2018 Offseason And Targets

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I checked Sickels. I think he also has Sheffield in between Soroka and Anderson.

I love FG. And I think it's great to see differences of opinion about prospects. There shouldn't be unanimity. But FG has a bias we all know about when it comes to Braves prospects.

I agree Sheffield is not a 55/60. But he aint a 50 either. Not if Soroka and Anderson are 55s.

They need a 52.5 grade for these guys.

I will never understand the infatuation with Sonny Gray. Undersized guy who as a result is a walking durability issue.
 
On a bang for the buck basis it has been my view Suzuki and McCann were our best options. Going economical at catcher (or any position for that matter where there is the opportunity to make a below market signing) improves our ability to pursue bigger upgrades elsewhere.

Agreed - if you're going to spend big (even Gomes "big") at Catcher and NOT trade for Realmuto, don't waste a lot of money there. Get a good framer/clubhouse guy and fix the bigger problem areas - including the pen.
 
This is something that I'm pretty worried about. If we go after a frontline starter, its going to be difficult to find a comparable pitcher for a price as low as the Yankees paid. A lot of people have proposed that Anthopoulos is setting his sights higher, but I think that is kind of a bad idea too (unless he gets an incredible deal). Is it more preferable to spend market value on a 5 win pitcher or to spend 75% of market value on a 4 win pitcher? In that circumstance, give me the 4 win pitcher every day of the week.

Yeah, which makes me think AA isn't going after a "frontline starter" as hard as everyone suggests. I'm glad. Adding arms is nowhere near the need folks seem desperate to make it out to be.

As for the Yankees, I would go for Eovaldi and try to nurse the Severino/Paxton/Eovaldi trio into the postseason...and then unleash them.
 
My thought process here is in Greinke we get a pitcher who is a significant upgrade over whoever our number 4 or 5 starter would have been. The $ allows us to also pick up Peralta, while economizing on prospect capital. We then have the option of using that prospect capital to pick up someone like Carrasco. Move Teheran to the Dbacks as part of the trade. Pick up Soria or Familia for the pen.

Opening day rotation is Folty, Gausman, Carrasco, Greinke, Fried

We have Peralta in left. McCann/Flowers at catcher.

The interesting question here would be exactly what does this trade have to look like?

Say both sides can agree on Newk for Peralta as fair and then try to start figuring out the money. Even if they agreed to eat ALL the deferred money, Greinke makes $21 million from Atlanta each of the final three years of the deal. Asking them to take Julio back (even if they release him next winter) leaves them paying over 1/3 ($74+ million) of the initial contract for him to pitch for us. I just don't think they'll do that "cheaply" - regardless of what the value charts say - their fans would likely go nuts.
 
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McCann is a solid option for us if Maldonado and Ramos don't work out. I'd have to assume he will sign for a 1 year deal . . . and will also be inclined to wait on our decision to come back home.

From what I can see, McCann is a slight defensive upgrade from Suzuki and not much of an offensive drop-off . . .

Suzuki last 3 yrs vs RHP: 262 / 324 / 426
McCann last 3 yrs vs RHP: 241 / 325 / 421

If you disregard this past season, McCann and Suzuki are similar hitters.

I'm not sure you can disregard the most recent evidence of a full season though.
 
Agreed. If the Braves are truly set on adding a "frontline starter", Gray represents a poor man's version of a such a guy and should be attainable for decent value.

I would just hate to see Paxton go to the Yanks for good value, then Gray cast off to the Braves for market value. That would represent a poor series of moves for AA and the Braves. If they were willing to pay for Gray, they should have just paid for Paxton and gotten a true difference maker.


While obtain Gray for very little might be a nice value move, I don't think that really qualifies as acquiring a front line starter.

That's who you get to replace Anibal or Teheran or maybe to convert into a pen guy and pray for fire.
 
If you disregard this past season, McCann and Suzuki are similar hitters.

I'm not sure you can disregard the most recent evidence of a full season though.

Most recent season should get a bit more weight. Around 50%. Season before 30% weight and two seasons ago 20%. Obviously when there are injuries in a particular season you need to depart from that.
 
While obtain Gray for very little might be a nice value move, I don't think that really qualifies as acquiring a front line starter.

That's who you get to replace Anibal or Teheran or maybe to convert into a pen guy and pray for fire.

Folks around here spent years arguing that Teheran was a TOR guy, and he was very similar to Sonny Gray.

I said Gray "represents a poor man's version" of a TOR starter...just like Teheran used to be confused with a TOR pitcher. There is definitely room for AA to make a value add there, and then for the beat writer hacks to sell Gray as a "TOR starter who struggled with the short porch in Yankee stadium".

I'm clearly not a fan of AA spending significant resources to pay full market rate for a SP, but I would have been in favor of getting Paxton for 75% of his surplus value, and I would be a fan of getting Gray as a Yankee cast off...even though I realize he isn't even as good as Gausman.

Taking advantage of dumb FOs like the Ms is one thing. Getting a "win" over the Yankees elite FO is quite another.
 
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Kiley is still trying to justify his flawed MLB player valuation, even going so far as to intentionally gloss over incorrect math:

"Sheffield likely won’t rank exactly 54th on our next Top 100 in January, but the $29 million figure is about right. Swanson and Thompson-Williams combine for about $5 million more. Paxton is due in the $20-$25 million range for his next two years via arbitration while projected–using the same $9 million per WAR figure that generated the prospect values–to be worth $60-something million in that span. Those figures both add up to around $35 million, which is within the margin for error but a bit lighter than expected for a Paxton package given the wide interest."

FG projects Paxton to produce 4.0 wins in 2019, and will likely project him to right around that figure in 2020. The math is 8 wins times $9M per win equals $72M, not the "$60-something million" he tries to spin off in support of his incorrect valuation. Subtracting $20M-$25M from $72M equals $47M-$52M, again, nowhere near the "around $35 million" he tries to pass off as real math.

Fact of the matter is the Yankees paid about ~$35M in prospects for ~$50M in MLB value, which is a very nice value add. The Yankees found the team who valued Sheffield the highest, and cashed him in for a valuable impact SP. This is exactly what I would like to see AA do with Newk, Fried and to a lesser extent Allard.

There is a reason this trade went down before Thanksgiving and the winter meetings, and that reason is the Ms are morons who got fleeced by the Yankees elite FO.
 
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New OFer on MiLB contract to compete for bench job in ST per DOB

David O'Brien

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#Braves signed OF Ryan LaMarre to a minor league contract, will compete for bench job in spring. He turns 30 tomorrow, strong defensive player who slashed .279/.322/.382 in 180 PAs with Twins and White Sox. Made 47 starts including 28 in CF.
 
Maybe you're holding on to his pedigree, but I see a dude who walks too many guys and is already 27 without any real success to date.

Gausman is the very definition of a middle of the rotation work horse. I'm sorry you can't recognize that, but he was a pretty fantastic addition to our team.
 
Kiley is still trying to justify his flawed MLB player valuation, even going so far as to intentionally gloss over incorrect math:

"Sheffield likely won’t rank exactly 54th on our next Top 100 in January, but the $29 million figure is about right. Swanson and Thompson-Williams combine for about $5 million more. Paxton is due in the $20-$25 million range for his next two years via arbitration while projected–using the same $9 million per WAR figure that generated the prospect values–to be worth $60-something million in that span. Those figures both add up to around $35 million, which is within the margin for error but a bit lighter than expected for a Paxton package given the wide interest."

FG projects Paxton to produce 4.0 wins in 2019, and will likely project him to right around that figure in 2020. The math is 8 wins times $9M per win equals $72M, not the "$60-something million" he tries to spin off in support of his incorrect valuation. Subtracting $20M-$25M from $72M equals $47M-$52M, again, nowhere near the "around $35 million" he tries to pass off as real math.

Fact of the matter is the Yankees paid about ~$35M in prospects for ~$50M in MLB value, which is a very nice value add. The Yankees found the team who valued Sheffield the highest, and cashed him in for a valuable impact SP. This is exactly what I would like to see AA do with Newk, Fried and to a lesser extent Allard.

There is a reason this trade went down before Thanksgiving and the winter meetings, and that reason is the Ms are morons who got fleeced by the Yankees elite FO.

Dipoto is terrible at valuating trades. He's one of those guys who falls in love with a player or prospect and is willing to lose value to acquire that player. If I were AA I'd be trying to figure out some kind of deal with Dipoto where he falls in love with one of our various prospects and is willing to slap an absurdly high valuation on that prospect. Maybe it doesn't work or we don't have one of those guys that Dipoto loves, but I'd still explore it. Maybe we can get Haniger for a much cheaper valuation than what he is actually worth because Dipoto has fallen in love with Riley/Pache/Waters or one of our pitchers.
 
New OFer on MiLB contract to compete for bench job in ST per DOB

David O'Brien

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9m9 minutes ago
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#Braves signed OF Ryan LaMarre to a minor league contract, will compete for bench job in spring. He turns 30 tomorrow, strong defensive player who slashed .279/.322/.382 in 180 PAs with Twins and White Sox. Made 47 starts including 28 in CF.

Eh probably just AAAA filler. He did have an .815 OPS against left handed pitching last year, but that was heavily buoyed by a .449 BABIP.
 
If we could get Gray to replace Teheran (unloading him in another deal) in addition to getting a Carrasco or Kluber, sign me up... but I still want to see C and LF addressed as priorities
 
Have any of the Braves beat writers (or anyone else for that matter) addressed the question of whether the Braves were in on Paxton? I've asked DOB, Bowman and the new AJC guy Gabe Burns on twitter. None have responded.
 
If we could get Gray to replace Teheran (unloading him in another deal) in addition to getting a Carrasco or Kluber, sign me up... but I still want to see C and LF addressed as priorities

The problem with this is - who are you going to be able to pawn Julio off on that isn't smart enough to realize they'd save themselves money by simply trading for Gray themselves?
 
Have any of the Braves beat writers (or anyone else for that matter) addressed the question of whether the Braves were in on Paxton? I've asked DOB, Bowman and the new AJC guy Gabe Burns on twitter. None have responded.

Haven't seen it mentioned anywhere.
 
Gausman is the very definition of a middle of the rotation work horse. I'm sorry you can't recognize that, but he was a pretty fantastic addition to our team.

He's more back of rotation and I'm not arguing that he isn't a innings eater. We just have a few of those already.
 
He's more back of rotation and I'm not arguing that he isn't a innings eater. We just have a few of those already.

You're probably going to have a tough time selling anybody on replacing Gausman with any of the kids (particularly last season) - Soroka was hurt, and Newk and Touki were busy walking half the hitters they saw. You can make a pretty convincing argument that if AA hadn't gone out and gotten him, they wouldn't have made the playoffs.
 
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