2018 Offseason And Targets

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BeanieAntics said:
Lol at thinking standing pat in the rotation is tantamount to a rebuild. Did you consume a steady diet of paint chips as a toddler or did you spend too much time standing around the back end of a horse?
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Sure would be nice if AA would hurry up and get SOMEBODY in here to start preaching his philosophy. Having Newk and the young arms floundering through off-season workouts without specific things the new Pitching Coach wants them to work to improve isn't exactly helping everybody get closer to Folty-like steps forward though.
 
CrazyTrain said:
Meh, 2 is a pretty low bar given that they consider that to be "MLB regular". Hell, Newk got close last year and he was one of the worst starters in baseball in the 2nd half. Soroka would be my bet if he can stay healthy. Wright has the skill set, but probably won't pitch enough.

The real problem is that if 2-3 of those guys are getting enough innings to get to 2 WAR, it won't even matter because we won't be winning anything anyway.
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Maybe, but not too much of a bet if there isn't any suspense.

Newcomb didn't get to 2 wins in his second season and 160 IP. Quick scan says no one that got to 2 fWAR pitched fewer innings than that.

I'm banking none of the prospects get that many IPs if nothing else.
 
clvclv said:
Sure would be nice if AA would hurry up and get SOMEBODY in here to start preaching his philosophy. Having Newk and the young arms floundering through off-season workouts without specific things the new Pitching Coach wants them to work to improve isn't exactly helping everybody get closer to Folty-like steps forward though.
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Sorry, but Newk's profile doesn't suggest any sort of leap unless he cuts his walks in half, but the reality is that he probably is who he is at this point.
 
CrazyTrain said:
What's hilariously idiotic is you thinking our rotation isn't a liability based on having the 4th best ERA, which was pretty heavily driven by a guy who isn't even on the roster anymore. The kicker is that you used ERA for your argument.
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I enjoy a little injection of energy now and then.

I would not say the Braves rotation is a "liability" but I would say it is one of the least imposing rotations of any playoff team and I agree the likelihood of repeating the performance is in question.

Also BABIP against (MLB Rank among qualifying IP):

Teheran .217 (1) (by 24 pts over #2)
Folty .251 (4)
Sanchez .258 (6*) *Had he had qualifying IP
Gausman .260 (7*) *If Atlanta BABIP had qualifying Innings: Season BABIP was .299
Newcomb .274 (18)



"The average BABIP for pitchers is also about .300, but their ability to sustain high or low BABIPs is much more limited. Their BABIPs will vary season to season, but in the long run you won’t see many pitchers outside of the .290 to .310 BABIP range. Research indicates that you need about 2,000 balls in play before a pitcher’s BABIP “stabilizes.” Again, there is no magic threshold at which one’s BABIP becomes predictive of future BABIP, but you need about three full seasons of data for starting pitchers before you can start to make any conclusions about a pitcher’s true talent BABIP."
 
Southcack77 said:
I enjoy a little injection of energy now and then.

I would not say the Braves rotation is a "liability" but I would say it is one of the least imposing rotations of any playoff team and I agree the likelihood of repeating the performance is in question.

Also BABIP against (MLB Rank among qualifying IP):

Teheran .217 (1) (by 24 pts over #2)
Folty .251 (4)
Sanchez .258 (6*) *Had he had qualifying IP
Gausman .260 (7*) *If Atlanta BABIP had qualifying Innings: Season BABIP was .299
Newcomb .274 (18)



"The average BABIP for pitchers is also about .300, but their ability to sustain high or low BABIPs is much more limited. Their BABIPs will vary season to season, but in the long run you won’t see many pitchers outside of the .290 to .310 BABIP range. Research indicates that you need about 2,000 balls in play before a pitcher’s BABIP “stabilizes.” Again, there is no magic threshold at which one’s BABIP becomes predictive of future BABIP, but you need about three full seasons of data for starting pitchers before you can start to make any conclusions about a pitcher’s true talent BABIP."
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BABIP can be driven by defensive metrics, too, obviously. So, I don't think it's an aberration that as a team, we would support a below average BABIP and to a lesser extent LOB%. My concern is HOW low those stats are and not to mention our extremely low HR/FB %, which is more or less defense independent minus a few stolen homers.

I guess my context for liability is being misconstrued. In the grand scheme of all these stats, we seem to still to be just about slightly above average on everything if you normalize the BABIP, LOB% and HR/FB%. The problem is that you need to be in the upper quartile of MLB to be a playoff team, so really being in the bottom half of the upper half of the league, makes you a fringe playoff team.

I meant more that our rotation is a liability compared to other playoff teams, you know, the ones we are trying to compete with.
 
So Madison will fix our broken pitching rotation? Just trying to clarify what everyone is saying.

Our staff is either good to average. Or stinks.
The next thing I am getting is if we get Madison regardless of the price we don’t stink anymore.

Not sure who to believe here.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
So Madison will fix our broken pitching rotation? Just trying to clarify what everyone is saying.

Our staff is either good to average. Or stinks.
The next thing I am getting is if we get Madison regardless of the price we don’t stink anymore.

Not sure who to believe here.
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As always it depends on cost. I wouldnt gut the farm for Bumgarner or one of the Indians guys. But our rotation is a pretty big hole compared to other playoff teams.

Not sure why other think it's perfect and we dont need to upgrade it.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
So Madison will fix our broken pitching rotation? Just trying to clarify what everyone is saying.

Our staff is either good to average. Or stinks.
The next thing I am getting is if we get Madison regardless of the price we don’t stink anymore.

Not sure who to believe here.
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My perspective is that the Braves rotation was pretty good last season but I have suspicions that it outperformed.

I think Bumgarner would make the rotation better and that there is a reasonably likely chance he could make the rotation a lot better.

I'm not sure that is the difference between stinking and not stinking or being pretty good and being great. Just better.

I think there is an argument that spending 23m on Josh Donaldson to displace an incumbent 3.3 win player is a poorer use of resources than spending 12m on Bumgarner to replace Teheran or young prospect.

I don't think either is a bad play. Depending on the cost of acquiring Bumgarner or ... whatever other quality veteran pitcher the Braves could potentially acquire. I'm not married to Bumgarner. I do think the rotation is short of ideal.
 
I am personally all for Madison B. But only if they trade him as a 2.5 or less war pitcher and not a 5 war pitcher. I think what others are saying is that our rotation is good enough to keep us in the division when we can make moves for upgrades at the deadline.

Not a fan of Klubler. Not thanks on Corbin. So yes count me in as someone who thinks our staff is fine if we can’t get value. Resign Sanchez or the likes and roll with the kids.
 
Heyward said:
As always it depends on cost. I wouldnt gut the farm for Bumgarner or one of the Indians guys. But our rotation is a pretty big hole compared to other playoff teams.

Not sure why other think it's perfect and we dont need to upgrade it.
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Nobody thinks its perfect. We just don't want to make a bad value trade to address it. We also don't want to make a move that would financially preclude us from addressing corner outfield or even worse, taking on more money while trading Ender creating yet another hole that would need to be addressed.

None of that is necessary when we have tremendous depth on the pitching staff.

That doesn't mean we wouldn't jump on a deal where we got great value on a rotation upgrade without precluding us from addressing cOF.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
I am personally all for Madison B. But only if they trade him as a 2.5 or less war pitcher and not a 5 war pitcher. I think what others are saying is that our rotation is good enough to keep us in the division when we can make moves for upgrades at the deadline.

Not a fan of Klubler. Not thanks on Corbin. So yes count me in as someone who thinks our staff is fine if we can’t get value. Resign Sanchez or the likes and roll with the kids.
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This is exactly correct. If they trade Madison at his proper value then we'd be insane to not make that move. But his proper value is wayyyyyyyyyy less than Newk, Fried, +
 
Southcack77 said:
My perspective is that the Braves rotation was pretty good last season but I have suspicions that it outperformed.

I think Bumgarner would make the rotation better and that there is a reasonably likely chance he could make the rotation a lot better.

I'm not sure that is the difference between stinking and not stinking or being pretty good and being great. Just better.

I think there is an argument that spending 23m on Josh Donaldson to displace an incumbent 3.3 win player is a poorer use of resources than spending 12m on Bumgarner to replace Teheran or young prospect.

I don't think either is a bad play. Depending on the cost of acquiring Bumgarner or ... whatever other quality veteran pitcher the Braves could potentially acquire. I'm not married to Bumgarner. I do think the rotation is short of ideal.
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I think that argument only holds water if you assume that Camargo is being relegated to a Ryan Flaherty type of role. If you believe that he'll still get 450-500 plate appearances, which I do, then he isn't really being displaced at all. He's being deployed differently.

You could make an argument that we should have addressed the bench with more of a "bottom-up" approach rather than the "top-down" approach of signing Donaldson, but I still think the Donaldson signing was fine for the most part.

Plus, I trust Donaldson to replicate his prime seasons far more than I trust Bumgarner to replicate his prime seasons.
 
CrazyTrain said:
BABIP can be driven by defensive metrics, too, obviously. So, I don't think it's an aberration that as a team, we would support a below average BABIP and to a lesser extent LOB%. My concern is HOW low those stats are and not to mention our extremely low HR/FB %, which is more or less defense independent minus a few stolen homers.

I guess my context for liability is being misconstrued. In the grand scheme of all these stats, we seem to still to be just about slightly above average on everything if you normalize the BABIP, LOB% and HR/FB%. The problem is that you need to be in the upper quartile of MLB to be a playoff team, so really being in the bottom half of the upper half of the league, makes you a fringe playoff team.

I meant more that our rotation is a liability compared to other playoff teams, you know, the ones we are trying to compete with.
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See, now I would love to hear more about this.

Braves team BABIP against was .278.

The five starters were all well under that.

What's the reasonable baseline for determining how much of that performance is explainable by the Braves defense, how much of it might be the specific skill set of the pitchers, and how much of it was just random variation.

I expect the elected BABIP for all of those guys is closer to .278 than what they actually produced, which could be a major problem for them.

But like to here more. Maybe the whole basis of my thoughts here are wrong.
 
BeanieAntics said:
Okay, you did a half Matt Damon. You still took the exact approach that I said that you were going to take as a self defense mechanism.

Now my best response would be to do the B-Rabbit from 8-Mile, where I acknowledge my shortcomings, but show everyone else that your transgressions are more severe.

Unfortunately you missed the mark on the facts so I can't employ this tactic.

And yes my knowledge of psychoanalytics comes solely from movie references.

Instead I'll just reinforce the fact that you suggested Newk, Fried, plus a couple other guys for Madison Bumgarner. That "idea" was so brutally idiotic that I feel comfortable running with it as my personal self defense mechanism for the extent of this conversation.

This is a ton of fun.
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And what happens if/when Fried/Newk/Allard turn into a Blair, Luke Jackson, Wisler, Sims etc and their value is shot. You'd be wishing we traded them then.
 
BeanieAntics said:
I think that argument only holds water if you assume that Camargo is being relegated to a Ryan Flaherty type of role. If you believe that he'll still get 450-500 plate appearances, which I do, then he isn't really being displaced at all. He's being deployed differently.

You could make an argument that we should have addressed the bench with more of a "bottom-up" approach rather than the "top-down" approach of signing Donaldson, but I still think the Donaldson signing was fine for the most part.

Plus, I trust Donaldson to replicate his prime seasons far more than I trust Bumgarner to replicate his prime seasons.
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You can argue that moving Bumgarner in simply produces depth and all those prospect arms could be efficiently deployed in relief or in spot starts, right?

Maybe one of them could get 80 IPs in a Hader role. Maybe another could get 100 IP as a 6th starter/long man.
 
Heyward said:
And what happens if/when Fried/Newk/Allard turn into a Blair, Luke Jackson, Wisler, Sims etc and their value is shot. You'd be wishing we traded them then.
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So you're suggesting that we sell these guys below their current market value because they might underperform and lower their market value to the number that we're talking about trading them at currently?

Think about that for a second.

You're basically saying: We should sell this 30 million dollar stock for 10 million dollars because the stock might tank! What if in a year the stock is worth 10 million dollars? That'd be terrible!
 
BeanieAntics said:
I think that argument only holds water if you assume that Camargo is being relegated to a Ryan Flaherty type of role. If you believe that he'll still get 450-500 plate appearances, which I do, then he isn't really being displaced at all. He's being deployed differently.

You could make an argument that we should have addressed the bench with more of a "bottom-up" approach rather than the "top-down" approach of signing Donaldson, but I still think the Donaldson signing was fine for the most part.

Plus, I trust Donaldson to replicate his prime seasons far more than I trust Bumgarner to replicate his prime seasons.
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Care to explain why? Donaldson is basically 33 and has a history of "dead arm" and calf injuries. Bumgarner is 29, isn't a big velo guy anyway and had fluke injuries. Both of them have the boon of a walk year to boost their stats.

Why do you think JD has a better chance than MB?
 
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