Discussion of Braves 2018 Offseason plans

NYCBrave said:
Here's my thing, it's easy to look back and question the Simmons move, but it's so easy to forget how bad Simmons was looking with the bat. Consider these stats:

2012: .289 avg, .751 OPS, 3 HR's, 12 BB's
2013: .248 avg, .692 OPS, 17 HR's, 40 BB's
2014: .244 avg, .617 OPS, 7 HR's, 32 BB's
2015: .265 avg, .659 OPS, 4 HR's, 39 BB's
2016: .281 avg, .690 OPS, 4 HR's, 28 BB's (first year with Angels)

Of course we all know how 2017 turned out. But legitimately, it looked like his development was headed in the wrong direction, and at best we'd have an all glove player, with a chance he didn't even hit enough to be a major leaguer.

So this is not a defense to saying we did the right thing, but he was legitimately one of the worst hitters in the league for a couple of years there. 2017 was pretty unexpected.
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Compared to what they have now at SS? At least Simmons was known to be an elite defender. Even with the bad hitting Simmons was still a 2-3 win player.

Simmons' best seasons offensively came when he pulled the most fly balls. He is a glowing example of why guys want to pull more fly balls. If the Braves had an analytics department larger than 1 guy and an intern they would have had him make the same changes he made 2017.

As I said, I can't fault the Braves too much for trading a guy who provided most of his value on defense before his defense declined. What I fault them for is wasting other valuable assets by keeping them. Trading Simmons and holding onto Teheran was an inexcusable set of moves for a team to make.
 
Enscheff said:
The Simmons trade was defensible in a vacuum. It wasn't good, and probably pretty bad, but it was defensible.

What was indefensible was trading Simmons (controlled through 2020), but keeping Freeman (through 2021) and especially keeping Teheran (through 2020). If the rebuild was going to take long enough that Simmons had to go, why in the world would they keep Freeman and Teheran?

This type of disjointed rebuild strategy is the biggest failure of the FO and the cause of all the (non-legal) issues the team faces.
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What I been sayin'
 
Enscheff said:
Compared to what they have now at SS? At least Simmons was known to be an elite defender. Even with the bad hitting Simmons was still a 2-3 win player.

Simmons' best seasons offensively came when he pulled the most fly balls. He is a glowing example of why guys want to pull more fly balls. If the Braves had an analytics department larger than 1 guy and an intern they would have had him make the same changes he made 2017.

As I said, I can't fault the Braves too much for trading a guy who provided most of his value on defense before his defense declined. What I fault them for is wasting other valuable assets by keeping them. Trading Simmons and holding onto Teheran was an inexcusable set of moves for a team to make.
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The trade of Simmons was right. The return of Aybar as part of what was received was not.
 
MLBTR finally put out their Braves outlook:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/offseason-outlook-atlanta-braves-2017-18.html

Nothing in there we haven’t already hashed out here 100 times, but it’s a pretty solid take.

Main points:

- BP needs an upgrade.

- Adams, Jace and Santana are non-tender candidates.

- The Braves need an upgrade at 3B and LF.

- They will have to eat money to trade Kemp, and maybe some to move Markakis.

- They could use an established SP, but who knows how many resources they are willing to use to address it.

- With AA in charge now there might be fireworks.

No mention of what they think payroll might be, which is an odd thing to leave out of these types of articles, and typically isn’t. I’m operating under the assumption it will be decreased to the $100M-$110M range (bottom 10 in the league).
 
As of now here's what I'd do

Trade Kemp to the Twins for Phil Hughes and Kohl Stewart (who is unproetected) We'd save about $6M per year over the next 2 years. Hughes wouldn't pitch til mid-season, but AA knows all about using the DL for injured pitchers

Trade Markakis, Johnson, and $5M to the Orioles for a mid-level prospect/wild card or two. We'll save about 10M

Trade Matt Adams to a team for a mid-level prospect/wild card- We'd save about $5M

So we'd shave off about $21M from the $87M projected payroll to give us a new number of $66M.

I'd sign Frazier at a 3/36 or 2/28 with 3rd year option kind of contract to be the cleanup hitter and clubhouse leader

I'd trade for 1 RH and 1 LH young hitting OF'er. Some rumored names have been Joc, Grichuk, Piscotty, Bradley Jr., Kepler or some of the Brewers guys...basically whoever I could work out deal with and get the most value. I'd start them out in the corners for a few weeks and then platoon them after. One would have to be able to back up CF as well. None of these guys would cost a lot of money yet.

So, if we're at 80M or so after signing Frazier now we'd have about $30M to $40M to spend. I'd use that to upgrade the pen and rotation.
 
Chico said:
As of now here's what I'd do

Trade Kemp to the Twins for Phil Hughes and Kohl Stewart (who is unproetected) We'd save about $6M per year over the next 2 years. Hughes wouldn't pitch til mid-season, but AA knows all about using the DL for injured pitchers

Trade Markakis, Johnson, and $5M to the Orioles for a mid-level prospect/wild card or two. We'll save about 10M

Trade Matt Adams to a team for a mid-level prospect/wild card- We'd save about $5M

So we'd shave off about $21M from the $87M projected payroll to give us a new number of $66M.

I'd sign Frazier at a 3/36 or 2/28 with 3rd year option kind of contract to be the cleanup hitter and clubhouse leader

I'd trade for 1 RH and 1 LH young hitting OF'er. Some rumored names have been Joc, Grichuk, Piscotty, Bradley Jr., Kepler or some of the Brewers guys...basically whoever I could work out deal with and get the most value. I'd start them out in the corners for a few weeks and then platoon them after. One would have to be able to back up CF as well. None of these guys would cost a lot of money yet.

So, if we're at 80M or so after signing Frazier now we'd have about $30M to $40M to spend. I'd use that to upgrade the pen and rotation.
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Twins already have a couple of DHs-in-training with Sano's weight hovering near 3 bills and Kennys Vargas showing some pop. I don't think they need another guy in that mold. Twins won't consider trading Kepler.
 
50PoundHead said:
Twins already have a couple of DHs-in-training with Sano's weight hovering near 3 bills and Kennys Vargas showing some pop. I don't think they need another guy in that mold. Twins won't consider trading Kepler.
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It will be extremely challenging to trade Kemp. AA is going to have to find an AL team that needs a DH and has another bad contract to send the Braves way. Problem is, most AL teams don't look to fill DH by acquiring new players...they transition current older players into that role or rotate players through DH to rest them while keeping their bats in the lineup. The whole benefit to being an AL team is to acquire FAs who transition to DH at the end of their contract, not acquire players who are already DHs.

There are so many 1B/DH sluggers on the FA market to be had on cheap 1 year deals that no team is going to pay more than $5M total for Kemp. At that amount of savings he is probably best used as the primary bench bat and DH by the Braves. It would also be nice if he could learn 1B to back up Freeman.
 
Enscheff said:
MLBTR finally put out their Braves outlook:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/offseason-outlook-atlanta-braves-2017-18.html

Nothing in there we haven’t already hashed out here 100 times, but it’s a pretty solid take.

Main points:

- BP needs an upgrade.

- Adams, Jace and Santana are non-tender candidates.

- The Braves need an upgrade at 3B and LF.

- They will have to eat money to trade Kemp, and maybe some to move Markakis.

- They could use an established SP, but who knows how many resources they are willing to use to address it.

- With AA in charge now there might be fireworks.

No mention of what they think payroll might be, which is an odd thing to leave out of these types of articles, and typically isn’t. I’m operating under the assumption it will be decreased to the $100M-$110M range (bottom 10 in the league).
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Sheesh. A junior high kid could have come up the MLBTR conclusions. Braves are in a similar position with Matt Adams that they were with Kelly Johnson when they non-tendered him. Johnson is a better player than Adams, but the point is that no one is going to trade for Adams until the non-tender date has passed because they want to see if the Braves are going to non-tender him first. As the article points out, guys like Adams--while not growing on trees--aren't exactly an endangered species in baseball. I figure at least one of Jace Peterson and Danny Santana will be non-tendered (perhaps both).
 
Remember all those folks endlessly arguing with me that MAdams had increased his trade value by popping a few HRs in Atlanta? Turns out he has **** for trade value and the Braves are trying to trade him for anything with a pulse before they non-tender him on Friday:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/braves-trade-rumors-matt-adams.html

I wonder...does clv still think MAdams can get Odorizzi from the Rays straight up? According to him, that trade "makes too much sense NOT to happen".
 
12:24
Bryan: Did Austin Riley boost his prospect stock in the AFL?
12:24
Eric A Longenhagen: Yes

What is wrong with Longerhagen? Doesn't he know you can't change your prospect stock in such a short period of time?
 
thethe said:
12:24

Bryan: Did Austin Riley boost his prospect stock in the AFL?

12:24

Eric A Longenhagen: Yes

What is wrong with Longerhagen? Doesn't he know you can't change your prospect stock in such a short period of time?
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He used to have him rated as a FV 40 guy.

How about this...

You make a projection about Riley like you did with Jace, and when he’s about to be non-tendered we will see how right you were.
 
thethe said:
12:24

Bryan: Did Austin Riley boost his prospect stock in the AFL?

12:24

Eric A Longenhagen: Yes

What is wrong with Longerhagen? Doesn't he know you can't change your prospect stock in such a short period of time?
Click to expand...

I'm curious how he will rate Riley. I'd be surprised if he's a 55 FV prospect.
 
Enscheff said:
Safe to assume he didn’t go from 40 to 55 haha.
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Yeah. Baseball America seems to be real high on him for some reason. They have Riley ahead of 3 guys that Logenhagen ranked at a 55. I personally don't get that. Riley can get a boost and still be a meh prospect which is what I suspect is going to be the case with his rankings.
 
thewupk said:
I'm curious how he will rate Riley. I'd be surprised if he's a 55 FV prospect.
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The reports on his bat speed and defense should give him a considerable boost. Probably a fv50 but easily changed with a good start in AA.
 
thewupk said:
Yeah. Baseball America seems to be real high on him for some reason. They have Riley ahead of 3 guys that Logenhagen ranked at a 55. I personally don't get that. Riley can get a boost and still be a meh prospect which is what I suspect is going to be the case with his rankings.
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BA also labeled him as the best defensive infielder in the organization, so, yeah.

Riley is a good prospect. I would probably hang a FV 45/50 on him and lean towards 50. He would be just outside my Top 100, but well inside the Top 150 for sure.

As far as Braves lists go he would be on the edge of the Top 10 for me.
 
Enscheff said:
BA also labeled him as the best defensive infielder in the organization, so, yeah.

Riley is a good prospect. I would probably hang a FV 45/50 on him and lean towards 50. He would be just outside my Top 100, but well inside the Top 150 for sure.

As far as Braves lists go he would be on the edge of the Top 10 for me.
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That sounds reasonable to me
 
However you want to rank him its clear now that Riley is a real prospect and should be considered in the Braves long term plans. That is why I am strongly against any option that is signed longer than 2 years and why it makes so much sense to just play Camargo.
 
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