Braves acquire Alex Jackson from SEA for Whalen and Povse
- Thread starter dak
- Start date
Indeed. And when you can't make contact in A ball it's that much harder.
If he hits 20+ homers with average defense, he's far more than a back-up catcher.
I agree. Just like the drafting of all the pitchers. Some of them should stick. I'm not against the move but the high K% in the low minors is a lot to overcome. Yet there have been posts mentioning "this is a steal" and "hes our 2nd best OF prospect". I can understand the excitement of making a trade but the hype needs to be contained. Just like the talk of TD making Albies expendable.
Southcack77
Well-known member
If he's definitely going to bust out of baseball within three years, it was more than an odd use of assets, it was a bad use of assets.
I think maybe they don't think it is definite.
Find a 20 year old with the same or worse K rate in Low-A ball that made an impact at the MLB level. Then we can start to talk about his potential. I honestly don't know if there are any such players, so it would be good to know.
Southcack77
Well-known member
I'd agree with that. I think this is probably mostly buying a ticket hoping that a change of scenery into the Atlanta system will turn the kid around. The kid has to deal with one team giving up on him and the change of voices sometimes makes a difference. But yeah, like Demeritte he has a long way to go for folks to think he plays in the majors.
Whalen really isn't much of a factor for Atlanta. Povse looks more interesting, but good chance that's mostly because he's further away from the Majors and that lets people dream a little bit more. The K rate for him looks like it will be pedestrian and the stuff is ok, but nothing great. So upside of back of the rotation, which has some potential value but nothing to write home about for Atlanta.
The question I guess is more about whether these guys might have helped get something better in a different package.
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
You have obviously forgotten about:
I hope the Braves didn't get Jackson so he could rack up prodigious MiLB homerun numbers. Regarding the SO totals in low levels, we don't have too look too far to see an example of a player whose SO percentage is going down as he moves up in levels. Dustin Peterson's first year in full season ball saw him strike about at about a 25% clip, down to 19% in AAA. Jackson is higher, but a significant improvement isn't unheard of. With his power, perhaps a little better contact and some maturity might make a big difference. As others have intimated, he wasn't obtained for his floor, but for his ceiling. "Lottery Ticket" is probably less descriptive than "buying the IP stock of a company that probably won't make it, but could make it big if they do".
Managuarantano's Volunteers
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The more I hear about this, the more meh I am on it unless we move him to catcher.
One hope I have is that moving him to Catcher energizes him in a way he hasn't been with Seattle. While the makeup issues are hard to ignore, I wonder if letting him go back to a position he loved and giving him a new group of coaches and players that are highly energetic about the state of our system might help engage him.
Now, I obviously understand that is some pretty lame armchair sports psychiatry, but the kid had some mighty impressive tools going into the draft, and it's not just his performance that's been sub-par, the tools have faded as well according to reports. Maybe he was overrated tools-wise and real competition exposed that. Or maybe it is an attitude thing and it won't be fixed in a new place, but it seems like at least a small reason to have some hope.
Now, I obviously understand that is some pretty lame armchair sports psychiatry, but the kid had some mighty impressive tools going into the draft, and it's not just his performance that's been sub-par, the tools have faded as well according to reports. Maybe he was overrated tools-wise and real competition exposed that. Or maybe it is an attitude thing and it won't be fixed in a new place, but it seems like at least a small reason to have some hope.
No doubt. They were discussing realistic expectations based on what he's shown to this point in addition to what their discussions with scouts and people inside the Seattle organization have termed as someone that hasn't been willing to make changes - to this point. They weren't critical of the trade by any means. They just pointed out what many have - that they expect both Pitchers to contribute at the MLB level at some point, although not necessarily as significant pieces, and that the clock is already ticking on Jackson but the upside could still be there IF he matures and becomes more open to coaching.
Their mention about fitting the backup Catcher profile was based on their feeling that he's not a lost cause - they felt that he can turn into a solid backstop with a strong arm and some pop even if he doesn't reach his ceiling (which so few do).
The general feeling was that while there's no reason to be overly excited and call the deal a "win-win", but that it certainly made sense for both sides - given our current pitching depth, it's tough to say taking a flier or two like this is a bad move. My point is that you just need to be careful about making too many trades like it because it's easy to burn through that depth doing so. If you assume you'll use 10 SPs over the course of a season, we're looking at Perez, Gant, and Jenkins as #8-#10 now. Sims and Fried are #11 and #12 on my chart, with Newcomb and Ellis next up meaning they'd have to be added to the 40-Man Roster this season. JMO, but I think the brass would prefer not to do that unless Newcomb forces his way into the rotation for good.
I'm not condemning the deal at all - far from it - I'm with everyone else that wants to add potential impact bats when possible. I'd just prefer that they have a little better track record and/or reputation than Jackson appears to have if we're going to trade TWO arms that most expect to at least contribute to the big club in the near-future for them. The cost for Jackson seems a little steep for me given what he's shown thus far, but there's definitely talent in there.
When you look back at the 2014 high school crop, it hasn't been very good thus far, and it was widely viewed as a pretty weak class at the time as well. The highest-regarded name in that class so far has been Michael Kopech (who was #35 according to BA). Nick Gordon (#9), Alex Verdugo (#12), Toussaint (#5), Forrest Wall (#19), and Justus Sheffield (#20) were in there as well. Then you had guys like -
Tyler Kolek (#1)
Jackson (#2)
Brady Aiken (#4)
Braxton Davidson (#10)
who just haven't shown much at all to this point. While Jackson was the top hitter in the class - and considered for the top pick - it just wasn't a very strong class.
I would say that you don't make a trade with Seattle "unless", someone in our orginazation went to bat for this kid. Someone believes in his potential. They thought he was worth the gamble. End of the day...we loose this trade and we will never feel it, but we sure will if we win it. Whalen was never going to get another chance with the pitcher free agent signings, and they have many guys they like better than povse. I would say there will be one or two more deals like this...we have a log jam of pitchers.
I honestly don't think you can say Whalen+Povse is too steap a price to pay for pretty much anything. I get that there is some value in any player who is likely to make the majors, but does the difference from Whalen and Povse to guys like Perez and Jenkins really matter? If you're stretching into them for SP depth, you're not going to get great results from any of them. And we are absolutely loaded with bullpen arms considering that any of the SP who don't pan out are possibilities there.
That's why I like the deal - to me, we gave up just about nothing and got a potential bat. Sure, he's a long shot, perhaps even more of one than Touki was when we got him, but it's still worth it and I'd make similar trades out of our depth every time.
That's why I like the deal - to me, we gave up just about nothing and got a potential bat. Sure, he's a long shot, perhaps even more of one than Touki was when we got him, but it's still worth it and I'd make similar trades out of our depth every time.
Yep, that's a pretty good summary.
First person I searched for was Ryan Howard. And he was 21/22 in A/A+ and K rates were nearly exactly the same.
A couple of key differences. Howard struck out a ton but was still a couple of % points lower than Jackson. He also walked a decent amount more and of course already had killer power.
Still, Howard is one of the exceptions of huge strikeout guys and I don't think we should be predicting Howard type power from Jackson.