The Braves Roster: Where It Stands Now. Where Does It Go From Here

Enscheff said:
I think we all know the plan in the rotation will be Fried, Anderson, Soroka plus the equivalent of Hamels on a 1 year deal, and some other filler pieces.

The Will Smith deal was an outlier, but AA builds his BP the same every year, and we shouldn't expect much different this off season.

Assuming Pache is the long term solution in CF, perhaps as soon as opening day, someone to platoon with Duvall in LF should be a primary target. How much the Braves have to spend on that target is completely unknowable by anyone in the public sphere right now though.

3B is the other obvious area to improve, but finances may dictate Riley gets more chances. He may not be a stud, but he did show real improvements last year, and should be at least 1+ win guy with room for more. Teams win all the time with a 1 win guy as their worst regular.

Extending Freeman is something that should be explored. No, not the 7 year Chris Davis bonehead deal that sinks a franchise for a decade. If Freeman is willing to swap out his remaining 1/22 contract with something like 3/75 with a 4th year option, that is the type of thing Chipper did to remain a Brave long term.

The trade market may be insane this year as teams are forced to dump good players they can't afford to keep. FAs may be historically cheap as every team cuts payroll. This will be a very interesting and unpredictable off season I think.
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I like your suggestion on the Freeman extension. I know you were pretty against extending Freeman (for good reason), but that would be a reasonable window to keep him around and then maybe go from there.

I wonder if Duvall would be considered too expensive to bring back, especially if we have to plug other holes with a lowered payroll. Think about it, you're paying him 6 million (projected arb number) to be a short side of a platoon. Not sure how much the lefty in this platoon will cost, but it could be expensive quick. Once again, if payroll is down big time, and Markakis wants to keep playing, might have to explore getting him on the cheap unfortunately.
 
The Dodgers are simply a rich version of the Rays.

The hope is the Braves become a middle class version of both. So far it looks like AA is making that happen, even if the mouth breathing fans don’t understand what’s going on and say things like “go all in”, and, “flags fly forever”.
 
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PawPawMaxwell said:
I think you are sorely mistaken on Ozunas market. Every NL team (didnt even look at the AL teams) has worse production from DH than we did. Only SF, Cards, Marlins and maybe Reds (dependent on Castellanos) had positive production from DH. We were just lucky that signed him to play LF when Donaldson moved on. Then when Neck came back didnt need him in the OF.
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Ozuna made 18m this year, which would very much put him in the upper echelon of DH salaries. And most of the guys above him were not necessarily signed to be DH (though perhaps it was implicit in the mega deals of guys like Cabrera).

In general, I think spending big on DH is generally something that clubs that don't have many holes choose to do, or that clubs that don't really have a choice do.

I'm not seeing an obvious big market club that he fits particularly well. Maybe the Phillies or Mets if either of them happen to be big market teams this offseason.


It seems to me that he's probably not going to make more AAV next year than he did this year. But I really don't know. It's such a strange environment.
 
NYCBrave said:
I like your suggestion on the Freeman extension. I know you were pretty against extending Freeman (for good reason), but that would be a reasonable window to keep him around and then maybe go from there.

I wonder if Duvall would be considered too expensive to bring back, especially if we have to plug other holes with a lowered payroll. Think about it, you're paying him 6 million (projected arb number) to be a short side of a platoon. Not sure how much the lefty in this platoon will cost, but it could be expensive quick. Once again, if payroll is down big time, and Markakis wants to keep playing, might have to explore getting him on the cheap unfortunately.
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I can't imagine they'll non-tender Duvall.

Selling high might be something to explore.
 
There’s not a contract at this point where I bring Markakis back. No matter what his role is on the team he’s going to be over leveraged based on his relationship with Snit.

I think it’s obvious that Markakis yelling at John Hart for coming into the clubhouse to criticize Snitker clearly has impact on Snit’s perception of Markakis.
 
Southcack77 said:
Ozuna made 18m this year, which would very much put him in the upper echelon of DH salaries. And most of the guys above him were not necessarily signed to be DH (though perhaps it was implicit in the mega deals of guys like Cabrera).

In general, I think spending big on DH is generally something that clubs that don't have many holes choose to do, or that clubs that don't really have a choice do.

I'm not seeing an obvious big market club that he fits particularly well. Maybe the Phillies or Mets if either of them happen to be big market teams this offseason.


It seems to me that he's probably not going to make more AAV next year than he did this year. But I really don't know. It's such a strange environment.
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But Ozuna was not signed to be a DH. DH for the NL was not in play when he signed in lieu of JD. Neck opted out, Ozuna exposed his defensive liability and Neck comes back making it an easy decision to keep Marcel as DH.
 
What are anyones estimates of what it would cost to sign someone like Brantley for 3 years or Pederson for 4 years or maybe 3 plus 1? My opinion FWIW, Brantley at 3/36 or Pederson at best 2/24.
 
PawPawMaxwell said:
But Ozuna was not signed to be a DH. DH for the NL was not in play when he signed in lieu of JD. Neck opted out, Ozuna exposed his defensive liability and Neck comes back making it an easy decision to keep Marcel as DH.
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Maybe some team will throw him out there in the OF and live with the defensive runs given up. We've seen a lot of clubs do that over the years.

But I not sure those guys often get paid 18m+ either.

He's a guy with one very good year, one great 1/3 season, and declining athleticism and defensive ability. He's hitting what figures to be the toughest market on the players side in a long, long while.

It's hard to see how clubs will be comfortable committing to business as usual in the early winter. Maybe the market moves like sludge, but I think it's probably not the best year for players.
 
The market for bat-only players has already dried up. That’s why AA was able to get Ozuna on a 1 year deal in the first place.

If the NL keeps the DH I have no problem with AA paying market rate for Ozuna to be the primary DH...but folks don’t seem to understand the actual market rate for such a player. Any team giving Ozuna a contact as if he’s a 5 year OFer is going to be in rough shape quickly.
 
Southcack77 said:
Maybe some team will throw him out there in the OF and live with the defensive runs given up. We've seen a lot of clubs do that over the years.

But I not sure those guys often get paid 18m+ either.

He's a guy with one very good year, one great 1/3 season, and declining athleticism and defensive ability. He's hitting what figures to be the toughest market on the players side in a long, long while.

It's hard to see how clubs will be comfortable committing to business as usual in the early winter. Maybe the market moves like sludge, but I think it's probably not the best year for players.
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Agree with your premise. Just disagree with everyone wanting to resign Ozuna. The identified point is that Freddie needs more LH help in the order since we all know Neck is cooked and Ozzie hits better from the right.
 
Enscheff said:
The market for bat-only players has already dried up. That’s why AA was able to get Ozuna on a 1 year deal in the first place.

If the NL keeps the DH I have no problem with AA paying market rate for Ozuna to be the primary DH...but folks don’t seem to understand the actual market rate for such a player. Any team giving Ozuna a contact as if he’s a 5 year OFer is going to be in rough shape quickly.
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Disagree with this one. I think Ozuna was signed for 1 year deal because of the promise of Pache and Waters. I found it interesting that AA was never indicated as being in on Castellanos nor Moustakas. Moose in particular since Riley struggled at end of 2019.
 
Carp said:
Bottom 5 farm? Lol get real. Just because you don't know their names doesn't mean we don't have a bunch of talent still.
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25 years of amateur braves prospecting and I get accused of not even knowing their names. Go figure. Been wrong plenty of times. Been laughed at plenty of times I turned out right too. Hows Melvin doing?
 
If I'm AA obviously my first priority would be resigning Ozuna as long as it's reasonable. That would allow you to go in to the season with Duvall, Riley, and Pache as our 7-9 assuming the DH is adopted fully, which I believe it will be.

The next priority would be trading Ender in a contract swap of some sorts, getting back an overpaid pitcher in return. That would decide on who/where you spend any additional fees on the pitching staff. Either way, we have the meat of our staff coming back.

Then after that it's tinkering with the last 5 roster spots and stacking the AAA roster to build depth, while waiting on the right deal to happen.

Freeman and Dansby's extensions should be looked at as well, but they shouldn't really effect this year's payroll regardless.
 
PawPawMaxwell said:
Disagree with this one. I think Ozuna was signed for 1 year deal because of the promise of Pache and Waters. I found it interesting that AA was never indicated as being in on Castellanos nor Moustakas. Moose in particular since Riley struggled at end of 2019.
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Ozuna signed for 1 year because nobody wanted him for 3.
 
cajunrevenge said:
No, no they are not. Not even close. To be clear, the team they are going to play in the world series is the best run team. The Dodgers would be a last place team if they had the same situation as the Rays. What you see with the Dodgers is what happens when you have infinite resources without an incompetent GM like Brian Cashman or retarded owner who insists on making bad signings. That doesnt make them smart or good.
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The Dodgers are literally the Rays but with more money. Literally 3/4 of that roster is homegrown lol.
 
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