Mark Melancon to Atlanta per Passan

[nsacpi]

better hope you chose the right time bomb that hasn't gone off yet.
Tomlin/Swarzak have been more valuable than some of the high-priced RPs. but these people would've been happy to spend the money on them. of course, when they flopped, they'd also blame AA. it's almost as if GMs shouldn't listen to fans.

AA made a reasonable bet on a number of relievers who didn't pan out. Biddle, Freeman, Winkler, Carle and Venters did the job last year but flamed out. Same to some extent with Minter. O'Day and Viz were injury risks. We knew that. But you take a chance one of the two is there for the season. We had a lot of options for the pen. Its been one of those years where a lot of them haven't panned out. I think the pen is generally an area where you bring in a lot of options and hope some of them stick. You do that because it is relatively easy and inexpensive to build a pen mid-season if necessary. It turned out to be necessary this year.

 

[50PoundHead]

This is my take. We added one reliever between the end of last season and the start of this one, Tomlin. And he wasn't added until the end of ST. We also saw a relatively reliable reliever depart in Brad Brach.

The only way the pen wasn't going to be a problem was if we had perfect health and no regressions. With guys like Viz, O'Day, and Minter, that was never going to happen.

So here we are. In first place and seeing our pen crumble. We had to add multiple relievers and ended up overpaying for one.

I can see your overall argument, but it's a real stretch to pull out Brad Brach as somebody who would do better than what we've had. Maybe it's just me, but I'm glad his 1.74 WHIP is in Chicago.

 

[Super]

I can see your overall argument, but it's a real stretch to pull out Brad Brach as somebody who would do better than what we've had. Maybe it's just me, but I'm glad his 1.74 WHIP is in Chicago.

Brach basically proves the opposite point attempting to be made there.

 

[Tapate50]

This is my take. We added one reliever between the end of last season and the start of this one, Tomlin. And he wasn't added until the end of ST. We also saw a relatively reliable reliever depart in Brad Brach.

The only way the pen wasn't going to be a problem was if we had perfect health and no regressions. With guys like Viz, O'Day, and Minter, that was never going to happen.

So here we are. In first place and seeing our pen crumble. We had to add multiple relievers and ended up overpaying for one.

And we have heard you since day 1 and the AA failure thread.

It was then, and still is a poor take. We have the benefit of hindsight, and it tells us we did as good or better on this front than our peers. Plus we had all the arms coming along that would supplement the ebbs and flows of effectiveness to rely on...

 

[Super]

And we have heard you since day 1 and the AA failure thread.

It was then, and still is a poor take. We have the benefit of hindsight, and it tells us we did as good or better on this front than our peers. Plus we had all the arms coming along that would supplement the ebbs and flows of effectiveness to rely on...

imagine looking back at all the failures of the RPs signed for somewhat-big-to-big money and still complaining the Braves opted to stay out of it...the Braves knew, of course, that RPs blow up all the time. doubling down, over and over again, on being wrong.

 

[Carp]

So [MENTION=135]striker42[/MENTION] , we have likely approached or surpassed a franchise record payroll. Are you still believing your theory of AA is a lackey whose main goal is to boost executive bonuses?

 

[Southcack77]

the Braves had several options, but they break down essentially as follows:

1. They could run their existing inventory of relievers and pitching prospects, who were already on the books, to see if players who had performed well in past years or who have high upsides would perform well this season.

2. They could deploy additional financial resources in the offseason to address what did seem like a possible need.


During the season the Braves spent 13m on Dallas Keuchel and according to the AJC, they added about 7m to the payroll in acquiring the three relievers. Anthopolous says he required approval to go over budget to do so, but let's say that on opening the day the Braves had roughly 20m dollars of additional leg room for in season acquisitions.

What does it look like if the Braves had spent money during the offseason on higher level relievers.

Let's say they signed someone like Adam Ottavino (8m) or David Robertson (10m) and someone like Sergio Romo (2.5m) or Greg Holland (3.25). Let's call it 12m.

I would have probably been pretty pleased in the offseason had they done that as that was essentially the kind of finishing moves that I thought made sense.

That would have left them with 8m to play with during the season (for purposes of this thought experiment, let's dispense with "Liberty should spend more, etc"

8m would have been insufficient to sign Dallas Keuchel, which is something that became necessary because of very unexpected poor performance by the starters.

It's also entirely possible that they would have signed someone like Robertson who basically had no impact on his team this year. Which would have ended up not addressing the need at all, which would have the same hole to fill, less 10m dollars available to fill it.

Say what you will, the Braves started the season with a lot of relievers in the system who had performed decently in past years. While there were injury risks and definitely risks of players not holding performance, the Braves had a lot of guys and a lot of pitching prospects to help them fill that gap. I think in retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight, it was entirely logical for Atlanta to cycle through their in house options while retaining the flexibility financially to address any need that came up through the season.

As we see, doing so did not stop the Braves from building a large lead in the division and it did not stop them from addressing the pen at the deadline at relatively little cost. the benefit of waiting meant that they at least acquired arms who were performing well in 2019. I'm not sure that guarantees good performance down the stretch and in the playoffs but at least it gives you a better sense of who these guys are at this moment in time. They're not injured, they've not lost a step, they're currently performing guys.

This is another instance of where the superior patience of the Braves front office allowed them time to find the effective guys they had in house, while also giving them the ability to deploy all their resources to improving the critical needs of the team that might arise.

But you say, what if things had gone poorly and the Braves had built themselves a hole? They could have made in season adjustments earlier (in fact they did pick up Swarzak for one) to short it up. But it never got so bad that it was necessarily.

 

[Tapate50]

So [MENTION=135]striker42[/MENTION] , we have likely approached or surpassed a franchise record payroll. Are you still believing your theory of AA is a lackey whose main goal is to boost executive bonuses?

Probably so.

Striker isn't one to waffle.

 

[nsacpi]

the Braves had several options, but they break down essentially as follows:

1. They could run their existing inventory of relievers and pitching prospects, who were already on the books, to see if players who had performed well in past years or who have high upsides would perform well this season.

2. They could deploy additional financial resources in the offseason to address what did seem like a possible need.


During the season the Braves spent 13m on Dallas Keuchel and according to the AJC, they added about 7m to the payroll in acquiring the three relievers. Anthopolous says he required approval to go over budget to do so, but let's say that on opening the day the Braves had roughly 20m dollars of additional leg room for in season acquisitions.

What does it look like if the Braves had spent money during the offseason on higher level relievers.

Let's say they signed someone like Adam Ottavino (8m) or David Robertson (10m) and someone like Sergio Romo (2.5m) or Greg Holland (3.25). Let's call it 12m.

I would have probably been pretty pleased in the offseason had they done that as that was essentially the kind of finishing moves that I thought made sense.

That would have left them with 8m to play with during the season (for purposes of this thought experiment, let's dispense with "Liberty should spend more, etc"

8m would have been insufficient to sign Dallas Keuchel, which is something that became necessary because of very unexpected poor performance by the starters.

It's also entirely possible that they would have signed someone like Robertson who basically had no impact on his team this year. Which would have ended up not addressing the need at all, which would have the same hole to fill, less 10m dollars available to fill it.

Say what you will, the Braves started the season with a lot of relievers in the system who had performed decently in past years. While there were injury risks and definitely risks of players not holding performance, the Braves had a lot of guys and a lot of pitching prospects to help them fill that gap. I think in retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight, it was entirely logical for Atlanta to cycle through their in house options while retaining the flexibility financially to address any need that came up through the season.

As we see, doing so did not stop the Braves from building a large lead in the division and it did not stop them from addressing the pen at the deadline at relatively little cost. the benefit of waiting meant that they at least acquired arms who were performing well in 2019. I'm not sure that guarantees good performance down the stretch and in the playoffs but at least it gives you a better sense of who these guys are at this moment in time. They're not injured, they've not lost a step, they're currently performing guys.

This is another instance of where the superior patience of the Braves front office allowed them time to find the effective guys they had in house, while also giving them the ability to deploy all their resources to improving the critical needs of the team that might arise.

But you say, what if things had gone poorly and the Braves had built themselves a hole? They could have made in season adjustments earlier (in fact they did pick up Swarzak for one) to short it up. But it never got so bad that it was necessarily.

Well put. Any team putting together a roster has to take some chances. AA took some chances with the pen, with the understanding there were a large number of in-house options who could potentially work out and that if not enough of the in-house options worked out he could do some upgrading during the season. This critique of AA's roster management has never held water.

 

[Carp]

imagine looking back at all the failures of the RPs signed for somewhat-big-to-big money and still complaining the Braves opted to stay out of it...the Braves knew, of course, that RPs blow up all the time. doubling down, over and over again, on being wrong.

I mean we didn't have to sign the most expensive ones (though I did really want one of Kimbrel, Ottavino, Soria or Britton). Hudson, Diekman, and Romo all signed for less than 2.5 million. Plenty of others signed cheap deals as well. It certainly wasn't wise to depend on the group we had, imo. Obviously we had a lot of bad luck in that department, but the planning wasn't so great either. I was always under the opinion that we should have signed 1 free agent reliever and it didn't necessarily have to be a high profile closer on a multi-year deal.

 

[striker42]

And we have heard you since day 1 and the AA failure thread.

It was then, and still is a poor take. We have the benefit of hindsight, and it tells us we did as good or better on this front than our peers. Plus we had all the arms coming along that would supplement the ebbs and flows of effectiveness to rely on...

I think there was plenty of concern about the pen at the time. It was honestly surprising that AA made no pen additions until Tomlin at the end of ST. Pens are all about depth as relievers are unpredictable commodities. Doubly so when there are health questions. We had poor depth and it became an issue.

But let no one say that I refuse to give credit where it's due. AA identified the problem and did pretty much everything in his power to fix it while not giving up any top prospects. That's a job well done.

With DK and Melancon, we finally got a payoff on the "financial flexibility".

 

[Southcack77]

I think there was plenty of concern about the pen at the time. It was honestly surprising that AA made no pen additions until Tomlin at the end of ST. Pens are all about depth as relievers are unpredictable commodities. Doubly so when there are health questions. We had poor depth and it became an issue.

But let no one say that I refuse to give credit where it's due. AA identified the problem and did pretty much everything in his power to fix it while not giving up any top prospects. That's a job well done.

With DK and Melancon, we finally got a payoff on the "financial flexibility".

The Braves had a lot of depth in their bullpen.

the most valid criticism is that they could have taken a couple more flyers on veterans or reclamation prospects. The names people tend to bring up are the "successes" though I'd question how many of those there were. And a lot of the low dollar guys were fails.

 

[Tapate50]

I think there was plenty of concern about the pen at the time. It was honestly surprising that AA made no pen additions until Tomlin at the end of ST. Pens are all about depth as relievers are unpredictable commodities. Doubly so when there are health questions. We had poor depth and it became an issue.

But let no one say that I refuse to give credit where it's due. AA identified the problem and did pretty much everything in his power to fix it while not giving up any top prospects. That's a job well done.

With DK and Melancon, we finally got a payoff on the "financial flexibility".

DUDE...We literally have arms for days in the minors, and on top of that an effective pen returning. There are only so many roster spots at MLB, AAA, and AA.

 

[striker42]

DUDE...We literally have arms for days in the minors, and on top of that an effective pen returning. There are only so many roster spots at MLB, AAA, and AA.

We have starters, but not a lot of guys we were ready to abandon as starters and move to the pen.

My biggest complaint is that we counted on guys like Biddle and Venters to do in 2019 what they did in 2018. Those kind of guys should be fighting for a spot in the pen every ST with new competition. And that we counted on guys like O'Day and Viz to be healthy. The fact that we rolled snake eyes on all of this is bad luck but we would have needed all to hit to have a strong pen.

I would have liked to have seen AA bring in some guys to compete for spots at the very least. But again, he's remedied that now and we're solidly in first place so, we managed to survive the pen flameout.

 

[Super]

I mean we didn't have to sign the most expensive ones (though I did really want one of Kimbrel, Ottavino, Soria or Britton). Hudson, Diekman, and Romo all signed for less than 2.5 million. Plenty of others signed cheap deals as well. It certainly wasn't wise to depend on the group we had, imo. Obviously we had a lot of bad luck in that department, but the planning wasn't so great either. I was always under the opinion that we should have signed 1 free agent reliever and it didn't necessarily have to be a high profile closer on a multi-year deal.

it's nice to view Diekman and Romo and Hudson in these positive lights because they aren't here...but i assure you there'd be a TON of complaining if we had to watch Diekman pitch to a 4.74 ERA and a 5.15 BB/9 this year. Romo was barely better last year than a lot of the guys the Braves already had. Hudson had been bad for 2 years and his FIP and xFIP aren't shining this year. Minter and Winkler completely tanking is what really hurt.

but yeah, i think when you're not watching these guys every day, it's easy to look at them and say "oh look, their overall numbers are pretty good." but we'd be super frustrated with them, as they *have* given up their share of runs and have pitched poorly a good bit as well.

i think the plan was to hopefully do well enough until the deadline and boost then, with pitchers that have been effective THIS year and not taking as big of gambles on hoping they regain form, or hold form. obviously any of them could tank at any time. but we know THIS year they've been effective.

 

[AerchAngel]

it's nice to view Diekman and Romo and Hudson in these positive lights because they aren't here...but i assure you there'd be a TON of complaining if we had to watch Diekman pitch to a 4.74 ERA and a 5.15 BB/9 this year. Romo was barely better last year than a lot of the guys the Braves already had. Hudson had been bad for 2 years and his FIP and xFIP aren't shining this year. Minter and Winkler completely tanking is what really hurt.

but yeah, i think when you're not watching these guys every day, it's easy to look at them and say "oh look, their overall numbers are pretty good." but we'd be super frustrated with them, as they *have* given up their share of runs and have pitched poorly a good bit as well.

i think the plan was to hopefully do well enough until the deadline and boost then, with pitchers that have been effective THIS year and not taking as big of gambles on hoping they regain form, or hold form. obviously any of them could tank at any time. but we know THIS year they've been effective.

They are names and not pitchers they once was.

 

[chop2chip]

Minter, Winkler, Sobotka, and Biddle was a nice bullpen core before considering Viz and O’Day. Teams are better off, IMO, cycling through interesting young arms with upside at the beginning of the year and trading for hot hands at the deadline because relief pitching depth is always extremely affordable.

There’s always a Daniel Hudson or Brad Brach type available at the deadline for peanuts. There’s no reason committing too much money for those type of guys in the winter.

 

[Carp]

it's nice to view Diekman and Romo and Hudson in these positive lights because they aren't here...but i assure you there'd be a TON of complaining if we had to watch Diekman pitch to a 4.74 ERA and a 5.15 BB/9 this year. Romo was barely better last year than a lot of the guys the Braves already had. Hudson had been bad for 2 years and his FIP and xFIP aren't shining this year. Minter and Winkler completely tanking is what really hurt.

but yeah, i think when you're not watching these guys every day, it's easy to look at them and say "oh look, their overall numbers are pretty good." but we'd be super frustrated with them, as they *have* given up their share of runs and have pitched poorly a good bit as well.

i think the plan was to hopefully do well enough until the deadline and boost then, with pitchers that have been effective THIS year and not taking as big of gambles on hoping they regain form, or hold form. obviously any of them could tank at any time. but we know THIS year they've been effective.

I understand that. The point is more that we had only like 3-4 "reliable relievers" when we broke camp in Viz, Venters, Biddle, and Carle. All of them being the good relievers left over from last year (Minter being injured was unexpected; edited to include Winkler too). Tomlin, Parsons, Jackson, and Sobotka were part of our opening day pen and should not have been counted on as being reliable relief options given their history. I know Soboka pitched well last year, but you certainly don't want to have to depend on him as he is essentially a rookie. Thank God for Jackson, cause depsite his issues lately, I couldn't imagine where we'd be without him.

We needed better options. Many of us expressed as much at the time. And those options didn't have to be high leverage, expensive relievers either. We could have cobbled together 5 million and signed 2-3 guys who would have given us better depth and the ability to withstand the injuries and unfortunate decline of certain pitchers.

Edit: Forgot about Winkler.

 

[nsacpi]

I understand that. The point is more that we had only like 3-4 "reliable relievers" when we broke camp in Viz, Venters, Biddle, and Carle. Being the good relievers left over from last year (Minter being injured was unexpected). Tomlin, Parsons, Jackson, and Sobotka were part of our opening day pen and should not have been counted on as being reliable relief options given their history. I know Soboka pitched well last year, but you certainly don't want to have to depend on him as he is essentially a rookie. Thank God for Jackson, cause depsite his issues lately, I couldn't imagine where we'd be without him.

We needed better options. Many of us expressed as much at the time. And those options didn't have to be high leverage, expensive relievers either. We could have cobbled together 5 million and signed 2-3 guys who would have given us better depth and the ability to withstand the injuries and unfortunate decline of certain pitchers.

Edit: Forgot about Winkler.

We got some positive work from Jackson, Webb, Tomlin, Newk and Swarzak to make up for the disappointments. I think the issue in the first half is it took a while to stop giving innings to the guys who weren't getting the job done. Collectively though the pen has been bad. So now we've upgraded. Hopefully the new guys and holdovers are strong the rest of the way in. We have the makings of a solid pen. It won't be a strength but it should not be an impediment to this team having a run in the playoffs.

 

[Carp]

We got some positive work from Jackson, Webb, Tomlin, Newk and Swarzak to make up for the disappointments. I think the issue in the first half is it took a while to stop giving innings to the guys who weren't getting the job done. Collectively though the pen has been bad. So now we've upgraded. Hopefully the new guys and holdovers are strong the rest of the way in. We have the makings of a solid pen. It won't be a strength but it should not be an impediment to this team having a run in the playoffs.

True, but no one was expecting much production from any of them aside from Newk.