DOB: Braves offseason about to get a lot busier. - Gamel released.

Perfect Cell said:
sounds like a lovely team the braves will run out in the new stadium in cobb county
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That's why I don't think Heyward and Freeman leave. Everyone sites them not wanting to sign now as them not wanting to play here. But people wouldn't have said the same thing about Cole Hamels in the end. He didn't extend with Philly early. They paid him, he's happy. Same thing will happen with Freddie and Jason is my guess. They'll hit FA and we'll have to pay thme.
 
My reading is Heyward and Freeman want to be paid market value. I don't think we'll see a significant home team discount from them. So the team might as well enjoy those arb years when the system does cause them to be paid below market value. At free agency, they will probably go to another team that has a bigger budget or a team like the Mariners that is willing to concentrate more of its budget in one or two players.

As for trading them, it all depends on the return. My view is that for the most part players have surplus value only in their pre-free agency years. Sure occasionally there will be exceptions due to team friendly contracts. Chris Sale is the great example these days. But the surplus value of guys like Heyward and Freeman was going to be exhausted once they hit six years of major league service time, and this little ruckus about them going to arbitration does not chance that.

A team like the Braves builds mostly upon players in their pre-arb and arb years. You look at whether the players in that group are good enough to make for a contender (at the moment the answer is yes). Then you fill in the holes that the farm system has not filled as best you can with the budget you have left. It is an understatement to say we have not done well with that part of the equation. But the farm system has been so good that we have a contending team in spite of the Uggla and BJ Upton contracts.

I also think this team will stay intact through 2015. At the end of that season, there will be big changes. Heyward, Justin Upton, Uggla and Medlen will be free agents. Chances are Kimbrel will be traded. Some of those holes will be filled internally. Sims will probably be ready to replace Medlen in the rotation. Terdoslavich might show enough to be given one of the corner outfield spots. But we'll still have to fill at least one outfield spot. The bright side is we'll have the funds (from the Heyward, Justin Upton, Uggla, Medlen and Kimbrel salaries) to pursue a pretty good outfielder. Who might that be? Maybe Jason Heyward. If so, it will be at full market price.
 
nsacpi said:
My reading is Heyward and Freeman want to be paid market value. I don't think we'll see a significant home team discount from them. So the team might as well enjoy those arb years when the system does cause them to be paid below market value. At free agency, they will probably go to another team that has a bigger budget or a team like the Mariners that is willing to concentrate more of its budget in one or two players.

As for trading them, it all depends on the return. My view is that for the most part players have surplus value only in their pre-free agency years. Sure occasionally there will be exceptions due to team friendly contracts. Chris Sale is the great example these days. But the surplus value of guys like Heyward and Freeman was going to be exhausted once they hit six years of major league service time, and this little ruckus about them going to arbitration does not chance that.

A team like the Braves builds mostly upon players in their pre-arb and arb years. You look at whether the players in that group are good enough to make for a contender (at the moment the answer is yes). Then you fill in the holes that the farm system has not filled as best you can with the budget you have left. It is an understatement to say we have not done well with that part of the equation. But the farm system has been so good that we have a contending team in spite of the Uggla and BJ Upton contracts.

I also think this team will stay intact through 2015. At the end of that season, there will be big changes. Heyward, Justin Upton, Uggla and Medlen will be free agents. Chances are Kimbrel will be traded. Some of those holes will be filled internally. Sims will probably be ready to replace Medlen in the rotation. Terdoslavich might show enough to be given one of the corner outfield spots. But we'll still have to fill at least one outfield spot. The bright side is we'll have the funds (from the Heyward, Justin Upton, Uggla, Medlen and Kimbrel salaries) to pursue a pretty good outfielder. Who might that be? Maybe Jason Heyward. If so, it will be at full market price.
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That plan is all fine and dandy when you have a top 5 farm system. When you have a bottom third farm system, have no money, and refuse to reload the farm by trading players at peak value....

Well, let's just say we better enjoy our Braves these next 2 years. After 2015 it is going to be pretty hard to be a Braves fan...for a LONG time.
 
Enscheff said:
That plan is all fine and dandy when you have a top 5 farm system. When you have a bottom third farm system, have no money, and refuse to reload the farm by trading players at peak value....

Well, let's just say we better enjoy our Braves these next 2 years. After 2015 it is going to be pretty hard to be a Braves fan...for a LONG time.
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The day will come when the farm will not produce enough to be a competitive. At that point the right move for the front office will be to accept that and move into rebuilding mode. Rebuilding periods are a fact of life for many major league teams. Some teams have done it well. Others have done it poorly or been unlucky and had to endure long periods without playoff baseball. The worst thing to do is to use bandaids and try to pretend you are a contending team when you aren't.

Btw I'm more optimistic than most about the farm system. Basically it needs to continue producing one starting pitcher and one regular per year.

Here's what we've been doing:

Year 2 Arb players: Heyward, Venters

Year 1 Arb players: Freeman, Kimbrel, Beachy, Chris Johnson (acquired by trade)

Year 3 Pre Arb: Minor (a super 2)

Year 2 Pre Arb: Simmons, Teheran, Gattis, Avilan

Year 1 Pre Arb: Wood, Terdoslavich

Here's I project coming down the pipeline:

2015: Bethancourt

2016: Sims

2017: Hursh, Peraza

2018: Cabrera, Caratini, Victor Reyes

Obviously things will not pan out exactly like that. Some will get hurt or not develop. But we have a large pool of good second tier prospects who could step up a la Martin Prado.
 
I'm sorry, but you are delusional if you are comparing the recent group of Heyward, Minor, Freeman, Kimbrel, Simmons and Teheran with any of the riffraff currently in the system. The quality of these current homegrown players on the MLB roster will likely never be reproduced.

Make no mistake, the Braves are good now because of this young core providing tremendous value, and Wren's ability to build a BP on the cheap. The minute the young core stops providing value by becoming too expensive (after 2015), this team will not have the resources to recover. The Braves will be a bottom third team in terms of payroll very soon, yet probably won't be eligible for revenue sharing. It is going to be VERY rough financially.

Look for a long rebuild with some high draft picks through the second half of this decade. The most exciting thing about Braves baseball during those years will be watching the young guys in the system.
 
Enscheff said:
I'm sorry, but you are delusional if you are comparing the recent group of Heyward, Minor, Freeman, Kimbrel, Simmons and Teheran with any of the riffraff currently in the system. The quality of these current homegrown players on the MLB roster will likely never be reproduced.

Make no mistake, the Braves are good now because of this young core providing tremendous value, and Wren's ability to build a BP on the cheap. The minute the young core stops providing value by becoming too expensive (after 2015), this team will not have the resources to recover. The Braves will be a bottom third team in terms of payroll very soon, yet probably won't be eligible for revenue sharing. It is going to be VERY rough financially.

Look for a long rebuild with some high draft picks through the second half of this decade. The most exciting thing about Braves baseball during those years will be watching the young guys in the system.
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We'll see. There will be an opportunity to pick up some extra draft picks. Heyward, Freeman, Justin Utpon and some of the others will leave that behind as part of their legacy. It is true that the current farm system doesn't have a prospect who will be in the Top 10 or even Top 20 of the Top 100 lists. Our highest ranking guy at the moment is Sims, who I think will be ranked about 40 when the BA list comes out.
 
nsacpi said:
We'll see. There will be an opportunity to pick up some extra draft picks. Heyward, Freeman, Justin Utpon and some of the others will leave that behind as part of their legacy. It is true that the current farm system doesn't have a prospect who will be in the Top 10 or even Top 20 of the Top 100 lists. Our highest ranking guy at the moment is Sims, who I think will be ranked about 40 when the BA list comes out.
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Correct, and those picks will be the core of the rebuilding effort. We will be spending most of 2016-2020 watching the Heyward/Freeman/Upton compensation picks develop in the minors, right alongside the handful of Top 10 draft picks the Braves will have for being a 70-75 win team.

If Wren won't sell high on guys like JJ, Hanson, Medlen, Kimbrel, Heyward and Freeman in an effort to consistently restock the farm, then we will have to live with more the ups and downs of traditional rebuilding projects.
 
I'm relatively optimistic about how long this team's window to contend will be. I think it can remain a contender even after Heyward, Freeman, and Justin Upton depart.

Part of the reason is we have a core that we have under team control for five or more years. That core includes Simmons, Gattis, Teheran, Wood, and Avilan.

Heyward, Freeman and Justin Upton leaving will hurt. I am not denying that. But we should be able generate quality replacements. I would fill one of those spots internally. I would guess Terdoslavich will be a candidate. I would replace one with a market rate signing. We'll have some financial flexibility after the 2015 season. For the third guy, I would use Bethancourt as the primary trade chip.

As for pitching, we have Sims, Hursh and Cabrera coming up who can slot in as Medlen, Beachy and Minor depart. There are some good backup possibilities in case those guys don't pan out: Graham, Hale, Thomas, Parsons, Martin.

I'd like to keep Heyward and/or Freeman on a long-term deal. But if it doesn't happen, I don't see it as ushering in a Dark Age. I was a Braves fan during some truly awful teams in the 1970s and 80s. I'd be very surprised if we went through a long period of lean years. But hey being a fan of a bad team is not the end of the world.
 
There no way we let the entire team walk. Payroll will go up next year with the extra tv money. And with the new stadium 3 years away the Braves will not open it with a bunch of scrubs. They know how much excitement they will need from the fan base moving into it so I know they'll do what they need to (including paying market price) for most of these guys to stay. I do think it comes down to which one of JUp or Heyward u wanna keep. If Heyward is standoffish I'd pounce on resigning Upton instead.
 
Hudson2 said:
Payroll will go up next year with the extra tv money.
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Let's hope. An increase in the payroll to $110M or so would help quite a bit in keeping the team competitive. If it stays in the 95-100 range next year, I suspect we'll see Kimbrel or someone else traded away just to make payroll.
 
Hudson2 said:
There no way we let the entire team walk. Payroll will go up next year with the extra tv money. And with the new stadium 3 years away the Braves will not open it with a bunch of scrubs. They know how much excitement they will need from the fan base moving into it so I know they'll do what they need to (including paying market price) for most of these guys to stay. I do think it comes down to which one of JUp or Heyward u wanna keep. If Heyward is standoffish I'd pounce on resigning Upton instead.
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To be honest, the minute Heyward decided to go to a hearing over $300,000 I'd have been on the phone with J-Up's agent personally.
 
The wheels really fell off this thread. It went from "busier off season" to planning for who'll be gone by 2016.
 
Julio3000 said:
What wheels?
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clvclv said:
To be honest, the minute Heyward decided to go to a hearing over $300,000 I'd have been on the phone with J-Up's agent personally.
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Heyward's asking for what, about 5 million? He's arguably our best player, then he looks to his right every night and sees BJ, who the Braves overpaid by a few million per year, IF he was even playing up to his career norms. Heyward is only asking for $300,000 more than the Braves are offering, why can't they overpay Heyward $300,000 for ONE year, but overpay BJ by millions for several years?
 
Can someone project what our lineup/rotation would be in 2016? So assuming we do not re-sign Heyward, Upton, Kimbrel or Medlen, what are we looking at and how much would we have to spend?
 
NYCBrave said:
Can someone project what our lineup/rotation would be in 2016? So assuming we do not re-sign Heyward, Upton, Kimbrel or Medlen, what are we looking at and how much would we have to spend?
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Rotation

1. Minor

2. Teheran

3. Wood

4. Sims

5. Hursh

Lineup

1. Outfielder to be acquired w Bethancourt as main trade chip or signed as a FA.

2. La Stella 2B

3. Freeman 1B

4. Gattis C

5. Chris Johnson 3B

6. Terdoslavich LF

7. BJ Upton CF

8. Simmons SS
 
gtcway said:
Heyward's asking for what, about 5 million? He's arguably our best player, then he looks to his right every night and sees BJ, who the Braves overpaid by a few million per year, IF he was even playing up to his career norms. Heyward is only asking for $300,000 more than the Braves are offering, why can't they overpay Heyward $300,000 for ONE year, but overpay BJ by millions for several years?
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Wren still has to operate with a long-term vision in mind. Since it appears Heyward is going to fight tooth-and-nail to get market value, it only makes sense to approach other players about extensions. You have to approach all your core players to determine the best course of action, particularly when preparing to move into a new stadium.

While it's an absolute hypothetical, let's just assume Justin would be amenable to taking a slightly below-market deal that would extend him through the end of B. J.'s contract to allow them to stay together. You extend him and consider scenarios where you might move Heyward - as part of a package for Chris Sale perhaps. You could then move Justin back to RF, plug Sale in at the top of the rotation, give Terdoslavich a legitimate shot at LF, and eventually sign another OF or use some of that money to see if you could extend Freeman, Simmons, Minor, or Teheran.
 
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