2018 Offseason And Targets

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Ok fine , show me the World Series winner with worse rotation than ancient Glavine, Maddux, Millwood and two randoms.
big red machine didnt have much starting pitching...Gullett was good but injury prone...Billingham was a workhorse but nothing special
 
Mish said the Marlins have wanted Bellinger or nothing from them, so.

Frustrating for the Dodgers.

This sounds like what happened on Yelich last year. Some felt the Braves offered a better package for Yelich than the Marlins took. But they said it had to be Acuna so no deal. They were fixated on the number 1 prospect from the team.

The Marlins window is way far away with the rest of the division. IMO they shouldn't take anyone who has used any service time.
 
It’s almost like he is an affordable average or better LHP out of the BP

Weird...
this thought that Freeman sucks is so old and worrisome that people actually think it’s true. Dude struggled while injured and overused... otherwise, he’s been solid for Atlanta.
 
this thought that Freeman sucks is so old and worrisome that people actually think it’s true. Dude struggled while injured and overused... otherwise, he’s been solid for Atlanta.

A few of the less intelligent posters think Freeman is terrible, but hey, their opinion counts too!!
 
going all-in does not produce any guarantees...there is this strange misconception that shortening the window while modestly increasing the odds in a particular year increases your chances of a championship...

i think the smarter approach is 1) to focus relentlessly on value, 2) be realistic at the deadline (sell some years, plug weaknesses the years you are in contention), 3) avoid the risks associated with long-term deals that pay 30 something players big money...there is no magic bullet out there, but these common sense rules will increase any team's chances of success

Number 2 is especially important. I have seen rebuilds that have take years longer than they should have because a team found themselves buying too often at the deadline when they were obviously not in contention. I've also seen contention windows shrunk because a team may have a bad year within the window, but still see themselves as contenders, so they make these big win now trades in years where they really shouldn't.
 
Number 2 is especially important. I have seen rebuilds that have take years longer than they should have because a team found themselves buying too often at the deadline when they were obviously not in contention. I've also seen contention windows shrunk because a team may have a bad year within the window, but still see themselves as contenders, so they make these big win now trades in years where they really shouldn't.

I tend to see things in an unHarry-like way when it comes to the desirability of rebuilding. In the sense that my criteria for blowing up a team are more stringent. My criteria have mostly to do with how much money is sunk in really bad contracts that the team is getting little or nothing out of.

Examples:

Baltimore with the Davis and Cobb deals

Detroit with the Zimmerman and Cabrera deals

KC with the Gordon and Kennedy deals

Marlins with the Prado and Chen deals

Obviously, how much a team can withstand with those kinds of deals depends on its overall payroll. And the state of the farm system is a second consideration that needs to be weighed.

But unless those two considerations weigh heavily in the negative I would avoid a full rebuild. Each season is precious. And just about every year there is a team or two that catches on fire even though it isn't projected to do much. Baseball is an entertainment business and rebuilds are anything but entertaining. And a season of unexpectedly good results is something that every fan remembers.
 
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i think in a lot of those situations there is context behind the scenes we arent getting. Like the GM who trade for Vernon Wells ridiculous contract. Angels owner told his GM to trade for Wells within 24 hours or he would fire him. I dont think that example is common but there is pressure behind the scenes driving some deals that we never find out about. I know Borass likes to negotiate with owners because they are suckers for his shtick. If you owner decides to throw money at a free agent you arent going to bad mouth the player or owner publicly. Even if your right other owners arent going to want to hire you after that. If the owner signs a turd sandwich odds are as the GM you have to take a big bite out of it and take the blame.
 
Ok fine , show me the World Series winner with worse rotation than ancient Glavine, Maddux, Millwood and two randoms.

2011 St. Louis Cardinals
2015 Kansas City Royals
2005 White Sox
2002 Angels

Off the top of my head. Probably a lot of other ones too. That 2002 team actually had a pretty damn good rotation.
 
I think the point that you should be willing to sacrifice the future to maximize your chance at winning a championship is, if not correct, then certainly a valid school of thought.

But no one should ever grossly overpay for anything. Unless perhaps you are breaking a 100 year dry spell of championships.

Some of the proposed moves to contend are what I would consider gross overpays and I think those are foolish. If for nothing else, than those all in moves might have netted you more value elsewhere.

This is the point. Since everyone loves taking shots at everyone, they assume (obviously incorrectly) that anyone willing to overpay at all for a piece is willing to GROSSLY overpay. As usual that's simply someone looking for an excuse to start an argument and namecall.

I suggested a while back that I'd be willing to give up Pache to land Peralta. Is that an overpay? Sure. A gross overpay? Not IMO given the Braves' current situation. It's pretty easy to argue Peralta's the best fit for this team out there right now. A INEXPENSIVE left-handed corner OF with significant pop that could keep the lineup balanced. He fits the length of control AA's apparently looking to have since every report we've seen states they're looking for a short-term commitment (less than 3 years). Dealing Pache would hurt a bit, sure, but every indication is that Waters will be close to if not just as good overall (likely better offensively and not quite as good defensively) - and the fact that he's a year further away simply means you're not quite as rushed to do something with Ender.

That's the kind of overpay I'm more than fine with - one that significantly enhances our chances to win over the next couple years while Freeman's still in his prime with Acuna taking baseball by storm and a hopefully healthy Donaldson making this a really scary team to face without completely decimating the future. Would I trade 2 top-tier arms for a year of MadBum? Of course not, but I'd have no problem giving up Fried and a throw-in for him since I feel like there's a strong chance the Braves could keep him if he bounces back.

The point that they were making during that show was that no one seems interested in trying to win now anymore, and it's made baseball boring - if you're not completely sure you're one of the top 3 or 4 teams in your league, everybody's doing everything they can to lose these days. I don't disagree. The rebuild needed to happen, but it's over. Just as some teams have plenty more money to spend than the Braves do doesn't mean AA needs to run things like he would if he was in Tampa or Pittsburgh.
 
2011 St. Louis Cardinals
2015 Kansas City Royals
2005 White Sox
2002 Angels

Off the top of my head. Probably a lot of other ones too. That 2002 team actually had a pretty damn good rotation.


The Cards and Royals were the two that jumped to my mind in recent history.

I disagree that ancient Glavine, Maddux and Millwood plus Damian Moss and Jason Marquis were "damn good".

I probably did think those two teams had a chance at the time though. I grant you that.
 
Ok fine , show me the World Series winner with worse rotation than ancient Glavine, Maddux, Millwood and two randoms.

Millwood 4.6 war
Maddux 3.9 war
Glavine 2.9 war
Moss 1.1 war
Top 4 SP 12.5 war

2015 Royals 7.9 SP war
2014 Giants 10.1
2013 Red Sox 12.0
2012 Giants 11.4
2011 Cardinals 12.5

I’ll stop there.

This outdated notion that a team needs “frontline pitching” to win won’t go away no matter how many facts are presented. Folks are simply going to believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of how ignorant their opinion may be.
 
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Ok fine , show me the World Series winner with worse rotation than ancient Glavine, Maddux, Millwood and two randoms.

2002 rotation was good. Rotation was 8th in WAR in baseball. Millwood had a 4.6 WAR, Maddux 3.6, and Glavine 2.9.

But the 2015 Royals were worse, 2011 Cards were on par. In that same year the 02 Angels had a worse rotation. These are with spending like 3 minutes looking into it.

2002 is a top 5 team in the Braves run.
 
I tend to see things in an unHarry-like way when it comes to the desirability of rebuilding. In the sense that my criteria for blowing up a team are more stringent. My criteria have mostly to do with how much money is sunk in really bad contracts that the team is getting little or nothing out of.

Examples:

Baltimore with the Davis and Cobb deals

Detroit with the Zimmerman and Cabrera deals

KC with the Gordon and Kennedy deals

Marlins with the Prado and Chen deals

Obviously, how much a team can withstand with those kinds of deals depends on its overall payroll. And the state of the farm system is a second consideration that needs to be weighed.

But unless those two considerations weigh heavily in the negative I would avoid a full rebuild. Each season is precious. And just about every year there is a team or two that catches on fire even though it isn't projected to do much. Baseball is an entertainment business and rebuilds are anything but entertaining. And a season of unexpectedly good results is something that every fan remembers.

My threshold for a rebuild is certainly lower than yours, but definitely higher than Harry's. Anyone who watches baseball will see teams, every year, that will be approaching the end of a contention window, be terrible, or be sitting in the dreaded 75-80 win limbo. I think its pretty easy to identify each team in a situation like that and, usually, I think a rebuild is the best course of action long term. Sometimes I'm wrong. A year ago I thought the Angels were in the absolute worst position in baseball, with a team that couldn't contend and their most valuable trade chip being virtually untradeable because of how cost prohibitive he is. They also had the worst farm in baseball by far and huge albatross contracts limiting their payroll. Fast forward about 18 months and they got super lucky with Shohei Ohtani and managed to build at least a semi-respectable farm. They haven't proven that they can really contend yet, but I like their long term outlook enough where I don't think they need to rebuild anymore.

But most of the time, if a team isn't in a contention window, I think the prudent move is to commit fully to a rebuild rather than trying to compete against really long odds. A lot of the time those teams that are close to contending, but not quite there, have enough valuable assets where they can do a quicker rebuild than teams who allow their contention window to end because they let all of their assets walk. The Royals are gonna be in really rough shape for a long time because they let that happen. They thought they were competing in 2016 when they really weren't and its screwed up that organization for years.

And I get how rebuilds suck for the casual fan, but for me I actually really enjoyed our rebuild. It sucked losing, but watching our farm system grow into one of the best I've ever seen and dreaming on some of our top prospects was pretty enjoyable for me. I think we can have a long-sustained contention window, but if we ever get to the point where it looks like it is coming to an end, I'll be advocating a rebuild like I would for any other team.
 
This is the point. Since everyone loves taking shots at everyone, they assume (obviously incorrectly) that anyone willing to overpay at all for a piece is willing to GROSSLY overpay. As usual that's simply someone looking for an excuse to start an argument and namecall.

I suggested a while back that I'd be willing to give up Pache to land Peralta. Is that an overpay? Sure. A gross overpay? Not IMO given the Braves' current situation. It's pretty easy to argue Peralta's the best fit for this team out there right now. A INEXPENSIVE left-handed corner OF with significant pop that could keep the lineup balanced. He fits the length of control AA's apparently looking to have since every report we've seen states they're looking for a short-term commitment (less than 3 years). Dealing Pache would hurt a bit, sure, but every indication is that Waters will be close to if not just as good overall (likely better offensively and not quite as good defensively) - and the fact that he's a year further away simply means you're not quite as rushed to do something with Ender.

That's the kind of overpay I'm more than fine with - one that significantly enhances our chances to win over the next couple years while Freeman's still in his prime with Acuna taking baseball by storm and a hopefully healthy Donaldson making this a really scary team to face without completely decimating the future. Would I trade 2 top-tier arms for a year of MadBum? Of course not, but I'd have no problem giving up Fried and a throw-in for him since I feel like there's a strong chance the Braves could keep him if he bounces back.

The point that they were making during that show was that no one seems interested in trying to win now anymore, and it's made baseball boring - if you're not completely sure you're one of the top 3 or 4 teams in your league, everybody's doing everything they can to lose these days. I don't disagree. The rebuild needed to happen, but it's over. Just as some teams have plenty more money to spend than the Braves do doesn't mean AA needs to run things like he would if he was in Tampa or Pittsburgh.


I think some of your suggestions have been gross overpays.

IMO, Pache for Peralta is pretty bad.

I have sympathy for the idea that winning championships is the goal and that being too precious about prospects is something to be avoided. I find people around here exceedingly precious about prospects.

But being willing to deal prospects doesn't mean you throw them around willy nilly to get short term, less than ideal, fixes at positions. That's the thing you work hard to avoid having to do. you can find a better way of preserving some of that value.
 
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