Around Baseball Offseason Thread

I would gladly sing Desmon to a 3/4 years deal in the 40-50 million range... Especially if we had a spot to play him.

He will almost certainly provide more surplus value than a future 2nd round pick.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
that is a IF.... Desmond has been on the decline the last two years at the plate with very streaky defense that is also declining. If we were signing Desmond 4 years ago, then yes.. but now you are getting a player who is just starting to leave his peak years with a lot of question marks. I think the Braves are not in a situation to gamble on Desmond.
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But out of the two scenarios, with 1) Desmond rebounds to some semblance (at least) of his former form; he already somewhat started in the second half of 2015, nothing crazy but he was relatively solid; or 2) we find another Austin Riley AND he pans out past his first half-year of rookie ball? If he could be had for an incentives deal with a couple of options, Desmond improving is easily the more likely scenario. True, that route has negatives that the draft pick route don't; opportunity cost of those funds, a roster spot, we aren't exactly looking to compete for the first year or so of any deal; but it also represents a far more likely reward, and thus has the larger expected reward. What are the odds you find an above average regular at pick 40? Not high. A superstar? Damn near zero. An average regular? Maybe, probably decent chance at least. Even as crappy as least year was for him, Desmond was still around an average regular (1.7 fWAR). He could be worse than that going forward, he could be better. That risk is why he isn't signed yet.

Whatever you believe about Desmond's future, though, this much is true: signing guys like Desmond at times like this is how mid-market teams compete. In our current state, we can't just wait to outbid other guys for the best free agents. That could change in the near future, but right now it remains true; teams like the Braves need to homegrow talent, or else sign/trade for the guys that others overlook or misjudge. I'm not saying we should sign Desmond and damn the consequences; I'm just saying we should consider Desmond, and guys like him, extremely heavily before rejecting them as an option.
 
Even as Ian Desmond was "terrible" last year, he put up a 1.7 fWAR

The previous 3 years, he put up he put up 4.7, 4.8, and 4.0. He's older (30), but not ancient... and we've already proven that we love 30 year olds
 
yeezus said:
I'd rather a chance at Austin Riley than losing a pick and paying a guy who doesn't really blend with our long-term goals. Again, who is going to trade a guy who's around a top-100 prospect for Ian Desmond at the deadline, unless you gamble on him raking (which I wouldn't).
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So basically you'd rather play the lottery than invest in the stock market. To me it doesn't matter if we are able to trade Desmond. He's 30 and can play all the IF positions. Sure the "risk" is that Ruiz, Albies, and Swanson all develop and he's useless, but I'd consider him more thna a good placeholder. And he could likely be moved assuming he does well. Right now he'd replace Garcia which would be a massive upgrade. Is that super important for us in 2016? nope. But it could be for 2017. And given how crappy the NL East was last year, maybe just being in the mix is enough to win it.
 
yeezus said:
That's exactly my point: Whether Riley ever plays or not, he still holds value right now, and I think most teams would value him more highly than Desmond (again, all things considered).
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But at some point you need to win ball games at the MLB level. And you might draft a dud. So assuming you get a potential top 100 guy is assuming a lot.

I guess I'm saying it's not cut and dry.

Where we are now, I'd prefer to have as many lottery tickets as possible. I'm not sure how many years and dollars I'd commit to Desmond.
 
zitothebrave said:
So basically you'd rather play the lottery than invest in the stock market. To me it doesn't matter if we are able to trade Desmond. He's 30 and can play all the IF positions. Sure the "risk" is that Ruiz, Albies, and Swanson all develop and he's useless, but I'd consider him more thna a good placeholder. And he could likely be moved assuming he does well. Right now he'd replace Garcia which would be a massive upgrade. Is that super important for us in 2016? nope. But it could be for 2017. And given how crappy the NL East was last year, maybe just being in the mix is enough to win it.
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it's not quite lottery vs. stock market (at least not in the literal odds sense).

I think the risk is that Desmond's bat continues to decline (his K/BB has never been pretty) and he becomes of little-to-no value to anyone at the deadline, and you've sacrificed a pretty high pick for him (a pick where you just had a pretty big success). If he hits like he did last year, you aren't getting an Austin Riley type for him.
 
Russ2dollas said:
But at some point you need to win ball games at the MLB level. And you might draft a dud. So assuming you get a potential top 100 guy is assuming a lot.

I guess I'm saying it's not cut and dry.

Where we are now, I'd prefer to have as many lottery tickets as possible. I'm not sure how many years and dollars I'd commit to Desmond.
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I don't think it's cut and dry by any means; just my opinion.
I can understand the argument the other way.
Signing him for more than a year and his contract basically becomes Markakis' (unless he signs for a really cheap annual). And we can't trade Markakis' money right now.
 
yeezus said:
I don't think it's cut and dry by any means; just my opinion.
I can understand the argument the other way.
Signing him for more than a year and his contract basically becomes Markakis' (unless he signs for a really cheap annual). And we can't trade Markakis' money right now.
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Yeah, there isn't really a right answer here. It's all about what the FO believes in more: Desmond's ability to bounce back, or their own ability to draft a ringer at that pick.
 
Desmond is 30, we're not trying to spend money right now, and we can use all the relatively high picks we can get. It makes no sense to sign him.
 
sturg33 said:
I would gladly sing Desmon to a 3/4 years deal in the 40-50 million range... Especially if we had a spot to play him.

He will almost certainly provide more surplus value than a future 2nd round pick.
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I think that's the important thing to remember. We should be more concerned with the expected value of each option.

Let's assume there's a 50% he's worth 2 WAR/Yr over 4 years, 35% he's worth 1 WAR/Yr, 15% he's worth 3 WAR/Yr (rough estimate and really rough probabilities). The expected WAR per year would be around 1.8 WAR/Yr which would equate to 7.2 WAR over 4 years. If we assume that 1 WAR is worth $8m, that gives us a total value of $58m. Now, if he signed for 4 years 50 million, then that leaves us with $8m surplus value to which we can compare to the expected value of the lost draft pick (opportunity cost).

I don't think it's cut and dry that a draft pick is worth more or less than $8 million - that's essentially a 50 FV prospect (see link below), which is on the optimistic side for a second rounder, but not unreasonable. I would probably be okay signing Desmond at 4/50m, but that's close to the ceiling of what I would be willing to spend.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-risk-of-signing-ian-desmond/
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/taking-a-stab-at-valuing-the-farm-systems/
 
I don't really care what he costs or is worth. He doesn't fit the program we are trying to do, and that's get future assets under long term control. There is a very real chance he turns into Melvin Upton on that contract- after all he is trending that way HARD... and what if we have to add assets to move him?

The 2016\2017 squads should lose as many games as possible. Unless he can help us do that (which might be the best argument FOR signing him) then I'd be 100% against it.
 
zitothebrave said:
In those 5 years, you see 59 out of 159 picks make the bigs, Which is about a 40% chance of a pick making it to the bigs at all.

And it's not like the performance of most of those picks were super good
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40% odds to make the majors is actually pretty great. So we have a bit less than a coin flip to get a slightly above replacement level player, which is basically what Desmond was last year. Much of Desmond's value was tied to his defense, and that tends to drop after 30. Add in we have to huge floor prospects in Swanson and Albies and there is zero reason to go after Desmond.

I like how you stopped at 2008 since 2007 didn't really fit your narrative so well. 2007 you had Todd Frazier, Josh Donaldson, Freddie Freeman. Giancarlo Stanton, Jordan Zimmerman, and Lucroy all in the pick 30-100 range. 2008 was a weak draft but still had Lance Lynn, Wade Miley, Jake Odorizzi, Charlie Blackmon, and Kimbrel in the 30-100 range. 2009 had Brad Boxberger, Nolan Arenado, Kipnis, DJ Lemahieu, Patrick Corbin, Kyle Seager, Wil Myers. 2010 had Noah Syndergaard, Simba, Taijuan Walker. The high schoolers from 2011 and 2012 are just now getting to the majors, a wee bit early to judge those drafts.

Regardless, while it may not be common, there are studs and very good players available in the 2nd and 3rd rounds in every single draft pretty much.
 
yeezus said:
I don't think it's cut and dry by any means; just my opinion.

I can understand the argument the other way.

Signing him for more than a year and his contract basically becomes Markakis' (unless he signs for a really cheap annual). And we can't trade Markakis' money right now.
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Not a great analogy. We could pretty easily move Markakis' contract right now if we wanted to. Pretty clear the Johns have no desire to do that right now, or at least they haven't gotten a good enough offer.
 
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