About 1.5 years into rebuild, where are we now?

zitothebrave

Connoisseur of Minors
Looking at the rebuild from strictly the trade/sign perspective and production and see where we wound up.

1. Jason Heyward and Walden for Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins - For production in the majors, the Cardinals got 6.5 rWAR from Jason and 0.6 from Walden. We got 3.6 out fo Shelby. Cardinals clearly won short term in this deal. Shelby was a risky acquisition. He won the Braves season, then has sucked in AZ. Where this trade is a huge win for us is the continued victory of the Miller trade, getting back Blair, Swanson and Inciarte. WHich is a great return for Jason's 1 season.

2. Justin Upton and Northcraft for Max Fried, D. Peterson, J. Peterson, and Mallex - Justin was good for SD, produced a very respectable 3.5 rWAR. On the major league front all we've gotten is production form Jace and Mallex, which has totalled 1.8 rWAR. Mostly from Mallex. Mallex has been a quality player for us this year, he and Fried will be the ones who make it or break it for us. Fried is concerning so far.

3. Gattis and Hoyt for Ruiz, Thurman, and Folty. Gattis has produced a 1.4 rWAR, Folty -0.9. We have 2 chances to make this deal work. First is Ruiz and his potential at 3B, if Ruiz can be an everyday 3B, we will be OK, if Folty lives up to his potential we will be OK.

4. LaStella for Viz - 1.2 rWAR for TLS and 1.4 for Viz. Honestly a pretty fair trade. Both are flawed players. If we trade off Viz for talent this will be a real win.

5. Carpenter and Shreve for ManBan - Carpenter did nothing for the Yankees, but Shreve has been quite good totalling a 1.3 rWAR, ManBan -0.2 rWAR. This is a huge win trade to be blunt even if Manny doesn't pitch much, the chance we have to take.

6. Kubitza for Hyatt and Sanchez - Non-starter of a move to be honest.

7. Elander for Cahill - Bad trade for us.

8. Kimbrel and Melvin for Paroubeck, Maybin, QUentin, and Wisler and competitive balance pick. This si the one that I wanted to delve in to. Maybin was a solid 0.6 rWAR that we flipped for Krol (and 0.6 rWAR) WIsler has added 0.2 rWAR. Obviously Wisler is the key to this deal. But what makes this tough is what happened with SD. Kimbrel wasn't a full fledged beast but still handedly outperformed anything we got back. the shocker is Melvin who since the trade pulled a 3.5 rWAR for San Diego. Kimbrel was then flipped by SD for a lot of top prospects, rough value equivalents in our system would be Riley, Mallex, and Davidson. SIck return. Upton was flipped for a savings of 5M. Which isn't the end of the world but they wound up saving something.

9. Olivera trade - I can't even discuss the failure of this trade.

10. Simmons for Ellis, Newcomb, and Aybar. Simmons has been leagues better than Aybar, but where this trade comes to, is SImmons vs. Newcomb. Ellis is a good arm too, but for this trade to work, Newcomb needs to be a TOR starter. Not my favorite trade.

11. Bethancourt for Rodriguez and Kelly- Honestly this trade screams nothing more than Bethancourt was done here. We saw all we wanted to. He's done well in SD in his limited role.

I'm gonna stop there as most other trades were trades for picks and slot money. Which is a different discussion.

What the Braves have done right is restocking the farm, Look at sickel's top 20 over half of them came via trade (even excluding Olivera) so there's something there, and that's not including graduated from the year before guys like Folty, Jace and Viz. You cannot deny that our farm has done a total 180. But there has to be concerns, especially with trades liek the Olivera one, and Simmons one where the return may not justify the cost.
 
Cutting through all the details, we went for pitching over hitting and quantity over quality. Would be nice if two or three of the multitude of prospects we trade for pan out and turn into above average regulars. I hold out hope for quite a few of them. But none are sure things.

If we were to line up the prospects we acquired via trade versus the ones we acquired via draft or international signings, the latter group would impress much more. We re-loaded but the peddling of major league assets contributed surprisingly little to the process.
 
Fried has been dang good?

No DP mention?

This is a wierd thread with wierd commentary. Excluded Miller trade to dbacks?
 
The biggest concern is the quantity over quality route we chose to take. There have been nice deals. Whalen and Gant and Akeel for nothing, paying for Touki, Demeritte for journeymen, etc. But aside from Swanson, we didn't target impact hitters

Having said that, I think Mallex and D. Peterson develop in to useful big leaguers. I'm still hopeful on Fried, Wisler, Folty, Ruiz and Blair. I just wish we would have targeted more impact bats.
 
We re-loaded but the peddling of major league assets contributed surprisingly little to the process.

I disagree that the sale of major league assets did surprisingly little. These trades netted significant talent and cleared significant money. Don't have time to itemize it all out at the moment. The money moved is always an overlooked aspect. That money has helped us buy talent (Minter, Cumberland, 2016 J2 overspend, etc.) and also some financial capacity for free agency. In round numbers, the selling of major league assets may have reduced this entire process by as much as a year. If the Braves wanted to, they could flip many of the prospects gained in order to field a legit playoff team in 2017. I think almost all of us are aligned that they'll slow-play it more than that, but they have gained the talent to go that route if they chose to.
 
Do people not realize that Jace is OPSing. 750 with a .358 OBP? And since his recall, he's hitting .297/.385/.445, good for an .830 OPS.

He's a pretty big part of that Justin Upton deal despite what his WAR might say. He's turned himself into a pretty good ballplayer.
 
Do people not realize that Jace is OPSing. 750 with a .358 OBP? And since his recall, he's hitting .297/.385/.445, good for an .830 OPS.

He's a pretty big part of that Justin Upton deal despite what his WAR might say. He's turned himself into a pretty good ballplayer.

Yup. There's always a chance to be wrong, but it looks like his issues may have been injuries last year.
 
Do people not realize that Jace is OPSing. 750 with a .358 OBP? And since his recall, he's hitting .297/.385/.445, good for an .830 OPS.

He's a pretty big part of that Justin Upton deal despite what his WAR might say. He's turned himself into a pretty good ballplayer.

I don't think the braves will do it, but a Jace/Kemp platoon in LF wouldn't be terrible. Also using Jace to keep Albies service time down wouldn't be terrible either.
 
Do people not realize that Jace is OPSing. 750 with a .358 OBP? And since his recall, he's hitting .297/.385/.445, good for an .830 OPS.

He's a pretty big part of that Justin Upton deal despite what his WAR might say. He's turned himself into a pretty good ballplayer.

Jace has been hitting fine. His defense has been terrible. Though sampling is an issue. But there's sample issues with his offense as well, I don't think Jace is a bum, but he's a bench player nothing wrong with that.
 
Fried has been dang good?

No DP mention?

If you look at my analysis, I was mainly concerned with major league production right now. Fried is concerning though.He's doing quite well, but he's not lighting the world on fire. He needs to keep improving.
 
He is. He's 22 and has had TJ. That's concerning. And his BB/Rate isn't great which is also concerning.

Lot of young pitchers have had TJ and they often struggle with command first season back.

It'd be better if he had a clean arm but the surgery is why he was available.

I think he's impressed more than disappointed.
 
Cutting through all the details, we went for pitching over hitting and quantity over quality. Would be nice if two or three of the multitude of prospects we trade for pan out and turn into above average regulars. I hold out hope for quite a few of them. But none are sure things.

If we were to line up the prospects we acquired via trade versus the ones we acquired via draft or international signings, the latter group would impress much more. We re-loaded but the peddling of major league assets contributed surprisingly little to the process.

It makes sense that picking at the top of the draft and blitzing the international market would bring back impressive pieces. And the best move we made overall by far was made possible by the peddling of a major league asset. I wouldn't say they contributed 'surprisingly little'...Swanson, Inciarte, Newcomb, Peterson, Blair, Mallex, Fried, Folty, Wisler, Riley, Wentz...you may consider that little, but I don't.
 
Lot of young pitchers have had TJ and they often struggle with command first season back.

It'd be better if he had a clean arm but the surgery is why he was available.

I think he's impressed more than disappointed.

It's not the command just from the first season back. 4+BB rate in A ball.

I don't disagree that the reason he came to us in that trade is the TJ, but it's very concerning. ANd his walk rate is a concern, his K rate is a positive though.
 
It's not the command just from the first season back. 4+BB rate in A ball.

I don't disagree that the reason he came to us in that trade is the TJ, but it's very concerning. ANd his walk rate is a concern, his K rate is a positive though.

I agree the walks are too damn high, but last 10 : 1.98 ERA, 50 IP, 53 K, WHIP a little above 1.00. I think that's a nice showing and I am buying Fried stock at the moment.
 
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