Braves Acquire Russell, Bonifacio

rico43 said:
Our midseason rankings had Caratini 10th. Guess nobody much has looked at those.

However, the Braves are pretty happy with their catching haul for 2014, including FA Blake Austin, Nevarez, and 31st rounder Sal Giardina.
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Tyler Tewell has had a decent season too and he is a level ahead of Caratini.
 
rico43 said:
Our midseason rankings had Caratini 10th. Guess nobody much has looked at those.

However, the Braves are pretty happy with their catching haul for 2014, including FA Blake Austin, Nevarez, and 31st rounder Sal Giardina.
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milb had Caratini ranked as our 7th best prospect. He's had a nice season, but his calling card in rookie ball was his extremely high walk rate and that has really evaporated (16% to 9%). K rate has dropped a bit for him as well (20% to 16%). Looks to have some power potential. You give to get. As others have said, Caratini's value drops dramatically if he can't stay at C and with Bryant the likely 3B in Chicago for the next few years, Caratini will likely get every chance to stay at C until it is proven that he can't play the position (if that indeed happens).

I don't know what his reasonable projection is. I think Sickels had him 10th, but that was largely based on an insanely high walk rate in rookie ball, which I think is a very iffy way to rank.

As for Kubitza, it's true for every prospect that you have to wait until the get to the big leagues to see what you've truly got, but I think it's especially true for Kubitza. If the walk rate doesn't hold and the k-rate stays high, he's pedestrian. We won't know that until he's facing big league pitching. The fall-off in power without a corresponding drop in k-rate is a bit puzzling to me, but he's done better this year than I expected. He'll be on the 40-man roster and he'll be in spring training in 2015. We'll all have ample opportunity to see what he is.
 
If Bona can go on one of his trademark scorching hot streaks, I'm happy... if he plays like he does on average, I'm not... on average, he's just another high strikeout, low walk rate type of guy.
 
zbhargrove said:
If Bona can go on one of his trademark scorching hot streaks, I'm happy... if he plays like he does on average, I'm not... on average, he's just another high strikeout, low walk rate type of guy.
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What exactly do you consider "high"?
 
zitothebrave said:
Well he may be top 10 prospect but that has more to say about the talent in our farm than anything else.

Also nice cherry picking. You're right about power and BB rate, but you fail to mention the increase in K rate. He went from a low 20s to more of a mid 20s. His average hasn't really improved he started out with an insanely high BABIP and had a .320 avg in rookie ball. Kubitza is a guy who's entire value is built into maintaining an insanely high BABIP. And with that he's still a low .800 OPS guy in the minors.

We're looking at a kid who will likely strike out close to 30% in the majors with not much power to show with it. I don't know in what world that's a recipe for success. He's Adam Dunn without Dunn's best tool.
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For one, he continues to maintain a high BABIP, even in 2012 when he had a .239 average. This suggests that it may be a skill set, rather than just dumb luck. Similar to Johnson, who also has a high K rate, yet maintains a solid average without much power. But Kubitza also draws a walk much better than CJ ever did and plays much better defense and has some base running ability.

Secondly, the increase in K rate was essentially, one season, 2013, unless you count his partial rookie ball season. This season it is back down to the same rate it was in 2012, again suggesting improvement from last yr. Plenty of players have gone on to have good careers with high k rates in the minors, though admittedly most of the players tend to have more power than Kubitza.
 
yeezus said:
What exactly do you consider "high"?
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For a leadoff type hitter... 49 strikeouts to 16 walks in 276 at bats isn't that great dude. And that's on the lower side of his career... in 2011 he had 129 strikeouts to 59 walks in 500+ at bats... that's pretty high for a contact hitter... more than Chris Johnson strikes out... do you consider him a high strikeout guy? Most do.
 
zbhargrove said:
For a leadoff type hitter... 49 strikeouts to 16 walks in 276 at bats isn't that great dude. And that's on the lower side of his career... in 2011 he had 129 strikeouts to 59 walks in 500+ at bats... that's pretty high for a contact hitter... more than Chris Johnson strikes out... do you consider him a high strikeout guy? Most do.
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I didn't say his K/BB was good. He doesn't walk much.
Johnson strikes out way more than Bonifacio. Johnson is in the 20%+ range every year and 25% this year. Bonifacio is at 16.4% this year. His highest full-season rate is 20.1%, which is lower than Johnson's lowest. And he still walks 2x as much as Johnson this season.
 
zbhargrove said:
For a leadoff type hitter... 49 strikeouts to 16 walks in 276 at bats isn't that great dude. And that's on the lower side of his career... in 2011 he had 129 strikeouts to 59 walks in 500+ at bats... that's pretty high for a contact hitter... more than Chris Johnson strikes out... do you consider him a high strikeout guy? Most do.
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The year you quoted he had a very good year, too, so I don't understand your point. 20.1% K rate, 9.2% BB.
 
yeezus said:
I didn't say his K/BB was good. He doesn't walk much.
Johnson strikes out way more than Bonifacio. Johnson is in the 20%+ range every year and 25% this year. Bonifacio is at 16.4% this year. His highest full-season rate is 20.1%, which is lower than Johnson's lowest. And he still walks 2x as much as Johnson this season.
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Way more is a bit of a strong statement... even so, 20.1% is a high strikeout number... just slightly less than Chris Johnson isn't saying much, dude. Again, for a leadoff type guy, he strikes out a lot. This year has been an anomalously low % for Bona when looking at the rest of his career.
 
I didn't dislike him as much as others here, but it was time for him to go. Never really recovered from his minor league suspension.
 
In some regards, I really like Jordan as a fifth outfielder. He brings a very specific skill set to the table, which I like from a bench player; better a mediocrity with one outstanding skill than a well-rounded mediocrity. Schafer's a legitimately brilliant defender and base runner (Wednesday's unacceptable botch job notwithstanding), and he really can contribute to a team with a good set of big-hitting outfielders. And if things had worked out as planned, that would be exactly what we boasted.

Still, the way he's hitting this year is completely unacceptable. You can put up with last year's 87 OPS+, but a .468 OPS is not something you can work into your roster, no matter how great the defense and base running.
 
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