Braves trade Mallex and Simmons to M's for Gohara and Burrows

Enscheff said:
I suppose we will see in a couple seasons just how many teams are clamoring for pitching prospects with question marks when the Braves need to start trading them for position players. If recent history is any indication, they haven't been able to turn any of those guys into position players yet. In fact, the only position players they have acquired via trade came in one unprecedentedly bad trade with the DBacks, the likes of which will almost certainly never occur again.

So if Dave Stewart was never given a GM job, I don't think the Braves would have successfully converted any pitching into impact position players.

I hope you're right though. I hope teams are lining up for the Braves young pitchers starting next offseason. I hope the Braves are right in their assertion that young pitching is some sort of valuable currency to buy whatever an organization needs, despite all current data showing position prospects being the most valuable currency in the modern game.
Click to expand...

You've ascribed a particular thought to the Braves front office that they've never expressed and then labeled it as ridiculous when its anything but clear that it is ridiculous. That makes it a not particularly well chosen straw man.

You've also declared focusing on pitching in a rebuild as absurd because a couple of very large market teams have focused on hitting and had it paid off for them lately.

You've also blithely written off the occasions where the Braves did flip pitching for hitting (sometimes not even good pitching) and have declared the Braves pitching rebuild project as somewhat unsuccessful after two years because the guys they acquired who were closed to the majors haven't hit yet. In making that conclusion you never reference the one guy who has been the most successful in Folty.

And of course their younger pitching is looking extremely promising - which makes sense given that most front offices aren't parting with ready minted top of the rotation starters who are at the upper levels for guys one one year contracts. And honestly even a guy like Newcomb hasn't really had a step back so much as he didn't take a full step forward.

You've also tried to portray that the White Sox have done a better job than the Braves because they have been trading young all stars with lots of control for highly regarded prospects, which is a little bizarre given that they could easily have held on to those players and tried to surround them with better players sometime in the next four years, but you have downplayed that by saying it is obvious that the "team chemistry" was off for them which obviously made it smart to break up the team. And wow, go figure, if you trade all stars with great contracts for years to come you can get a lot of prospects who have never done a thing.

I just think you are trying a little too hard to take shots at your home team's front office. It's kind of strange how you refuse to ascribe any sort of knowledge or thought to that front office that one could acquire, like you do, by reading articles on fangraphs and paying attention to the latest flavor of the month "smart thinking" articles on baseball blogs like overpaying backup catchers based on pitch framing that clearly was more than priced in to their contracts. As if that is smart thinking rather than a trend that has been around and discussed by just about everyone now.

To me, I don't really celebrate the front office as any kind of genius brain trust. It's not exactly that hard, as mentioned above, to assemble a bunch of prospects if you are willing to trade off assets and focus all resources on acquiring them.

Personally, I think the Braves have a decent core in the short term to be respectable and a very promising core coming up behind them which has a chance to be a contender. Won't know till they get here, but I am not really buying any school of thought that has the Braves as actually believing that they would be really good any time before 2018 or 2019. I think what they are doing is trying to be flexible so as to give themselves a chance to be decent, but with always an eye on acquiring higher end prospects that might hit in what they think is their real window. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think they are stone aged, stupid, or incapable of grasping what is a fairly mainstream thinking about baseball analysis these days, that everyone actually does kind of understand now, even dum-dums.
 
the Braves front office have many times said the Braves Way is to load up on pitching....I think they are over generalizing from a particular experience
 
So you're saying I'm wrong when I conclude the Braves have focused a disproportionate amount of player acquisition resources on pitching talent? You are denying they have explicitly said the are looking to build around young pitching?

Like I said, we will see how well they are able to convert this pitching talent into position players. I'm willing to bet we read many more complaints from Coppy about how hard Young position players are to acquire (he has already said that around the time of the Olivera deal). Those complaints will ring especially hollow after the Braves have passed up acquiring those very position prospects in favor of pitching assets on a consistent basis.

I think the Braves will have more success trading established pitchers when they have 2 years of control remaining for position prospects than they will trading extra pitching prospects for established MLB position players. That means trading Teheran after the 2018 season and Folty after his Arb1 season.
 
nsacpi said:
the Braves front office have many times said the Braves Way is to load up on pitching....I think they are over generalizing from a particular experience
Click to expand...

Right, they got lucky with 2 homegrown HOF pitchers and signing another, and now suddenly that's the way to build a successful team.
 
smootness said:
That's all fair. We'll have to wait and see on Anderson/Wentz vs. Lewis, I preferred Lewis at the time as well.

Margot or Wisler/Riley/Touki? I'm actually happy with our package.
Click to expand...

Except Lewis signed for less than Anderson. There is no evidence the Braves couldn't have gotten both Lewis and Wentz.
 
smootness said:
I would encourage you to make more of your posts like this. You offer plenty of good substance to the board, and I think if you tried to just present that substance without the condescension and insults, it would be far better received, and you would probably enjoy it more as well.

As for the post, I'll just offer a couple thoughts that I've believe since the beginning of the rebuild:

1) We didn't have a lot of great assets when we began the rebuild. We had a mediocre major league team whose best assets were close to either a huge payday or leaving without a return, and our minor league system was atrocious. The primary assets we gave up were:

- 1 year of Jason Heyward

- 1 year of Justin Upton

- Evan Gattis

- Craig Kimbrel

- Andrelton Simmons

- BJ Upton

- Alex Wood

- Jose Peraza
Click to expand...

I think you have to evaluate the trade returns based upon what they did vs what they probably could have done which is obviously an extremely subjective thing.

And it has to be viewed through the lens of what they were trying to do at the time as opposed to what they were trying to do later or even now. For instance, it is my belief that they went into the trades with the idea of a reload rather than a rebuild but changed course somewhere along the way to more rebuild, but still not a 100% commitment to rebuild.

Look at Gattis (1/2015): traded with ml Hoyt for Thurman, Folty and Ruiz. Folty was obviously the lynchpin of the deal, a guy who was considered a high end arm and ML ready. Thurman and Ruiz were not in their top 20 according to MLB.com

But the Braves, reloading, probably believed they needed the ML ready arm, just like they needed a 1st baseman in return when they traded Texieria, so Folty was needed. But, what if the Braves had been rebuilding instead of reloading? Might they have gotten some guys considered further away but with better long term futures? In their top 20 in 2014 was P Lance McCullers, OF Domingo Santana, OF Brett Phillips, 1B AJ Reed but their was guys like Nolan Fontana and Danry Vasquez too that never came to anything. It's hard to say. The point is that the return the Braves were willing to accept was informed by their internal view of where they were taking the franchise.

What's better: Gattis for what the Braves got OR Gattis for McCullers, Phillips and Reed? Still too early to tell and lots of variables.

Look at Heyward(11/2014): Paired with Walden for Shelby Miller and Jenkins. Another reload trade. What could the Braves have gotten for Heyward if they were willing to take prospects? Cards had Piscotty and Grichuk and Reyes, and Kelley all in their system in 2014.

JUpton(12/2014): Here's one that didn't make much sense any way you look at it, but still might work out. Traded to the Pads for Fried (Injured and far away if ever), D Peterson (far away), J Peterson (not well thought of, but close) and Mallex (also not that well thought of, but close). Maybe this is the best they could get for JUp. But, for it wasn't really a pure reload or rebuild trade, somewhat in between. Padres had Trea Turner, Austin Hedges, Hunter Renfroe, Matt Wisler.

MUpton & Kimbrell (4/2015): So, it's like in the middle of spring training 2015, they shifted gear to more of a rebuild away from a reload and shipped out MUp & Kimbrell for Wisler (why not for JUp), Paroubeck (not really a prospect), Cam Maybin (not a good player) Carlos Quinten (straight salary dump) and 2015 Comp Balance A pick. If you take out MUp & Maybin and Quinten then Kimbrell brought back Wisler, Paroubeck and a Comp balance pick.

The Braves sent SD J&M Up and Kimbrell for their #2 prospect (Wisler), their #19 prospect (Paroubeck), a guy not listed because of injury (Fried) and a Comp balance pick and J Peterson (playing in the majors), Mallex (not in their top 20), and D Peterson (also not in their top 20) according to MLB.com - overall not great returns but could still work out if Fried, Wisler and/or DPete hit.

Gosselin(6/2015): Traded to DBacks for Arroyo and Toussaint. Arroyo was nothing but a salary dump so Braves essentially bought Toussaint. Clearly a rebuild move.

Wood&Peraza(7/2015): Braves traded Wood, Peraza, Jim Johnson, Luis Avilan and Arroyo (Braves paid some of salary) for Olivera, Bird, Rodriguez and a 2016 Comp Balance pick (from Miami). Olivera was clearly a reload move. So, back to that again.

So, I guess if I am to be critical it would be that the Braves have not been decisive in their planning. They have sort of half rebuild/half reload all along the way (and continue to take this approach even today) which I consider to be very inefficient.
 
smootness said:
I've seen it as a pure rebuild all the way. Arguing the Gattis deal was a reload is odd.
Click to expand...

You don't have to trade for a 18 year old kid to signal a rebuild. Its all about getting value. If Folty ends up being really good he can be flipped in arb2 for a load of top prospects.

People get wrapped up in the ages/control of these players. You are either a valueable piece or you are not.
 
smootness said:
I've seen it as a pure rebuild all the way. Arguing the Gattis deal was a reload is odd.
Click to expand...

I think the inclusion of Folty (a guy who had a taste of ML experience and was considered ready for ML baseball) says it was a reload. Either that or the Braves were taken by Houston.

I prefer to think that the Braves decided that they wouldn't do the deal without Folty because they liked him as a key piece to the upcoming seasons rotation. In general, a high end arm that is ML ready is worth more than a similar arm that is further away.

I don't know what happened or how the negotiations went down. I expect the Braves started out asking for Springer or some such then settled in to having to have Folty.

Otherwise, you have the Braves asking for something like McCullers, Santana and Phillips and being told "no" but you can have Folty. And I don't think it went like that.
 
thethe said:
You don't have to trade for a 18 year old kid to signal a rebuild. Its all about getting value. If Folty ends up being really good he can be flipped in arb2 for a load of top prospects.

People get wrapped up in the ages/control of these players. You are either a valueable piece or you are not.
Click to expand...

If he ends up being really good he never gets flipped BECAUSE he is good. And if he ends up being really good, he does it on a string of horrible teams in a true rebuild. If he becomes really good, say after 3-4 years, and the rest of the team finally begins to catch up, then he's 1.not far from FA and 2. expensive (not decreasing his ability, but decreasing his bargain value) and 3. Virtually untradeable because fans won't put up with the continuation of a rebuild after the first signs appear that the rebuild is over.

In other words, in a true rebuild, which the Braves never did, 2-3 young prospects of similar projected value as Folty but much further away and therefore more of a long term risky proposition is a better value than getting one Folty. On a rebuilding club, if done right: YR1: horrible team YR2: horrible team YR3: marginally better team YR4: good competitive team YR5: competitive team. So you take a Folty and he pitches at the ML level from YR1 of the rebuild (setting aside the strong possibility that the horrible nature of the team could retard Folty's development) and he has no effective value YR1, YR2 or much in YR3 no matter what he does unless he is so good right away and the GM is ballsy enough to move what appears to be a true ACE for a true ACE return - which doesn't happen. By YR4 his value becomes important but he's becoming expensive. In YR5 he's very important but also pretty expensive AND entering his FA season.

If you take 2-3 players who are in Low A instead of AAA/taste of the majors, and those players have a similar potential as Folty, chances are not all will make it. But, if only on makes it and performs as well as Folty will perform, and arrives first time late in YR3, then when the rest of the team catches up to being good, YR5, you still have your Folty equivalent under contract for four more years. But, what if, out of the 3, then 2 become Folty productive? Say one arrives in YR3 and one in YR4, then you have a 2 Folty equivalent talents available for a while after the rest of the team becomes good enough to win.

The way you lose is if you take 3 players and none make it or some make it but the total value never combines up to be equivalent to one Folty. That's where the scouts come in. As a GM, either you trust them or you don't.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
I think the inclusion of Folty (a guy who had a taste of ML experience and was considered ready for ML baseball) says it was a reload. Either that or the Braves were taken by Houston.

I prefer to think that the Braves decided that they wouldn't do the deal without Folty because they liked him as a key piece to the upcoming seasons rotation. In general, a high end arm that is ML ready is worth more than a similar arm that is further away.

I don't know what happened or how the negotiations went down. I expect the Braves started out asking for Springer or some such then settled in to having to have Folty.

Otherwise, you have the Braves asking for something like McCullers, Santana and Phillips and being told "no" but you can have Folty. And I don't think it went like that.
Click to expand...

He may have been ML ready as in 'can pitch in the majors now' but no one saw him as someone who could be some kind of key piece right away.

The guy is under control through 2021. That was a move to help the rebuild.

The only players you can rebuild with are ones who are a couple years away from even tasting the majors?
 
Enscheff said:
So you're saying I'm wrong when I conclude the Braves have focused a disproportionate amount of player acquisition resources on pitching talent? You are denying they have explicitly said the are looking to build around young pitching?

Like I said, we will see how well they are able to convert this pitching talent into position players. I'm willing to bet we read many more complaints from Coppy about how hard Young position players are to acquire (he has already said that around the time of the Olivera deal). Those complaints will ring especially hollow after the Braves have passed up acquiring those very position prospects in favor of pitching assets on a consistent basis.

I think the Braves will have more success trading established pitchers when they have 2 years of control remaining for position prospects than they will trading extra pitching prospects for established MLB position players. That means trading Teheran after the 2018 season and Folty after his Arb1 season.
Click to expand...

Depends on how you define disproportionate. I agree the Braves have acquired more pitching prospects than hitting prospects, but I don't think they've focused exclusively on pitching and I don't think their focus has actually been inordinately directed at pitching.

I think its likely the market has dictated to some degree what they've acquired. I think that the Braves have been asking after high upside hitters and probably have made many attempts to acquire it, but I think it very likely they've found that they didn't have the talent to acquire one for the assets they've had to trade in a deal that they can pull the trigger on.

I feel like I'm sure that I've read they made runs at Gary Sanchez, Moncado, Bientendi, numerous Cubs young players and been turned away. I'm sure they have kicked the tires on others.

But if you are moving assets and you don't have what it takes to get the elite guys you have to take what you can get on sit on what you have. And I think they've found that they can acquire MLB projected starters and high upside pitching prospects relatively cheaply. And I think they've also seen that they can move semi-competent major league pitching for interesting, but flawed hitting prospects.

I don't really think the front office is winning every deal or maximizing value every time they make a trade, but I do object to the idea that they don't understand what they are doing, don't have any sort of plan, or aren't capable of understanding basic level analysis that you can find on a website frequented by a million people who own fantasy teams. That's just not a realistic point of view.
 
smootness said:
He may have been ML ready as in 'can pitch in the majors now' but no one saw him as someone who could be some kind of key piece right away.

The guy is under control through 2021. That was a move to help the rebuild.

The only players you can rebuild with are ones who are a couple years away from even tasting the majors?
Click to expand...

Not at all. I explained my views to The above. But, essentially I think the odds are better to take 3 quality players that are far away over one quality player that is near at hand if you know that it is very unlikely that you will be very good over the next 3-4 years. Call it baseball windage. It's aiming for where the target will be not where it currently is.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
If he ends up being really good he never gets flipped BECAUSE he is good. And if he ends up being really good, he does it on a string of horrible teams in a true rebuild. If he becomes really good, say after 3-4 years, and the rest of the team finally begins to catch up, then he's 1.not far from FA and 2. expensive (not decreasing his ability, but decreasing his bargain value) and 3. Virtually untradeable because fans won't put up with the continuation of a rebuild after the first signs appear that the rebuild is over.

In other words, in a true rebuild, which the Braves never did, 2-3 young prospects of similar projected value as Folty but much further away and therefore more of a long term risky proposition is a better value than getting one Folty. On a rebuilding club, if done right: YR1: horrible team YR2: horrible team YR3: marginally better team YR4: good competitive team YR5: competitive team. So you take a Folty and he pitches at the ML level from YR1 of the rebuild (setting aside the strong possibility that the horrible nature of the team could retard Folty's development) and he has no effective value YR1, YR2 or much in YR3 no matter what he does unless he is so good right away and the GM is ballsy enough to move what appears to be a true ACE for a true ACE return - which doesn't happen. By YR4 his value becomes important but he's becoming expensive. In YR5 he's very important but also pretty expensive AND entering his FA season.

If you take 2-3 players who are in Low A instead of AAA/taste of the majors, and those players have a similar potential as Folty, chances are not all will make it. But, if only on makes it and performs as well as Folty will perform, and arrives first time late in YR3, then when the rest of the team catches up to being good, YR5, you still have your Folty equivalent under contract for four more years. But, what if, out of the 3, then 2 become Folty productive? Say one arrives in YR3 and one in YR4, then you have a 2 Folty equivalent talents available for a while after the rest of the team becomes good enough to win.

The way you lose is if you take 3 players and none make it or some make it but the total value never combines up to be equivalent to one Folty. That's where the scouts come in. As a GM, either you trust them or you don't.
Click to expand...

I don't agree wth you here. It's always been a true rebuild. They were decent when they began selling off every surplus part two years ago. They were one of the worst teams in baseball last year. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of anyone who they let complete their contract that was tradeable.

the Braves never really seriously tried to be good in this rebuild. They signed some guys. They made some trades for some guys, but if they'd been serious they'd have done things differently.

the Braves absolutely could have flipped and might still flip Folty for something else even if he is good or very good. It's just likely to be something very very shiny because you are correct that optics do matter to some degree.

I think perhaps you are confusing what the Braves received in return with the Braves intentions. I think Atlanta has shown that they see all this in the frame of assets and they are more than willing to rearrange those assets even when they look like building blocks. What else would you call the Shelby Miller series of transactions? How would Folty be any different if someone came dangling a big time return?

The Braves are circling 2018 and beyond. The one thing I am curious about is what they will do if they find themselves at the back of the wild card race and their short term assets are performing. I think they still trade them and take the hit.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
Not at all. I explained my views to The above. But, essentially I think the odds are better to take 3 quality players that are far away over one quality player that is near at hand if you know that it is very unlikely that you will be very good over the next 3-4 years. Call it baseball windage. It's aiming for where the target will be not where it currently is.
Click to expand...

The FO might have had a plan in place knowing they were going to try really hard to obtain pitching that was not only far away, but a few years away, and also almost ready. You can look at our system and see the waves of talent... Folty might be a piece that is just a smaller piece to a master plan. I don't think this FO has blurred any lines between what they are trying to accomplish and how they are going about it. I do agree mistakes have been made. (HO, AJ resign, some of the early bench signings last year).. but over all they have accomplished what they set out to do... rebuild the farm from one of the worst to one of the best in less than 1.5 years.. and they are still 'rebuilding' that system all the while trying to improve the on the field product. I don't think you are correct when you say they have confused the lines between rebuild and retool..
 
I don't think any of the trades were short term thinking. I think getting prospects closer to the majors mitigates your risk some.

Folty was a top prospect. He threw super hard, maintained that velocity into games, had been healthy and he was close. You had the potential Chapman like RP or a starter. I don't think that's low upside.

JUp trade was the poo poo platter. Injured arm and some stuff.

I agree there has been some confusion about going all in on the rebuild. But to me the confusion lies with signing Neck, trading for Olivera, Kemp, winning games late last year. I don't think its' the trades. I would have put Terdo in RF for this entire time and let the losses pile up.
 
Enscheff said:
Right, they got lucky with 2 homegrown HOF pitchers and signing another, and now suddenly that's the way to build a successful team.
Click to expand...

Feel free to cite any world champion this side of the '27 Yankees that did not have an element of luck in their equation.
 
Russ2dollas said:
I don't think any of the trades were short term thinking. I think getting prospects closer to the majors mitigates your risk some.

Folty was a top prospect. He threw super hard, maintained that velocity into games, had been healthy and he was close. You had the potential Chapman like RP or a starter. I don't think that's low upside.

JUp trade was the poo poo platter. Injured arm and some stuff.

I agree there has been some confusion about going all in on the rebuild. But to me the confusion lies with signing Neck, trading for Olivera, Kemp, winning games late last year. I don't think its' the trades. I would have put Terdo in RF for this entire time and let the losses pile up.
Click to expand...

Spoken like someone who's never bought a ticket.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top