enough talent that the odds become in your favor that you will have enough hit.

Obviously if you do that, you have to find out how to also get position players, but the Braves have done a decent job of that. Freeman, Inciarte, and Swanson is a start at the major league level, and Albies/Maitan/Acuna is a pretty darn good group to have assembled in the minors. If we use our #5 pick on offense, suddenly you have the makings of a good group of position players to go with a ton of talented pitching. You can call that 'stone-aged thinking' if you want, but there are plenty of organizations that would kill for that mix of young players.
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I suppose we will see in a couple seasons just how many teams are clamoring for pitching prospects with question marks when the Braves need to start trading them for position players. If recent history is any indication, they haven't been able to turn any of those guys into position players yet. In fact, the only position players they have acquired via trade came in one unprecedentedly bad trade with the DBacks, the likes of which will almost certainly never occur again.

So if Dave Stewart was never given a GM job, I don't think the Braves would have successfully converted any pitching into impact position players.

I hope you're right though. I hope teams are lining up for the Braves young pitchers starting next offseason. I hope the Braves are right in their assertion that young pitching is some sort of valuable currency to buy whatever an organization needs, despite all current data showing position prospects being the most valuable currency in the modern game.
 
Enscheff said:
I suppose we will see in a couple seasons just how many teams are clamoring for pitching prospects with question marks when the Braves need to start trading them for position players. If recent history is any indication, they haven't been able to turn any of those guys into position players yet. In fact, the only position players they have acquired via trade came in one unprecedentedly bad trade with the DBacks, the likes of which will almost certainly never occur again.

So if Dave Stewart was never given a GM job, I don't think the Braves would have successfully converted any pitching into impact position players.

I hope you're right though. I hope teams are lining up for the Braves young pitchers starting next offseason. I hope the Braves are right in their assertion that young pitching is some sort of valuable currency to buy whatever an organization needs, despite all current data showing position prospects being the most valuable currency in the modern game.
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I would encourage you to make more of your posts like this. You offer plenty of good substance to the board, and I think if you tried to just present that substance without the condescension and insults, it would be far better received, and you would probably enjoy it more as well.

As for the post, I'll just offer a couple thoughts that I've believe since the beginning of the rebuild:

1) We didn't have a lot of great assets when we began the rebuild. We had a mediocre major league team whose best assets were close to either a huge payday or leaving without a return, and our minor league system was atrocious. The primary assets we gave up were:
- 1 year of Jason Heyward
- 1 year of Justin Upton
- Evan Gattis
- Craig Kimbrel
- Andrelton Simmons
- BJ Upton
- Alex Wood
- Jose Peraza

While that's certainly not nothing, it's also nothing close to, say, the White Sox group of multiple cheap years of guys like Sale, Eaton, and Quintana. It would have been extremely hard to take that group and turn it into any kind of legitimate quantity of promising young position players. So the FO decided that it would be a good idea to get as much high ceiling talent as we could get in any form, and a lot of that turned out to be pitchers with serious talent but flaws. We made a gamble that enough of them would hit that we would end up better than if we tried to go after legit position prospects. I haven't always been a fan of continuously going after pitching, but I can't deny that they've done a good job of getting legit talent in return in these deals.

2) I don't necessarily think our plan is to trade away a good bit of the pitching. Obviously it would be great if we end up in a place where we can do that, but I think they genuinely decided they were going to build the foundation on young pitching that we can continue to call up. The jury is still out on that plan. But I don't think you can just look at the Cubs, Astros, and Mets and say it's obviously a better idea to go after position players. It's a great plan if you can get the right kind of hitters, but it also helps when you have a budget that you know will allow you to go get pitching when you need it. And the Mets had a few very high-end pitchers. Putting your hopes on a few arms will always be a huge risk. We've put our hopes on a bunch of arms to try to lessen that risk. Again, the jury is out on that.

3) Going back to 1, you're arguing that position prospects are the most valuable currency in the game, which I would mostly agree with, but that also means it's going to be very hard to get those players, and I'm not sure we had the assets at the time to make it worthwhile. But we're seeing that position prospects actually aren't quite as untradeable as once assumed. We've seen guys like Moncada and Swanson, elite position prospects, traded...for pitching. Sure, the Swanson trade was stupid, and Moncada was traded for one of the few true aces in baseball, but they were still available. And the Nats apparently had Robles on the table as well. And a guy like Soler, whose whine was gone but wasn't far removed from being a top prospect himself, was available for relief pitching. Clint Frazier, Gleyber Torres also available for relief pitching.

If we choose to do it, I think we will have enough pitching to use some of it to at least get solid position players, and that may be all we need once we have a team comprised of Freeman, Swanson, Inciarte, Albies, and Acuna. That time is still a couple years off, but we have a pretty solid core of young talent.
 
smootness said:
As for the post, I'll just offer a couple thoughts that I've believe since the beginning of the rebuild:

1) We didn't have a lot of great assets when we began the rebuild. We had a mediocre major league team whose best assets were close to either a huge payday or leaving without a return, and our minor league system was atrocious. The primary assets we gave up were:
- 1 year of Jason Heyward
- 1 year of Justin Upton
- Evan Gattis
- Craig Kimbrel
- Andrelton Simmons
- BJ Upton
- Alex Wood
- Jose Peraza
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Hmmm

Just adding by years of control remaining when traded we sent out Heyward (1), Justin Upton (1), Kimbrel (4), Simmons (5), Gattis (4), Wood (4.5), Peraza (6). Total 25.5 years.

Compared to Sale (3) and Eaton (5)

I realize years of contractual control is only a rough proxy for expected surplus value. And I realize that the Sale and Eaton contracts are terrific bargains.

But still...I think we gave up a lot more in the way of expected surplus value than what the White Sox have so far.
 
smootness said:
I would encourage you to make more of your posts like this. You offer plenty of good substance to the board, and I think if you tried to just present that substance without the condescension and insults, it would be far better received, and you would probably enjoy it more as well.

As for the post, I'll just offer a couple thoughts that I've believe since the beginning of the rebuild:

1) We didn't have a lot of great assets when we began the rebuild. We had a mediocre major league team whose best assets were close to either a huge payday or leaving without a return, and our minor league system was atrocious. The primary assets we gave up were:
- 1 year of Jason Heyward
- 1 year of Justin Upton
- Evan Gattis
- Craig Kimbrel
- Andrelton Simmons
- BJ Upton
- Alex Wood
- Jose Peraza

While that's certainly not nothing, it's also nothing close to, say, the White Sox group of multiple cheap years of guys like Sale, Eaton, and Quintana. It would have been extremely hard to take that group and turn it into any kind of legitimate quantity of promising young position players. So the FO decided that it would be a good idea to get as much high ceiling talent as we could get in any form, and a lot of that turned out to be pitchers with serious talent but flaws. We made a gamble that enough of them would hit that we would end up better than if we tried to go after legit position prospects. I haven't always been a fan of continuously going after pitching, but I can't deny that they've done a good job of getting legit talent in return in these deals.
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Except the Padres then turned Kimbrel into Manny Margot, a Top 25 position prospect. The money they saved by hitching BJ to Kimbrel was used to "buy" Touki. The Braves passed on Lewis, another Top 50 guy, in the draft in favor of Anderson.

I don't think it is a stretch at all to say the Braves made a concerted effort to acquire pitching talent. I'm also confident in saying the Braves would be in a better position with Margot and Lewis in the system instead of Anderson and whatever anyone wants to ultimately decide the return for Kimbrel was, including whatever they spent BJ's money on.

The Braves wanted payroll flexibility and pitching when they decided to sell. They got payroll flexibility at a time when there was nothing worthwhile to spend it on at the MLB level, and the pitching they acquired has developed so poorly it set the rebuild back at least 1 year and forced us to watch guys like Dickey and Colon wear a Braves uniform. I said from day 1 that focusing on pitching was a bad idea, and so far nothing has happened that makes me change my mind.
 
Preacher said:
Mallex has not proven 'beyond all doubt' that he is an MLB caliber player.

I like Mallex and I think he's very likely at least a 4th OF and certainly could be more, but to suggest that there's zero chance he's worse than that doesn't seem true to me considering how little we have actually seen of him at the MLB level.
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Yes, at best he's proven that he is a bench player and I'm not sure he's really done that. You are correct that he is not going to convince any major league team he's a high level prospect in AAA, so his only opportunity to do so would require an injury. In actuality, he's as likely to hurt his value than help it as he still has a bit of mystery as to whether he is an every day player which could easily dissipate if he continues to be fairly punchless as a major league hitter.

His WAR is all about defense and I'm not sure organizations really take that really seriously -- particularly when their scouts and other measures may suggest he isn't a great CF defender in reality.

Consider the following from fangraphs article:

"Smith slashed .238/.316/.365 across 215 big-league plate appearances in 2016 and split time defensively between left and center field (he doesn’t have the arm for right). He’s a punch-and-run hitter and lacks any modicum of in-game power due primarily to a swing path entirely geared for hard ground-ball and shallow line-drive contact. He tracks pitches well and has a somewhat stiff but compact stroke that allows him to put the ball in play.

What Smith does best is run, and that allows him to play terrific defense in the outfield. He has plus-plus speed and is especially adept at running down balls in the gap. He looks uncomfortable going back on balls hit over his head at times, which is why some think he fits best in left field. I think the speed plays in center field despite the occasional hiccup and that Smith will be an above-average defender there. He has a below-average arm.

It’s important that Smith stay in center field because his bat likely won’t play anywhere else, and some would argue that Smith’s complete inability to deal with left-handed pitching makes it hard to project him as anything more than a fourth outfielder. The presence of Kevin Kiermaier in Tampa means Smith is likely destined for a left-field platoon with Mikie Mahtook or one of Tampa Bay’s many other young outfielders. Unless his defense there is elite (considering the jump in measured defensive performance that ex-center-fielders like Adam Eaton have shown after moving to a corner I suppose it’s possible), it’s hard to envision a bat like Smith’s yielding average or better output from left field."
 
nsacpi said:
Hmmm

Just adding by years of control remaining when traded we sent out Heyward (1), Justin Upton (1), Kimbrel (4), Simmons (5), Gattis (4), Wood (4.5), Peraza (6). Total 25.5 years.

Compared to Sale (3) and Eaton (5)

I realize years of contractual control is only a rough proxy for expected surplus value. And I realize that the Sale and Eaton contracts are terrific bargains.

But still...I think we gave up a lot more in the way of expected surplus value than what the White Sox have so far.
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The 14.5 years of Gattis, Wood, and Peraza constitute very little surplus value. Kimbrel was getting paid what he was worth, so no surplus value there. Simmons had plenty of value, but defense-first guys usually won't get as much on the market. Way more value on the WS side, especially when considering that it is always more valuable to get it in a couple players as opposed to several.
 
Enscheff said:
Except the Padres then turned Kimbrel into Manny Margot, a Top 25 position prospect. The money they saved by hitching BJ to Kimbrel was used to "buy" Touki. The Braves passed on Lewis, another Top 50 guy, in the draft in favor of Anderson.

I don't think it is a stretch at all to say the Braves made a concerted effort to acquire pitching talent. I'm also confident in saying the Braves would be in a better position with Margot and Lewis in the system instead of Anderson and whatever anyone wants to ultimately decide the return for Kimbrel was, including whatever they spent BJ's money on.

The Braves wanted payroll flexibility and pitching when they decided to sell. They got payroll flexibility at a time when there was nothing worthwhile to spend it on at the MLB level, and the pitching they acquired has developed so poorly it set the rebuild back at least 1 year and forced us to watch guys like Dickey and Colon wear a Braves uniform. I said from day 1 that focusing on pitching was a bad idea, and so far nothing has happened that makes me change my mind.
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That's all fair. We'll have to wait and see on Anderson/Wentz vs. Lewis, I preferred Lewis at the time as well.

Margot or Wisler/Riley/Touki? I'm actually happy with our package.
 
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