Around Baseball Offseason Thread

50PoundHead said:
Grichuk and Piscotty could take the next step. I just don't trust Holliday to stay healthy or remain that productive. Adams could rebound and they will have Moss for the whole year. Plus, they did add Brayan Pena.
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It could, or they could regress.

Defense is a major problem as well.

Their offense isnt crap by any means but just relying on a lot of what ifs.
 
Heyward said:
It could, or they could regress.

Defense is a major problem as well.

Their offense isnt crap by any means but just relying on a lot of what ifs.
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If Grichuk and Piscotty don't take the next step and Adams doesn't bounce back, there offense may well be crap.

There IF defense wasn't particularly good last season, so I agree that's a problem. Going into 2016, they are easily the third-best team in that division, but as Bobby Cox used to say, they'll still let them play all 162 games. I don't think they did it with mirrors in 2015, but a lot of things went right for them.
 
smootness said:
Leaks is an average pitcher, and he's now making $16 million/year. Looks like stockpiling a bunch of young pitching may not have been a bad move.

It also makes people screaming about Markakis' contract look crazy. This is the new FA market. Again, $10 million gets you a player who is better than bad, and $20 million gets you a good player.
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Yeah, the top and middle tier or the SP market ain't getting any cheaper. Slightly higher than I had expected. The bottom tier should still net some nice deals similar to the Bud Norris contract. Still holding out hope for Buehrle, though I think we're destined for another MiLB deal guy.

I'm not sure I've seen anyone portray the Markakis contract as crazy. His contract was about what you'd expect a guy like him to get at the time (front half okay, back half likely has dead money). The point that many have made (myself included), is that his contract didn't make sense for the Braves given where they are in the rebuild process.
 
Jon Morosi ‏@jonmorosi
Sources: #Dodgers interested in Kenta Maeda and maintaining contact with his representatives ahead of Jan. 8 deadline. @FOXSports

Jon Morosi ‏@jonmorosi
#Dodgers well positioned to pursue Maeda, because portion of $20MM posting fee required up front. And liquidity is not an issue for Dodgers.
 
dak said:
I'm not sure I've seen anyone portray the Markakis contract as crazy. His contract was about what you'd expect a guy like him to get at the time (front half okay, back half likely has dead money). The point that many have made (myself included), is that his contract didn't make sense for the Braves given where they are in the rebuild process.
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Exactly. It wasn't the average annual value of his deal that prompted confusion and criticism: it was the core-concept of adding a player at that stage of his career to a team that just slammed a big, red reset-button.
 
jpx7 said:
Exactly. It wasn't the average annual value of his deal that prompted confusion and criticism: it was the core-concept of adding a player at that stage of his career to a team that just slammed a big, red reset-button.
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But what does it really matter? The $11 million wouldn't really be used elsewhere, and we probably actually need to keep payroll at a certain level. I just don't see how it's really an impactful deal regardless.

If his contract isn't an overpay, then we can easily flip him if we want to later. We might do it this offseason. I just don't really get the angst over it.
 
smootness said:
But what does it really matter?
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Could have allotted those PAs to other, younger players—and could still, if he isn't traded this offseason.

smootness said:
The $11 million wouldn't really be used elsewhere
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Couldn't it have been, though? Lots of places the organization could use $11-million in a given season—though if the idea was to let Markakis rebuild his value in 2015, then trade him, then it's an incredibly sensible expenditure of $11 million up-front.

smootness said:
If his contract isn't an overpay, then we can easily flip him if we want to later. We might do it this offseason. I just don't really get the angst over it.
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Agreed: if he's traded this offseason, or at the deadline, then hell yea: great job. The angst is over the possibility he'll play out his four-year papers in Atlanta, which really isn't sensible.
 
smootness said:
But what does it really matter? The $11 million wouldn't really be used elsewhere, and we probably actually need to keep payroll at a certain level. I just don't see how it's really an impactful deal regardless.

If his contract isn't an overpay, then we can easily flip him if we want to later. We might do it this offseason. I just don't really get the angst over it.
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Well, it matters because it is only defensible as being "not awful."

People made the case at the time that it was probably a decent market-value signing. In light of 2016 prices for ok-but-not-horrible outfielders, that still holds true.

That doesn't obviate the fact that his production could have been replaced for half, or less, of what we signed him for, and that his veteran leadership could have been had for even less, still. It wasn't a huge, franchise-crippling contract, but the fact that we've since shed a huge slice of our payroll doesn't make it look any better in retrospect. Unless payroll radically changes, we're still locked into paying a substantial portion of ours for Nick Markakis's decline. So it's still a bad—though not horrible—deal.

Given the massive selloff we've seen since midseason last year, don't you think we would have moved him if his combination of skills and salary looked good to someone else?
 
smootness said:
But what does it really matter? The $11 million wouldn't really be used elsewhere, and we probably actually need to keep payroll at a certain level. I just don't see how it's really an impactful deal regardless.

If his contract isn't an overpay, then we can easily flip him if we want to later. We might do it this offseason. I just don't really get the angst over it.
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JPX said it, but I'll repeat. If we trade him for something of value, then good on the Johns. If we are stuck with a slow-footed, noodle-armed RF whose only extant (BA/OBP) tool declines over the next three years . . . yeah. It's a bad deal. If we bench or trade a younger, cheaper replacement because we can't move him, it's a bad deal. $11M doesn't break the bank, but it's not inconsiderable.
 
I've never argued the Markakis signing was great or even made tons of sense for us.

But I've seen numerous people point to that as some kind of big negative in the rebuild or at least with extreme bewilderment, and I just don't really see why the signing is much of a big deal one way or another.

Even in a worst case scenario, it wouldn't end up hurting much.
 
I don't think it's set in stone that Nick's offense will decline. There's a chance that his power numbers will come up a bit. And a few comparable players to Nick have done well offensively through age 34. Hopefully he'll continue to be a 2 WAR player for us. With that in mind I would absolutely trade him because we essentially have 2 LF's now. Markakis is a LF in my eyes who is playing the wrong position. I can't help but wonder how it would effect his value if we moved him to left. His defense maybe would play better over there?
 
weso1 said:
I don't think it's set in stone that Nick's offense will decline. There's a chance that his power numbers will come up a bit. And a few comparable players to Nick have done well offensively through age 34. Hopefully he'll continue to be a 2 WAR player for us. With that in mind I would absolutely trade him because we essentially have 2 LF's now. Markakis is a LF in my eyes who is playing the wrong position. I can't help but wonder how it would effect his value if we moved him to left. His defense maybe would play better over there?
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It's not set in stone that he'll decline. Just very likely.

Only players recently who've done really well in the 32-34 age range have either plus power, plus speed or plus defense. None of those are things for Markakis. So you know the guys I'm talking about, Plus power (Bautista, Cruz, Beltre, Pujols, granderson, so on) plus speed (Rollins, Granderson, Crisp, Davis) and Defense (Zobrist, Beltre, Kinsler, Peralta, and Rollins) The person he's maybe the closest to is Zobrist but he has a significant power drop compared to Zobrist. And doesn't have zobrist's defensive skills.
 
It has been surprising but pitchers have gotten more per projected WAR than hitters this off-season.
 
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