Kimbrel: Yea or Nay?

nsacpi said:
Likely raises: Gausman (3M), Folty (2M), Inciarte (2M), Markakis (2M), Flowers (2M), Freeman (1M), Culberson (0.5M), Swanson (2.5M). Total 15M.

We will have to spend on catcher. Perhaps not much if we bring McCann back.

Contracts coming off: Venters (2.25M), Viz (4.8), Donaldson (23), O'Day (9), Blevins (1.5), Joyce (1.25), Tomlin (1.25), Duvall (2.9)

Assuming these guys get replaced by minimum salary players puts us at 92M.

If we add Kimbrel at say 16M in 2020, that puts us at 108M. Adding Donaldson at say 20M puts us at 128M.

Let's say the team has a plan for opening day payroll of 120M. They would have to move some salary to be able to get down to that if they took on both Kimbrel and Donaldson for 2020. There are some possibilities. One is to decline the option on Teheran (or trade him). That would save 12M. If we traded Inciarte it would save 7M.

It obviously becomes a much tougher lift if we want to bid on a big name catcher like Grandal. Then likely something has to give. I don't think we can fold in all three of Kimbrel, Donaldson and Grandal into a 120M opening day payroll.

If instead of Kimbrel we trade for Mychal Givens or Ian Kennedy (and as part of that deal the Royals pick up 10M of his 2020 salary), then carrying both Donaldson and Grandal becomes feasible (we would still have to move Teheran and Inciarte).
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I don’t think Ender is on the team next year.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
I don’t think Ender is on the team next year.
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We can assume he and Teheran are not. My point is that under that assumption, we can't fold all three of Kimbrel, Donaldson and Grandal into a 120M opening day payroll. So the FO should think long and hard about bringing Kimbrel in on a deal that goes beyond this season.
 
nsacpi said:
Likely raises: Gausman (3M), Folty (2M), Inciarte (2M), Markakis (2M), Flowers (2M), Freeman (1M), Culberson (0.5M), Swanson (2.5M). Total 15M.

We will have to spend on catcher. Perhaps not much if we bring McCann back.

Contracts coming off: Venters (2.25M), Viz (4.8), Donaldson (23), O'Day (9), Blevins (1.5), Joyce (1.25), Tomlin (1.25)

Assuming these guys get replaced by minimum salary players puts us at 92M.

If we add Kimbrel at say 16M in 2020, that puts us at 108M. Adding Donaldson at say 20M puts us at 128M.

Let's say the team has a plan for opening day payroll of 120M. They would have to move some salary to be able to get down to that if they took on both Kimbrel and Donaldson for 2020. There are some possibilities. One is to decline the option on Teheran (or trade him). That would save 12M. If we traded Inciarte it would save 7M.
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I'm basically using BRef estimates. 87 post arb, plus the option on Markakis and Flowers and declining Teheran gets you to about 95m.

Braves started this season at let's say 115. I think they probably offered Brantley in the 10-15m range and talked about increasing payroll year over year gradually. Call it 125-130m opening then.

30-35m to spend.

They can save over what is baked into the numbers:

9-11m trading Gausman
7m trading Inciarte
4 m declining Flowers, 6m trade
4 m declining Markakis 6m trade
3 m waiving Duvall
2 m waiving Culberson
 
TheBravos said:
Late last year and in the playoffs he was not good at all. Maybe he just ran down, but was not the same guy. Velo was down also.

2017 he was dominant though.
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He was good most of the year. He didn’t have a great post season but that is also small sample with some reports of pitch tipping. He also didn’t have great command late. That might be fluke. Might be wearing down or might be a trend that started the whole season with a higher walk rate.
 
Southcack77 said:
I'm basically using BRef estimates. 87 post arb, plus the option on Markakis and Flowers and declining Teheran gets you to about 95m.

Braves started this season at let's say 115. I think they probably offered Brantley in the 10-15m range and talked about increasing payroll year over year gradually. Call it 125-130m opening then.

30-35m to spend.

They can save over what is baked into the numbers:

9-11m trading Gausman
7m trading Inciarte
4 m declining Flowers, 6m trade
4 m declining Markakis 6m trade
3 m waiving Duvall
2 m waiving Culberson
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sure...I'm proceeding on the assumption that moving Teheran and Inciarte might be realistic but not picking up those team friendly options on Flowers and Markakis is not

I also don't think we would consider creating two openings in the rotation by dropping both Gausman and Teheran
 
bravesfanMatt said:
He didn’t have a great post season but that is also small sample with some reports of pitch tipping.
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That's the nub. Post season samples (especially for closers) are always going to be small. And yet the argument for a top closer is that much of his value is tied to being able to close out big games in the post season.
 
nsacpi said:
sure...I'm proceeding on the assumption that moving Teheran and Inciarte might be realistic but not picking up those team friendly options on Flowers and Markakis is not

I also don't think we would consider creating two openings in the rotation by dropping both Gausman and Teheran
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Neck will be back barring injury. So will Gaus.
 
If we can pull off the price, I'm not sure there's a reason to NOT do it. If he's even half the player he's been throughout his career, it's worth it.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
Again. I tend to lean to the larger sample size to equate a “bad” year.
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So do we price Kimbrel based on his regular season value (WAR like any other player). Or does he get paid based on the value that top closers are supposed to generate in the post season.
 
nsacpi said:
So do we price Kimbrel based on his regular season value (WAR like any other player). Or does he get paid based on the value that top closers are supposed to generate in the post season.
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I would not pay relief guys based on WAR. Too quirky imo. You typically follow how the market sets for relievers. I think this year has started to correct the over paying that happened the last three years. I would go 2/25 (10,15) with team option on third (15,2 buyout). I would start lower and move up to that.
 
nsacpi said:
So do we price Kimbrel based on his regular season value (WAR like any other player). Or does he get paid based on the value that top closers are supposed to generate in the post season.
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Would you expect Kimbrel to perform more like 2018 60 innings or more like the 10 in the playoffs.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
Would you expect Kimbrel to perform more like 2018 60 innings or more like the 10 in the playoffs.
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I would weight it about 60-40. With the larger weight given to regular season. And I would give some weight to his numbers in the prior 2 years. But I do think he should be dinged in a non-trivial way for what happened in the post season last year. That might be part of the reason he is still unsigned.
 
Southcack77 said:
I'm basically using BRef estimates. 87 post arb, plus the option on Markakis and Flowers and declining Teheran gets you to about 95m.

Braves started this season at let's say 115. I think they probably offered Brantley in the 10-15m range and talked about increasing payroll year over year gradually. Call it 125-130m opening then.

30-35m to spend.

They can save over what is baked into the numbers:

9-11m trading Gausman
7m trading Inciarte
4 m declining Flowers, 6m trade
4 m declining Markakis 6m trade
3 m waiving Duvall
2 m waiving Culberson
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That's your problem. BRef averages out signing bonuses and other odd quirks that makes their payroll values complete garbage.

If you want to track the payroll, make your own spreadsheet. The contract details are spelled out in many places. Arb salaries are easy enough to ballpark estimate. Add them up and make comments based on real data.

We should be past the point of discussing available payroll in terms of "so and so is leaving, so they have X dollars to spend....derp!". Try to be better than Bowman, mmkay?
 
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