2022 Trade Deadline

Iglesias is the high leverage RH BP arm everyone wanted AA to get. He's expensive in terms of salary, so was cheap in terms of prospects...exactly the type of move I assumed he'd make.

His xwOBA the last 2 seasons were/are .243 (elite) and .290 (good, not great).

For reference, the best Braves BP arms (min 100 PAs) are Jansen (.227), Minter (.243), Lee (.257), Stephens (.265), and McHugh (.267).

I haven't dug into Iglesias at all, but he was elite very recently, and maybe the Braves can make him elite again. While this is a way to use cash in lieu of prospect capital, committing $48M to the age 33-35 seasons of a BP arm a few hours after unloading the last long term BP mistake isn't exactly what I had in mind. I expect better moves out of AA.

I give this trade a C, and still grade AA's overall deadline a solid but unspectacular B-. The only great move was flipping Smith for something useful.
 
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This needs to mean they expect Albies back. Still hope we can take a flier on conforto.

Pen I assume is set up with two righties for high leverage and two lefties. Yates as extra guy. Hoping maztek is the second lefty with minter. No smith keeps lee around. Likely getting two of strider, ozduzi, or Anderson in your playoff pen.
 
Enscheff said:
Iglesias is the high leverage RH BP arm everyone wanted AA to get. He's expensive in terms of salary, so was cheap in terms of prospects...exactly the type of move I assumed he'd make.

His xwOBA the last 2 seasons were/are .243 (elite) and .290 (good, not great).

For reference, the best Braves BP arms (min 100 PAs) are Jansen (.227), Minter (.243), Lee (.257), Stephens (.265), and McHugh (.267).

I haven't dug into Iglesias at all, but he was elite very recently, and maybe the Braves can make him elite again. While this is a way to use cash in lieu of prospect capital, committing $48M to the age 33-35 seasons of a BP arm a few hours after unloading the last long term BP mistake isn't exactly what I had in mind. I expect better moves out of AA.

I give this trade a C, and still grade AA's overall deadline a solid but unspectacular B-. The only great move was flipping Smith for something useful.
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A “C” seems rather unfair for now. If he can help pitch you to another pennant, it’ll at least be worth the money this year. He could still be traded in the offseason if AA feels like they’ll be hamstrung by the salary. AA got a pricey but high upside reliever, one of the best available closers, for a journeyman and what likely just amounts to filler. Maybe Davidson will develop into a pretty good pitcher, but as you’ve said, the Angels is not an optimal landing spot for him.

My only gripe with the deadline is not getting a better hitter than Grossman, but I’m fairly certain AA made the effort. Maybe Grossman will be a pleasant surprise and Rosario can heat up for a productive platoon pairing.
 
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Russ2dollas said:
This needs to mean they expect Albies back. Still hope we can take a flier on conforto.

Pen I assume is set up with two righties for high leverage and two lefties. Yates as extra guy. Hoping maztek is the second lefty with minter. No smith keeps lee around. Likely getting two of strider, ozduzi, or Anderson in your playoff pen.
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A healthy and productive Albies would make the bottom half of the order look a lot better than it does now. d'Arnaud has cooled off, Rosario has flat-out stunk and Ozuna hasn't been much better. Harris has been very good, but he's going to be going through the league a second time and folks will know a little more about him. He's likely going to have to make some adjustments, but if his early performance is any indication, I trust that he can do that.
 
Eyeballing statcast data, Iglesias has lost a slight tick of velocity across the board. Something to keep an eye out for.

Iglesias is a big swing and miss guy. I believe he was second to DeGrom last year in swinging strike rate IIRC. His control has always been fantastic. He’s not one to have a lot of traffic on the bases which will be nice change of pace from our previous closers. But will give up the homerun. I love the fit as a player. For $16m AAV I would rather invest in a long term solution at SS.

An interesting quirk with our contracts is there is a waterfall of expiring contracts starting next year with Rosario, TDA, Yates, Odorizzi, Pina, and McHugh. The following year Ozuna, then Iglesias the year after. This should absorb a majority of the arbitration raises. As long as AA doesn’t make get saddled with a true albatross long term contract there is a path to pay for Fried.
 
bravesnumberone said:
A “C” seems rather unfair for now. If he can help pitch you to another pennant, it’ll at least be worth the money this year. He could still be traded in the offseason if AA feels like they’ll be hamstrung by the salary. AA got a pricey but high upside reliever, one of the best available closers, for a journeyman and what likely just amounts to filler. Maybe Davidson will develop into a pretty good pitcher, but as you’ve said, the Angels is not an optimal landing spot for him.
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C is average. Taking on a long and expensive contract for a BP arm that is quite possibly Will Smith v2.0 is a very average move that a very average GM would make.

As I said, I expect better moves out of AA, and he only made 1 good move this deadline. Last deadline he perfectly toed the contender/noncontender line, and made solid cheap additions. This year he didn't do enough to improve a clear NL favorite, and replaced one bad BP contract with another one that will potentially be just as bad.
 
To each their own, I suppose. Maybe AA is just lucky as hell, but we got a World Series title with Smith playing a huge role in that in the postseason. Pitched like the guy we acquired when we needed it the most. This did not set the franchise back. Iglesias has just as much potential to do that with a payroll that will only continue to grow. I’d say AA has earned some benefit of the doubt.

If he had overpaid with something like Muller, I might feel a little bit differently.
 
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AA is a great GM, but he is not above making mistakes. I call out instances of both. Smith for Odor...excellent. Adding Adrianza to justify DFAing Cano...pointless. Adding Grossman to a LF/DH mix that is not producing for a Top ~5 team in MLB...not good enough. Adding another probable bad BP contract...average move made by every mediocre win-now GM in the history of MLB.

Saying the Smith contract was good because he pitched well during a playoff run is simply not understanding process vs results.
 
Money is hard to evaluate. It’s a risk.

But if you think this guy is likely an elite 7th inning guy with upside and you expect your payroll to be top 5, then maybe it’s a great move.

With no cap the money isn’t as big a deal. Curious to see how the Braves play it on salary.
 
I think Iglesias pitches better here. It’s a lot of money but if AA didn’t think he could afford him and still put together a top notch team then he wouldn’t have gotten him.
 
There’s just very little risk involved if the team is increasing payroll as much as it supposedly is. Again, he can easily be traded this offseason. There will be teams this winter that will covet closers, teams that either implode down the stretch and miss the playoffs because their pen can’t get it done and teams that will lose a playoff series because of bad relief pitching.
 
If payroll is top 5 going forward then it's okay. We can flip him later as someone else said but thats still a ton of risk and money we could have used elsewhere. Certainly signals the end of Jansen in Atlanta. I do wish he got a better outfielder than Grossman though, maybe the cost was too high but i mean how much were teams asking really.
 
CrimsonCowboy said:
Just going through some of the trades. Kind of surprised at the Bader for Montgomery deal. Not sure about the Yankees giving up a starter, but what do I know?

What the heck were the Red Sox and Cubs doing today?
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Wanted to get Judge out of CF - getting one of the best (if not the best) at going to get it out there isn't a bad idea.

Montas addition is probably what made that possible - Taillon now probably gets their postseason Game 4 starts. With their offense, that ain't awful.
 
My initial thinking is I would have liked to save that $16 million a year over the next 3 to pay towards whoever we get to fill in at SS, or even towards Swanson.
 
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