AA's Failure

Enscheff said:
I find it exceedingly unlikely AA didn’t spend payroll to boost his 2019 bonus. It seems illogical to be that short sighted. If the Braves face plant this year attendance will plummet, and AA will be on the hot seat. He knows this, so there’s no way he made roster decisions based on some bonus for a single year.
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He wasn't going to let the team face plant. He spent big money on Donaldson to try to ensure there wouldn't be a face plant. The roster is competitive as it stands. That being said, I don't see AA spending up to his payroll max to try to squeeze a few extra wins. I don't think the cost-benefit analysis works for him. Better to pocket that money, hit some goals, and hope for the best. If we miss the playoffs you can always spend the money next year.

One area that I don't think was profit motivated is the lack of attention to the pen. I think that was just a plain, old fashioned blunder.
 
Hudson2 said:
They didn’t. But he would be at 3b instead of JD and the money used to upgrade an actual hole. Isn’t hard to figure it out..thanks.
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got it. so they lost all possible production from camargo because they signed a clearly better 3B.
makes total sense. thanks.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
There is a valid argument in his statement. You are comparing 3 starters in a vacuum but not paying attention to the bench upgrade that Jogun brings.
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Yeah I get that. He would of had to get a better bench piece in here if Camargo was used as a starter. We just put so many of our eggs in 2 guys over 30 that have injury histories or can’t play but half the games a year. I guess the whole conversation will be rehashed at the end of the season unless JD has another injury that sidelined him for most of the season. And then AA will really catch $hit.
 
Super said:
got it. so they lost all possible production from camargo because they signed a clearly better 3B.
makes total sense. thanks.
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JD is clearly better when healthy. WHEN healthy. You have to add in the difference between salaries and that production also. We’ll wait till the end of the season to compare everything.
 
Hudson2 said:
JD is clearly better when healthy. WHEN healthy. You have to add in the difference between salaries and that production also. We’ll wait till the end of the season to compare everything.
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regardless, writing camargo out of your equation..when he's still on the team and will get plenty of ABs...makes zero sense.
 
Super said:
regardless, writing camargo out of your equation..when he's still on the team and will get plenty of ABs...makes zero sense.
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And you’re throwing him into being a backup outfielder which he’s never done when you had the resources to do better. Makes zero sense.
 
We can expect and demand too much as fans sometimes, but when the weakness is obvious and has been and the money is there to fix it, it is not too much at all to expect and even demand it to be fixed.
 
Dalyn said:
We can expect and demand too much as fans sometimes, but when the weakness is obvious and has been and the money is there to fix it, it is not too much at all to expect and even demand it to be fixed.
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This says it perfectly. I was listening to 680 the fan on my lunch break and one of the hosts was kind of mocking Atlanta fans for being so upset after the first loss. I don't think he understood. It's not that fans are upset because of the loss, it's that fans are upset because of the fixable roster holes that were left untouched.
 
Dalyn said:
We can expect and demand too much as fans sometimes, but when the weakness is obvious and has been and the money is there to fix it, it is not too much at all to expect and even demand it to be fixed.
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you talking about the pen or right field?
 
nsacpi said:
you talking about the pen or right field?
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The offense is going to be okay, and if he'd signed Markakis so that even more money could be put into the other obvious holes, it might've even been a smart play. The pen, on the other hand, is atrocious, and arguably the best closer in baseball is still available and several other options have come and gone. It boggles the ****ing mind.
 
Dalyn said:
The offense is going to be okay, and if he'd signed Markakis so that even more money could be put into the other obvious holes, it might've even been a smart play. The pen, on the other hand, is atrocious, and arguably the best closer in baseball is still available and several other options have come and gone. It boggles the ****ing mind.
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I thought we had 7 solid guys going into spring training: Viz, Minter, O'Day, Venters, Biddle, Freeman, Winkler. And was ok with the 8th guy being a sacrificial lamb type. Although signing Bud Norris to be the 8th guy was an idea I liked.

Well Minter and O'Day got hurt. Winkler I assume is not quite right and in that case having him spend a few weeks in the minors is fine. Add to that the strange Sam Freeman decision and all of a sudden we are down to 3 solid guys not 7.

It is like the "starting pitching crisis" we had at the start of spring training. The good news is no one is out long-term. And there is a chance Sobotka and/or Parsons will grab this opportunity.
 
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I think Enscheff wrapped it up nicely on the first page of the thread. Once Donaldson was signed, things slowed down to a crawl. The cOF options deemed to be upgrades over Markakis went for more money/years than what Anthopolous was ready to match and we lost out on a ton of opportunities in the meantime.

I really do wonder if the bullpen will shake out without putting one or two of the top-tier prospects there. Lots of question marks surrounding talent and/or durability.
 
nsacpi said:
I thought we had 7 solid guys going into spring training: Viz, Minter, O'Day, Venters, Biddle, Freeman, Winkler. And was ok with the 8th guy being a sacrificial lamb type. Although signing Bud Norris to be the 8th guy was an idea I liked.

Well Minter and O'Day got hurt. Winkler I assume is not quite right and in that case having him spend a few weeks in the minors is fine. Add to that the strange Sam Freeman decision and all of a sudden we are down to 3 solid guys not 7.

It is like the "starting pitching crisis" we had at the start of spring training. The good news is no one is out long-term. And there is a chance Sobotka and/or Parsons will grab this opportunity.
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I mean I thought Carle and Sobotka were better options than Freeman, but knowing we were going to miss a few guys, cutting loose Freeman to save a million bucks seems odd.

We really need to already have Madson inked to a deal. Pretty evident our Pen is gonna be a rotating door all season.
 
The Braves will win in 2019. They just aren't built to win enough, short a tremendous amount of good fortune.

For those thinking I'm down on them because of yesterday, that's not at all the case. At least no more than as a symptom of the disease.

On opening day you had a #5 starter taking the ball. You had a pen with mixed talent and undetermined roles. You had an offense with a major hole, with that hole batting 5th. And the bench is pretty meh. All that coming off a year where they won the division with a very young team and a lower half payroll, playing in a brand new stadium.

AA is playing the hand he was dealt. He may be playing those cards badly (and almost certainly is) but the hand was dealt years before.

Fans assume that this team will compete for the division again. After all they did last year and it was a surprise! Look at the Astros, people say. They won unexpectedly then missed the playoffs then settled in as an annual contender.

There's a big difference in the Astros and Braves. The in-season 40 man payroll for the Astros in 2014 was $54.5M (they took it all the way down to $26M in 2013) with their biggest commitments to Scott Feldman for 3 years (12, 10, 8) and Dexter Fowler (7.85). On opening day 2015 their payroll was $72M. They did a true rebuild. They made mistakes and were inefficient. But they were smart overall and now stand as a multi-year contender on a pretty stabilized payroll. And they still have young talent coming.

The Braves NEVER did that. They kept the payroll in the $90-120M range throughout. Sure, they took on payroll to get supposed talent but they gave up talent value to move payroll as well. It was just a mess. What they obviously wanted to build was the illusion of trying to compete, but at the expense of the future.

Now, the Braves have an unexpected early arrival but they are cash starved to make the fire burn.

They signed Donaldson. If he plays like his MVP prior self then it was a good deal. But it's only short term. If he plays well, the Braves can't afford him in the future. If he plays poorly the Braves probably fail in 2019 and enter 2020 with the same hole they entered 2019 with. Either way 3B is a hole next year with the only positive answer being a 3 WAR Riley out of the gate. You've also got a band aide in RF and an unsettled pen. You should have enough starters since that was the focus of most talent acquisitions over the last 4 years but injury is a question (with no money apparently to go outside).

Fans want to believe that the Braves will be a good team and contend in 2019. But what if they don't? What does 2020 look like? You have no Donaldson. No Markakis. A 30 YO Freeman. You have Swanson with 3 years service time and no longer minimum cheap. A catching duo ready to collect social security. A 2nd baseman with 2 years service time hopefully coming off a good year and a young LF with star ability. Your top pitcher in Folty (assuming he isn't hurt) has 4 years service time and is getting expensive. Teheran is gone at least. Gausman has 5 years service time and is expensive. The pen is completely up in the air. What little money there is will likely be eaten by raises for those not so young youngsters who make up the bulk of the team.

Teams can only successfully build like the Braves have tried if they have the payroll space to fill in the gaps as needed. The large payroll teams do this all the time. But the Braves don't have that payroll space.
 
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