Spring Training Gamethread/Discussion

Listen people, we can't win anything unless we have players who were studs last year. I think there is some rule that says you are disqualified from the playoffs if you don't have atleast 3 starters who went 200 innings the previous year. Lets just give up and accept that our players were not good enough in the past to compete in the future. I think you get like 5 extra wins per starter that went 200 innings the previous year. What we needs to is trade some of our young players for some old players who were good last year. Because we all know baseball is predictable and players never randomly get better/worse/injured. Last year we started the year with an oldman Hudson, Minor coming off 4+ ERA, Teheran coming off a 5+ ER in his second season in AAA, Medlen, and Maholm. I would say that's a worse situation than we have now.

Dalyn, serious question, are you Brian Cashman or any other member of the yankees front office?

Who is saying anything like any of this? It is ridiculous how defensive some of you get as soon as someone points out a potential weakness. I have never once said we would not be a good team.
 
I'm not going to have this discussion again. You don't have to predict injuries to any specific pitcher, just injuries in general and those are easy to predict (if you aren't hopelessly optimistic).

Do you have a realistic solution? I really want to know what you think we should have done. The only realistic solution is to stack up on piching prospects, but that's what the braves have always done and you don't seem to like counting on young unproven players. Based on how you see it we can just count on Starsburg and Zimmerman to get injured.
 
Who is saying anything like any of this? It is ridiculous how defensive some of you get as soon as someone points out a potential weakness. I have never once said we would not be a good team.

Everyones rotation is a weakness when 60% of the starting rotation is injured. Show me a team with 8 capable starters and I will show you either a team with 200 mill payroll or a horrendous offense. Pitchers are generally MORE reliable coming off tj surgery within the last 5 years than those who aren't. The percent that need a second tj surgery within 4 years is something around 2%. Beachy I understand but Medlen going down was not predictable.
 
Do you have a realistic solution? I really want to know what you think we should have done. The only realistic solution is to stack up on piching prospects, but that's what the braves have always done and you don't seem to like counting on young unproven players. Based on how you see it we can just count on Starsburg and Zimmerman to get injured.

I think we should've been better prepared by adequately replacing Hudson (not with Garcia/the potential of Floyd returning). Luckily, the injuries happened literally DAYS before we would've had no easy option. If Medlen and Beachy had gone down late last week, what we would do? That's a horrible position for the team to have been in. If Santana had not been available -

Teheran
Wood
Garcia
Hale
Maya/Schlosser (April 12)

We would be looking at having Hale in the rotation until Floyd returned and there would be zero chance of protecting Wood by limiting his innings.
 
Everyones rotation is a weakness when 60% of the starting rotation is injured. Show me a team with 8 capable starters and I will show you either a team with 200 mill payroll or a horrendous offense. Pitchers are generally MORE reliable coming off tj surgery within the last 5 years than those who aren't. The percent that need a second tj surgery within 4 years is something around 2%. Beachy I understand but Medlen going down was not predictable.

Like I said, you don't have to predict specific injuries.
 
Not a very good comparison. Beachy had much better minor league numbers. Basically, your argument is only saying that anyone who has been mediocre to bad their whole career can excel in the majors... okay, but the odds aren't very good.

Hale minor league stats:

25-28, 3.68 ERA, 368 K, 182 BB, 472 innings


Beachy minor league stats:

15-8, 2.58 ERA, 269 K, 71 BB, 254 innings

The quality is not even close... terrible comparison. I can't say he isn't capable of doing the same thing, but I can gaurantee its not likely. How are you going to tell me Hale is going to be a successful MLB pitcher based on TWO starts, a mediocre spring and a mediocre to bad rest of his career? There's optimism and there is blind hope.

The only reason Beachy surprised everyone was because he only started pitching his last year of college. He was far from any kind of surprise the year he came up if you paid attention to the organization and scouts.

Yeah that screams pathetic major league pitcher and career AAAA guy. :facepalm:
 
I'm not going to have this discussion again. You don't have to predict injuries to any specific pitcher, just injuries in general and those are easy to predict (if you aren't hopelessly optimistic).

It took a very special circumstance, Medlen and Beachy going down for the season, for the Braves to pony up the kind of money it took to sign Santana.
 
Like I said, you don't have to predict specific injuries.

No, but not getting even one pitch before they are done? Not likely even in the wildest of scenarios. (Where we find ourself)

All injuries don't mean they would be done for the year ( and most injuries aren't season ending ) . We had a nice amount of pitching depth, but two season enders will torpedo everyone's rotation even the best ones. You still haven't mentioned a solution or how many is enough. 10 pitchers? Who would we have had to empty the coffers to send to AAA for standby?
 
Yes, it did.

Knowing that it took that kind of circumstance for the Braves to be able to afford to sign Santana what would you have done before spring training to guard against unexpected injuries to Medlen and Minor. I'll give you that Beachy was no guarantee. But there was no signs that Medlen and Minor would go down. How would the Braves have been able to sign Santana or Burnett or someone else that would have been able to pitch the whole season if it took the Braves getting a special request to be able to spend the money they did on Santana and completely blow out their budget?

This is a very straight forward question that you have yet to give a simple and realistic answer to by just continuing to say that the Braves should have better prepared themselves.
 
No, but not getting even one pitch before they are done? Not likely even in the wildest of scenarios. (Where we find ourself)

All injuries don't mean they would be done for the year ( and most injuries aren't season ending ) . We had a nice amount of pitching depth, but two season enders will torpedo everyone's rotation even the best ones. You still haven't mentioned a solution or how many is enough. 10 pitchers? Who would we have had to empty the coffers to send to AAA for standby?

I offered several solutions before it even became an immediate problem.
 
Yeah that screams pathetic major league pitcher and career AAAA guy. :facepalm:

Way to go, putting words into my mouth... classic. Please tell me once where I said anything about him being "pathetic." And no, his numbers overall in minor league ball are not very good:

A ball - 4.13 ERA and 1.51 WHIP
A+ ball - 4.10 ERA and 1.35 WHIP
AA ball - 3.77 ERA and 1.29 WHIP

He didn't really have a "good" season until AAA where he put together a 3.22 ERA but still had a kinda high WHIP 1.39

If you think those minor league numbers are going to translate into a consistent very good major league pitcher, you will be disappointed every time. Whether you want to face reality or not... his numbers very much look typical of a spot start guy/career AAAA guy. I like how you just gloss over everything else the post addressed, like how silly of a comparison of him and Beachy was. He will be fine as our 5th starter, I have no doubt, but if he has to be our 3 or 4 for an extended period of time, that's trouble... don't be delusional.
 
Again, show me a team with SP depth so deep that there are 8 really good pitchers.
Before the injuries:
Minor
Medlen
Teheran
Wood
Beachy
Hale
Floyd
Garcia

Even if you assume from the get-go that Beachy won't throw a single pitch, how many teams have a core as young and talented as Minor, Medlen, Teheran, and Wood? Seriously, the potential in that group, 1-4, is SUPER high, and I believe Mr. Wren felt the same way.
I still feel that, mid-season, pitching will be a strength for us. Minor, Teheran, Wood, Santana is a really good 1-4.
 
Again, show me a team with SP depth so deep that there are 8 really good pitchers.
Before the injuries:
Minor
Medlen
Teheran
Wood
Beachy
Hale
Floyd
Garcia

Even if you assume from the get-go that Beachy won't throw a single pitch, how many teams have a core as young and talented as Minor, Medlen, Teheran, and Wood? Seriously, the potential in that group, 1-4, is SUPER high, and I believe Mr. Wren felt the same way.
I still feel that, mid-season, pitching will be a strength for us. Minor, Teheran, Wood, Santana is a really good 1-4.

Can't forget Floyd. Never know how one bounces back from injury. On his career he's about average. Floyd and Santana add some solid vets to go with our young live arms. I also think this year Minor takes the next step and becomes our ace. Kid has a lot of Glavine in him.
 
Can't forget Floyd. Never know how one bounces back from injury. On his career he's about average. Floyd and Santana add some solid vets to go with our young live arms. I also think this year Minor takes the next step and becomes our ace. Kid has a lot of Glavine in him.

Floyd is a really solid 4-5 if he can return to what he was for 4-5 years straight. He was solid and reliable, which is what you want out of those spots in the rotation. And he will be looking to secure a deal in the off-season, so you're presumably getting his best stuff and effort.

I love the potential of both Minor and Teheran. I think they could both be studs. And Teheran is so young.
 
If Teheran and Minor pitch to their potential, our rotation will be awesome. I'm totally down betting on our homegrown young guns. I'm glad Frank wanted to do so and felt comfortable doing so.
 
I was always nervous about Beachy... but the Medlen thing completely took me by surprise. Worried about Minor's shoulder. With this organization, you just never know how truly bad an injury is.

And people can say all they want about Hale... nothing about his college or professional career makes me think he can be anything more than a spot starter/AAAA player. People just run with two good September starts and think he's the next staple of our rotation. There are a lot of people who are going to be upset when that doesn't come anywhere close to being his norm.

Way to go, putting words into my mouth... classic. Please tell me once where I said anything about him being "pathetic." And no, his numbers overall in minor league ball are not very good:

A ball - 4.13 ERA and 1.51 WHIP
A+ ball - 4.10 ERA and 1.35 WHIP
AA ball - 3.77 ERA and 1.29 WHIP

He didn't really have a "good" season until AAA where he put together a 3.22 ERA but still had a kinda high WHIP 1.39

If you think those minor league numbers are going to translate into a consistent very good major league pitcher, you will be disappointed every time. Whether you want to face reality or not... his numbers very much look typical of a spot start guy/career AAAA guy. I like how you just gloss over everything else the post addressed, like how silly of a comparison of him and Beachy was. He will be fine as our 5th starter, I have no doubt, but if he has to be our 3 or 4 for an extended period of time, that's trouble... don't be delusional.

That is you basically saying he's going to be a pathetic major league pitcher if he's nothing but a AAAA guy in your opinion.
 
Would you guys be opposed to swapping bad contracts? How bout Dan Uggla for Ricky Romero straight up? Romero still has good stuff his mechanics are all off but he could compete for the 5th spot and be the long man out of the pen once everyone returns unless he's pitching lights out. It would also allow La Stella to cracked the lineup and give us another LH option.
 
That is you basically saying he's going to be a pathetic major league pitcher if he's nothing but a AAAA guy in your opinion.

If that's how you want to take it, fine... but again, way to actually address the substance of the post because you're upset your comparison was terrible. Please enlighten me... what about his college and minor league career makes you think he's going to be a very good MLB pitcher? Or are you just going to keep going with the argument that anyone can succeed, regardless of their minor league career?
 
Breaking down THURSDAY box. Losing 7-0 (ugh) to McCann's Yankees.

Hale fails to make it out of the fifth, allowing three runs (earned) in 4.1 innings.

Avilan cleaned up his mess and has still not allowed a run this spring.

Jaime pitched himself out of the mix with four walks in 1/3 inning. Two runs scored, but Ryne Harper came on and struck out two to close out the inning.

Another shutout inning for Kimbrel, another shaky outing for Vazquez.

Schafer, JUp and Doumit had doubles, but no one had two hits. Simmons and La Stella had errors, La Stella booting his only chance

Uggla 0-3, K
 
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