Braves donate Justin Upton to Padres for prospects

thewupk said:
Rebuild a team that had Freeman and Heyward just coming up? Yeah, wasting all those years to a rebuild (just like the team will be wasting all the cheap years of Simmons, Julio, and Freeman now) is a good thing.

What some people don't seem to realize is that rebuilding and getting back to a place where you can compete takes a long time and sometimes doesn't work. Look at the Pirates, Royals, and Astros just to name a few. Pirates and Royals took years (decades) to get to where they are. Astros are still searching. If you can contend then do it because it could be awhile till we get to the point we were at the last couple of years.
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You had Francouer as THE guy before them. There is always a player or two who are supposed to be the franchise saviors. But, you have to look at the supporting cast and what is available in the high and low minors. If you look at what the Braves have done in the draft the last 4-5 years, they have taken low risk low ceiling guys early, have stayed slot on bonuses which has precluded many later round steals and have mostly exited the international market. The best thing the farm system has been able to produce over the last few years has been relievers. The bats have all been fringy at best or outright miracle picks (Gattis). The starters have been just OK with Wood being the best.

Teams that get old and bad at the ML level and bad at the minor league level go into long stretches of being terrible. But most of those teams also have major ownership problems.

Teams rebuild all the time (Oakland for instance) and bounce back strong. With the financial capability that the Braves have, solid middle of the pack, there is no reason they can't do it.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
I can't see how anyone could look at last years team, the fact that Heyward and Justin are set to be FA and in no hurry to extend, and not conclude that the team needed to rebuild. The team was poorly constructed, and to a certain extent remains so. You're talking about one of the worst offenses in baseball last year. Even if you somehow replace the black holes in cf and 3b (which the Braves couldn't magic Yankees style), you still are very iffy on offense and are missing 2 starters since Miller wouldn't be here.

The team had too many holes, too many bad contracts (and still does) and no farm system of significance.

Wren was a disaster. But, to be fair, he may have been limited by the hand he was dealt. The team really should have rebuilt 3-4 years ago but tried to incrementally limp to success because Liberty didn't want to look like they were fire sale profiteers.
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Great post.
 
thethe said:
I'm sorry, one season where we wouldn't have won the WS doesn't mean much to me. Give me the higher percentage chance that the future would be a positive any day of the week.
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You don't know that. If we can get into the playoffs you don't know what can happen.
 
BedellBrave said:
And we wouldn't have made the playoffs again. Heyward and Upton would have walked. And we would have still had a piss-poor farm system.
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Right. Because the 2014 Braves were horrible all year. No chance they make the playoffs. The last 6 weeks of the seasons is how they would of played all year.
 
thethe said:
I'm sorry, one season where we wouldn't have won the WS doesn't mean much to me. Give me the higher percentage chance that the future would be a positive any day of the week.
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I'm sure the Pirates fans were saying that too for about 20 years.
 
Hawk said:
And despite this flurry of moves, the Braves still have a thoroughly mediocre farm system. Trying so hard to find a silver lining here.
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Yet one better than it was a month ago. Seriously, we add how many guys that become a part of our top 25 prospects?
 
BedellBrave said:
Yet one better than it was a month ago. Seriously, we add how many guys that become a part of our top 25 prospects?
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When your farm is among the worst in baseball almost any decent prospect will be in our top 25. However our farm as as a whole is still pretty average. We still have no high upside position players. Yeah we have lots of pitching. So does everybody else.
 
jpx7 said:
And I'll say it again: it's a fair dispute. Some disagree, but it isn't patently absurd to believe that the Braves' roster as of the end of 2014 could have been tweaked into a playoff-competing team for 2015.
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Could have been. I don't see it - but I'm just a fan, and not an exceptionally bright one. But say it could-have been - then what? What about 2016? What about the farm?

We'd have been just one more frustrating year away from ever getting to be something more than a WC team - imho.
 
BedellBrave said:
Could have been. I don't see it - but I'm just a fan, and not an exceptionally bright one. But say it could-have been - then what? What about 2016? What about the farm?

We'd have been just one more frustrating year away from ever getting to be something more than a WC team - imho.
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They could have chosen to pay their young, productive offensive players and still built up the farm-system over the next few years by bringing back some of the evaluative talent that they did post-Wren. I don't think those were mutually exclusive propositions.
 
jpx7 said:
They could have chosen to pay their young, productive offensive players and still built up the farm-system over the next few years by bringing back some of the evaluative talent that they did post-Wren. I don't think those were mutually exclusive propositions.
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How other than through the draft?

Who on the team would have been shipped off due to the money needed to pay for Heyward and Upton?
 
Horsehide Harry said:
You had Francouer as THE guy before them. There is always a player or two who are supposed to be the franchise saviors. But, you have to look at the supporting cast and what is available in the high and low minors. If you look at what the Braves have done in the draft the last 4-5 years, they have taken low risk low ceiling guys early, have stayed slot on bonuses which has precluded many later round steals and have mostly exited the international market. The best thing the farm system has been able to produce over the last few years has been relievers. The bats have all been fringy at best or outright miracle picks (Gattis). The starters have been just OK with Wood being the best.

Teams that get old and bad at the ML level and bad at the minor league level go into long stretches of being terrible. But most of those teams also have major ownership problems.

Teams rebuild all the time (Oakland for instance) and bounce back strong. With the financial capability that the Braves have, solid middle of the pack, there is no reason they can't do it.
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Sure. But the Braves were on of the youngest teams in the league and weren't bad. Beane also has a track record of being successful doing what he does. JS and Hart? They are 2 decades past their prime.
 
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