Braves interested in Chris Sale...

[zbhargrove]

I think folks are understating just how bad this team really is. They are on pace to go 54-108. That would be the 2nd worst record in all of MLB in the 2000's. This team is quite possibly the worst team of this young millennium so far.

The Braves would have to improve by 25 wins just to sniff .500. A team doesn't improve by 25+ wins in a single offseason very often. Adding talent to LF, 3B and C probably adds ~8 wins. Assume Wisler and Folty step up next year and that's another 2-3 wins. Albies and Swanson together will hopefully add another 4 wins.

If you're keeping score, that puts the team around 70 wins, at best. I can maybe see 75 wins if they grab a good pitcher like Moore, who then rebounds to become a TOR starter, and add to the BP a little.

It's a loooong road back to relevance folks. It isn't happening in a single offseason, no matter how perfectly they time promotions and FA signings. This team is one of the worst in MLB history at the moment.

Except if you did something like trade for Lucroy, sign Cespedes and Desmond... called up Albies and Swanson... you're likely significantly improving production at 3B, RF, C.... AND SS/2B. Again, I know this won't happen but we do have the payroll and that would have the potential to be a solid team.

 

[auyushu]

Again, I know this won't happen but we do have the payroll and that would have the potential to be a solid team.

If you know it won't happen then it's not a likely outcome eh? I mean sure, if we transform the entire team like in your suggestion we could have slightly above .500 team, but the chances of that happening are extremely small, even if we tried to make it happen the chances of both us outbidding everyone else and Cespedes/Desmond wanting to play for the worst team in baseball is extremely small.

 

[Enscheff]

Except if you did something like trade for Lucroy, sign Cespedes and Desmond... called up Albies and Swanson... you're likely significantly improving production at 3B, RF, C.... AND SS/2B. Again, I know this won't happen but we do have the payroll and that would have the potential to be a solid team.

Lucroy is about a 2 win improvement over Castro. Ces is about a 2 win improvement over some average MLB player at LF. Desmond is also probably a 2 win upgrade over a guy like Freese at 3B. So that gets the Braves from 75 wins to over 80 wins, and a .500 record!

So to recap, in order to do that the Braves must:

1. Sign Cespedes for $150M+.
2. Sign Desmond for $75M+.
3. Trade for Lucroy, who will require at least 2-3 guys from the Braves top 10.
4. Trade for Matt Moore, who will cost at least 1 guy from the Braves top 10.
5. Promote Swanson (.750 OPS in AA) and Albies (19 years old), and have them perform at league average or better.
6. Spend even more money upgrading the BP.

In other words, not happening.

 

[zbhargrove]

Lucroy is about a 2 win improvement over Castro. Ces is about a 2 win improvement over some average MLB player at LF. Desmond is also probably a 2 win upgrade over a guy like Freese at 3B. So that gets the Braves from 75 wins to over 80 wins, and a .500 record!

So to recap, in order to do that the Braves must:

1. Sign Cespedes for $150M+.
2. Sign Desmond for $75M+.
3. Trade for Lucroy, who will require at least 2-3 guys from the Braves top 10.
4. Trade for Matt Moore, who will cost at least 1 guy from the Braves top 10.
5. Promote Swanson (.750 OPS in AA) and Albies (19 years old), and have them perform at league average or better.
6. Spend even more money upgrading the BP.

In other words, not happening.

I didn't say it would happen, or we should do it... but we would be decent team with a chance to be good.

 

[zbhargrove]

If you know it won't happen then it's not a likely outcome eh? I mean sure, if we transform the entire team like in your suggestion we could have slightly above .500 team, but the chances of that happening are extremely small, even if we tried to make it happen the chances of both us outbidding everyone else and Cespedes/Desmond wanting to play for the worst team in baseball is extremely small.

No its not a likely outcome... but its called a discussion forum.

 

[Horsehide Harry]

So, looking at the young talent, I think it reasonable to say that some is currently at the ML level (Folty, Wisler, etc) but still has a lot of learning to do. Some of it will break in next year (Albies, Swanson, some of the other pitchers) but will need a year or two to fully develop, and some will likely not break in until 2018 and beyond. So, it's not a stretch to say that it's likely you will see the beginnings of growth from the young players in the second half of 2017 and throughout 2018, meaning they likely won't make much difference next year and will begin to make a difference in 2018 and should be primed in 2019.

So, I think the progression of the TEAM goes something like: Not good in 2017, better and maybe competitive in 2018, should be competitive in 2019.

Taking that as true (I think it more likely that the progression is optimistic at this point as opposed to pessimistic), then IF you sign or trade for Cespedes, Desmond and Lucroy THIS offseason, then you will have 3 players in their 33 YO seasons making about half the available payroll just as the young guys really have a chance to make an impact. Those three guys are all at the tail end of their age peak NOW.

Signing them this offseason would make everyone feel better short term even if it didn't make the team competitive. But, unless you are going to have the payroll to eat some bad contracts in 2019, then it's a short-sighted move.

Rebuilding is like shooting at a fast moving target. You don't shoot where the target is, you shoot at where it will be when the bullet arrives.

 

[zbhargrove]

So, looking at the young talent, I think it reasonable to say that some is currently at the ML level (Folty, Wisler, etc) but still has a lot of learning to do. Some of it will break in next year (Albies, Swanson, some of the other pitchers) but will need a year or two to fully develop, and some will likely not break in until 2018 and beyond. So, it's not a stretch to say that it's likely you will see the beginnings of growth from the young players in the second half of 2017 and throughout 2018, meaning they likely won't make much difference next year and will begin to make a difference in 2018 and should be primed in 2019.

So, I think the progression of the TEAM goes something like: Not good in 2017, better and maybe competitive in 2018, should be competitive in 2019.

Taking that as true (I think it more likely that the progression is optimistic at this point as opposed to pessimistic), then IF you sign or trade for Cespedes, Desmond and Lucroy THIS offseason, then you will have 3 players in their 33 YO seasons making about half the available payroll just as the young guys really have a chance to make an impact. Those three guys are all at the tail end of their age peak NOW.

Signing them this offseason would make everyone feel better short term even if it didn't make the team competitive. But, unless you are going to have the payroll to eat some bad contracts in 2019, then it's a short-sighted move.

Rebuilding is like shooting at a fast moving target. You don't shoot where the target is, you shoot at where it will be when the bullet arrives.

Well Cespedes and Desmond will be 31 next year and Lucroy will be 30 for most of next year. That may sound like semantics... but 2/3 years difference than what you claimed is pretty significant.

 

[Horsehide Harry]

Well Cespedes and Desmond will be 31 next year and Lucroy will be 30 for most of next year. That may sound like semantics... but 2/3 years difference than what you claimed is pretty significant.

All 3 will be 33 in the 2019 season...and that's assuming that Cespedes is really not older than he says.

 

[Chico]

So, looking at the young talent, I think it reasonable to say that some is currently at the ML level (Folty, Wisler, etc) but still has a lot of learning to do. Some of it will break in next year (Albies, Swanson, some of the other pitchers) but will need a year or two to fully develop, and some will likely not break in until 2018 and beyond. So, it's not a stretch to say that it's likely you will see the beginnings of growth from the young players in the second half of 2017 and throughout 2018, meaning they likely won't make much difference next year and will begin to make a difference in 2018 and should be primed in 2019.

So, I think the progression of the TEAM goes something like: Not good in 2017, better and maybe competitive in 2018, should be competitive in 2019.

Taking that as true (I think it more likely that the progression is optimistic at this point as opposed to pessimistic), then IF you sign or trade for Cespedes, Desmond and Lucroy THIS offseason, then you will have 3 players in their 33 YO seasons making about half the available payroll just as the young guys really have a chance to make an impact. Those three guys are all at the tail end of their age peak NOW.

Signing them this offseason would make everyone feel better short term even if it didn't make the team competitive. But, unless you are going to have the payroll to eat some bad contracts in 2019, then it's a short-sighted move.

Rebuilding is like shooting at a fast moving target. You don't shoot where the target is, you shoot at where it will be when the bullet arrives.

I keep hearing people say not to spend money now cause the kids will be coming up in a few years. The beauty of that is the kids won't be making anything, and we will have other kids to trade for team friendly contracts if we want/need to.

I look at a rebuild like restocking your chips at the tables. We now have a very deep farm system and a ton of money. Olivera's 4-5M a year contract is our only dead money. I'm sure Coppy is looking at it like it's time to play. I don't see anymore folding every hand like we've done the last two years.

Who knows how good we'll be in 2017. We could suck or we could make the playoffs. The entertaining part is it'll be the first year we've tried to win under the new regime. So it'll be fun to watch at least for the first few months. If we suck we can always make trades in July and restock our chips for the following offseason.

 

[gilesfan]

Yeah, that's becoming quite clear from this thread. I mean, if we go out and sign someone like Cespedes along with Desmond and have everything you just posted happen, I can see us just hitting .500. But without that I don't see us hitting more than mid 70s wins unless multiple youngsters come in and post ridiculous numbers.

It would take massive improvements from players (starters) and significant day 1 contributions from Albies/Swanson plus Cespedes/Desmond would have to continue career years for the team to be at .500. Adding 25 wins to a team is astronomical.

 

[Horsehide Harry]

I keep hearing people say not to spend money now cause the kids will be coming up in a few years. The beauty of that is the kids won't be making anything, and we will have other kids to trade for team friendly contracts if we want/need to.

I look at a rebuild like restocking your chips at the tables. We now have a very deep farm system and a ton of money. Olivera's 4-5M a year contract is our only dead money. I'm sure Coppy is looking at it like it's time to play. I don't see anymore folding every hand like we've done the last two years.

Who knows how good we'll be in 2017. We could suck or we could make the playoffs. The entertaining part is it'll be the first year we've tried to win under the new regime. So it'll be fun to watch at least for the first few months. If we suck we can always make trades in July and restock our chips for the following offseason.

I'm not against signing FA. I just don't think signing FA this offseason in effort to lose only 85-90 games vs 100-110 and trying to corner the market on the best of the bad options is smart.

The next TWO FA offseasons have much better FA crops and better coincide with the timing for existing internal young talent. Let's say you could get Cespedes, Desmond and Lucroy (Lucroy you have to extent or it makes no sense), the total yearly combined value of their contracts will likely be in the $60-$75M range - Cespedes $25M, Desmond $18M, Lucroy $18M = $61M AT BEST. That is roughly half the expected payroll. Add in Freemen's $21M, Markakis' $11M, Olivera's $6M, Teheran's $6.3M, Flowers' $3M, Viz's ~ $2M, that's another $49.3M = $110M. Let's say they give a bump in payroll because of the new park and take the budget to $125M (about a 20-25% increase), that gives you $15M to fill out the team. You have essentially no ability to play AT ALL in the higher echelons of the FA classes AFTER the 2017 or 2018 seasons.

So, essentially, you mortgage the future for PR purposes. AND that's based on the supposition that you can get the best of the best FA and trade for the best catcher available (assuming he is).

If they are going to sign FA after this season, they need to go smaller one-two year deals maybe with options. Guys like Beltran, Utley, Castro, Rasmus.

 

[Chico]

I'm not against signing FA. I just don't think signing FA this offseason in effort to lose only 85-90 games vs 100-110 and trying to corner the market on the best of the bad options is smart.

The next TWO FA offseasons have much better FA crops and better coincide with the timing for existing internal young talent. Let's say you could get Cespedes, Desmond and Lucroy (Lucroy you have to extent or it makes no sense), the total yearly combined value of their contracts will likely be in the $60-$75M range - Cespedes $25M, Desmond $18M, Lucroy $18M = $61M AT BEST. That is roughly half the expected payroll. Add in Freemen's $21M, Markakis' $11M, Olivera's $6M, Teheran's $6.3M, Flowers' $3M, Viz's ~ $2M, that's another $49.3M = $110M. Let's say they give a bump in payroll because of the new park and take the budget to $125M (about a 20-25% increase), that gives you $15M to fill out the team. You have essentially no ability to play AT ALL in the higher echelons of the FA classes AFTER the 2017 or 2018 seasons.

So, essentially, you mortgage the future for PR purposes. AND that's based on the supposition that you can get the best of the best FA and trade for the best catcher available (assuming he is).

If they are going to sign FA after this season, they need to go smaller one-two year deals maybe with options. Guys like Beltran, Utley, Castro, Rasmus.

Well yeah we're not going to get the 2 biggest dogs in FA. Supply and demand would not allow that and it wouldn't be a smart idea. I could see us getting one "big" FA though. It depends on the pick compensation, and if we think he'll add value for future trade.

More than likely we'll acquire several hitters and pitchers that fit our needs, to act as placeholders and eventual trade bait when we have a youngster tell us he''s ready to take that spot.

 

[Horsehide Harry]

Well yeah we're not going to get the 2 biggest dogs in FA. Supply and demand would not allow that and it wouldn't be a smart idea. I could see us getting one "big" FA though. It depends on the pick compensation, and if we think he'll add value for future trade.

More than likely we'll acquire several hitters and pitchers that fit our needs, to act as placeholders and eventual trade bait when we have a youngster tell us he''s ready to take that spot.

I agree. But, then you have to be prepared to face the very real possibility of losing 90+ games again next year... The only way not to do that is to go big in FA and IF you go big in FA after this season, you essentially undermine the effectiveness of the rebuild.

 

[clvclv]

I agree. But, then you have to be prepared to face the very real possibility of losing 90+ games again next year... The only way not to do that is to go big in FA and IF you go big in FA after this season, you essentially undermine the effectiveness of the rebuild.

Exactly how does that "undermine" anything?

 

[Chico]

I agree. But, then you have to be prepared to face the very real possibility of losing 90+ games again next year... The only way not to do that is to go big in FA and IF you go big in FA after this season, you essentially undermine the effectiveness of the rebuild.

If we're on our way to another 90 loss season then we're just going to flip some of those FA's next July.

 

[The Tariff King]

I wonder if the Braves are doing this to drive up the price for Sale to get at Wren and Boston. For Wren bring Wren and because they wouldn't meet demands for Julion.

 

[Enscheff]

If they are going to sign FA after this season, they need to go smaller one-two year deals maybe with options. Guys like Beltran, Utley, Castro, Rasmus.

Beltran is an interesting name. Outside of 2014 he has aged pretty well. He is pretty terrible in the OF, but beggars can't be choosers.

So let's say the Braves try to straddle the fence and play the "upgrade with FAs but don't hamstring the future" game, and make the following additions:

LF - Beltran 1 year, $15M with an option for $15M and a $1M buyout.
C - Castro 3 year, $25M-$30M, transitions to backup after Flowers leaves.
3B - Freese 2-3 year deal at ~$5M per year, maybe Prado for about twice that money.
Trade for a guy like Moore from the Rays to fill in the middle of the rotation.

Still a pretty bad team (70ish wins), but it shows the organization is clearly turning the corner from the rebuild, and doesn't lock the team into any contracts of any significance.

 

[Southcack77]

Exactly how does that "undermine" anything?

I think he means signing mediocre free agents to long term deals (with a losing team premium) undermines payroll and roster flexibility.

 

[Horsehide Harry]

Exactly how does that "undermine" anything?

I will try one more time, I guess, but I think you have your head too far up your own backside admiring the plumbing to see reason.

It undermines the rebuild because it strangles your payroll flexibility just when you most need it and it can be most useful. If you have a bunch of contracts, and payroll, tied up with guys who are on a decline (Cespedes, Lucroy, Desmond) just when you are beginning to gain momentum with your home grown young talent, you starve your ability to add the pieces needed and you eliminate your ability to bring a real star, or semi-star, to the club when they are available.

Just because you decide you want to trade someone because they are no longer needed, especially when you don't have payroll flexibility to eat some of the owed money, doesn't mean you will be able to. Kemp was a good idea to somebody. Panda was a good idea. Hanley Ramirez was a good idea (even if he's not a total flop he isn't worth what they are paying him).

 

[Horsehide Harry]

Beltran is an interesting name. Outside of 2014 he has aged pretty well. He is pretty terrible in the OF, but beggars can't be choosers.

So let's say the Braves try to straddle the fence and play the "upgrade with FAs but don't hamstring the future" game, and make the following additions:

LF - Beltran 1 year, $15M with an option for $15M and a $1M buyout.
C - Castro 3 year, $25M-$30M, transitions to backup after Flowers leaves.
3B - Freese 2-3 year deal at ~$5M per year, maybe Prado for about twice that money.
Trade for a guy like Moore from the Rays to fill in the middle of the rotation.

Still a pretty bad team (70ish wins), but it shows the organization is clearly turning the corner from the rebuild, and doesn't lock the team into any contracts of any significance.

I could live with it. I'm not sure Freese would be a better long term there than just playing Beckham there very day. Castro I'm good with as well as with the Beltran deal.

Moore would work so long as the return isn't too stiff. Personally, I prefer trying to buy a salary dump like a Niese, Locke, Santana, Hughes, Garza as part of a bigger deal that brings other young talent back to Atlanta, if a deal like that was possible. Essentially a placeholder or two that won't outright embarrass you but who won't be hard to push away once the young guys are developed.