cajunrevenge
Well-known member
The stated reason for signing him was to have a veteran to teach the young players how to go about things the right way. That guy used to be McCann and Chipper before him.
Ender
- Thread starter bravesguy
- Start date
He was signed because they needed a RF and had no internal options, also they needed to spend a little money somewhere, he was a popular name for fans to attach to help bring people to the park, and he would be a good veteran presence.
Now you may not agree with that line of thinking, but they Braves FO obviously valued those traits. And not that it matters much, but Nick has been worth his contract so far. The next 2 years may not go as well, but so far he's lived up to it.
Perfect Cell
Lynchburg Prospect
I dont know if hes been worth it. I wouldnt say that.
ixiXSolidXixi
Called Up to the Major Leagues
That's exactly what i been telling the Braves is a team that my whole life look for the veteran to fill up the holes. I don't think the Braves will try to sign a Wilson Ramos. They will look for the cheap veteran. Example of this: Nick Markakis,Bud Norris, Aj Pierzinski, Jhoulys Chacin, Erik Aybar and the list going. I believe the perfect veteran for Atlanta right now is Martin Prado that comes with the leadership and a clubhouse player.
msstate7
Well-known member
Is Prado gonna be cheap? 11M this year and he's at 2.8 WAR (.318/.377/.422) right now. He is 32 though
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
I think Prado will go for about 12M on a 3-year deal. Freese about 6M on a 2-year deal.
Also expect Prado to get a qualifying offer, assuming the new CBA doesn't change the current system too much.
Which is the point - better to blow $44 million than $184 million, no?
I'd never argue that the Markakis signing was a "good" one - only that he's been so-so. Pretty sure most everyone's had him pegged correctly since day one - he was signed for his name and local ties. The brass didn't feel that they could get anybody to the park if they didn't at least bring a player or two like him in during the rebuild period. Average fans aren't as smart as most posters here - they don't realize that they could've gotten similar production for less money if they'd have gotten someone without a name.
What seems to get everyone so touchy IMO is that the Markakis haters simply won't admit that his contract simply isn't that bad when you consider the salaries in today's game. I think we all agree that they wouldn't mind unloading him now that they've added other names (Kemp and Frenchy) and the average fan will recognize some of the young players (Ender, Jace, Wisler, Folty, etc.), but that contract isn't going to wind up being nearly as bad as quite a few handed out since he signed. He's going to outperform it over the first 2 seasons while putting up close to a 100 OPS+.
That means he's now a 2 year/$22 million investment. If the Braves can't trade him for much of a return (which we all seemingly agree is the case) but can get half as much production from him (~1.5 WAR) over the final 2 seasons, I bet the brass will be thrilled that they gave him that deal.
Southcack77
Well-known member
It really doesn't matter.
Southcack77
Well-known member
I really don't understand why there has been so much talk about him. Markakis is not a bad player. He's not the reason the team is bad. He's not prevented them from signing over free agents, they just haven't chosen to do so.
I think Markakis was part of their attempt to see if they could be respectable while they rebuilt. For one half of a season, before injuries set in and they chose to sell rather than be respectable, it looked like a decent plan.
If Markakis had returned to his pre-injury form he would have been an easily traceable asset. I'm not convinced that they won't eventually be able to move if they need to.
The clear problem with the team has been the poor performance of the rest of the lineup and the very weak rotation and bullpen has not helped.
You can certainly say that Markakis hasn't been a very necessary addition, but he certainly has not hurt the team yet. Perhaps his salary will be a problem, but it hasn't been one yet.
Southcack77
Well-known member
I actually think there is a very good chance that the move to acquire Kemp turns out to be a much worse commitment than the one they made to Markakis.
Depends.
Hoping that coming to his childhood dream team Kemp's work ethic gets even better.
Markakis has already doubled his homerun output from last year, I guess the lifting weights thing worked.
And even better to not spend either. We could get "Vet leadership" for far cheaper than what we paid to Markakis. And regardless of what going rate for WAR is, if the Braves are getting market value only for WAR we are going to have a really hard time winning games with our payroll. Unless you have a top payroll you need to get more than the going rate for WAR to have sustained success. And it's even worse to get going rate at the lower rates of WAR, as if you are only getting 1-1.5 WAR from a player they could easily be replaced for the min by a guy from the minors. When we signed Nick, his upside was 2.5 WAR, there was no real production upside there.
And Markakis has?
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
The plan for a mid-market team has to be based on getting a significant amount of production during the pre-free agent years from the guys graduating from the farm system. But even a good farm system will leave some gaps unfilled, and that's where on a selective basis you pick up a few guys at the market rate.
Southcack77
Well-known member
1. Markakis is more valuable than what they could have replaced him with from the lower minors. That's the baseline error in your logic. Markakis is a quality major league hitter. The Braves did not have anything similar in the minors at the time.
2. Yes, teams on fixed payrolls need to have several players on the roster who are on bargain salaries. Of course, that doesn't mean every player on the roster will be on a bargain contract. Almost all winners will also have fairly compensated veterans.
3. Since the Braves were clearly not making a great effort to win in 2015 and 2016, and perhaps not 2017, your evaluation of their efforts is similarly flawed. It wasn't terribly important to those teams whether Markakis was enough of a bargain that they might contend, because there was no way they were going to contend.
4. Signing a player to give a team flexibility in its timeline or in fact singing a player for veteran presence, or signing a player to sell tickets are not completely foolish and unreasonable decisions. Each of them has some merit and value to the organization beyond raw wins and losses.
5. I believe the team the Braves fielded in the first half of 2015 and the team I think they intended to field in 2016 was part of the reason they signed Markakis. They wanted to have a player who could possibly contribute to or hold together a .500 level club that might be more watchable and interesting. selling tickets can be as important to an organization's ability to succeed as anything the raw baseball numbers suggest. For the record, I would say the FO succeeded in 2015 and failed in 2016 for fielding a respectable unit. but I think those were secondary goals for the organization and not as important as the primary goal of rebuilding the farm system.
I just can't agree that the Markakis signed was all that bad. Sure, the Braves were going to be bad. But they needed someone to occupy space in RF, and Markakis was there for $11m per year. The money they have to Nick hasn't hindered the team in any way from making moves they wanted to make. I can see the point saying "they shouldn't have spent any money in RF", but what negative effect has it had?
While his power coming back was always questionable, despite the spin the FO put on it, he has been a steady presence on an unsteady team. He gets on base, he is decent defensively, and he has been a model teammate from all accounts.
The real question becomes: what next? Markakis is good enough in the OF of a team has 4+ WAR players out there next to him. The Braves don't have that. Currently they have a 0-1 WAR lawn ornament in LF and a 2-3 WAR defensive whiz next to him in CF. That OF is not good enough to be a .500 team, and if the presence of Markakis in RF prevents the team from upgrading the OF, then the signing becomes bad no matter what. Same reasoning why I'm against the Kemp deal. There was no reason to commit to a bad player in LF and RF and leave the team nowhere to improve production in the OF.
Southcack77
Well-known member
Yes, exactly. There are fairly compensated players on every winner. Generally speaking they are the veterans who are supplementing the young players, which is exactly what Markakis might be if there happened to be a lot of precocious performing call-ups. Hasn't really happened.
No, he's not a quality major league hitter. The past two seasons combined he has been a league average hitter by every metric known to man, and when you include his defense that makes him barely above replacement level. Every year unknown guys come up from AAA and produce 1-1.5 WAR, it's fairly common, there is no error in my logic there. We had Adonis Garcia come up and produce .9 WAR in 200 ABs last year, his production was at a higher rate than Markakis for the minimum. Guys like him and our old friend Charles Thomas from back in the day are perfectly capable of holding down the fort for 1 WAR or so for a couple years before fading into obscurity, it happens all the time, and did happen in 2015. Anthony Recker has been a good example so far this year.
What you are saying here goes entirely against what the front office has claimed for 2017, and what half the posters on this board are claiming for 2017. They claim we are going to be .500 and compete (and I know you aren't part of that storyline here 77). And in that cause Markakis is a lost opportunity cost for 2017 and 2018 in a major way (and so is Kemp). I don't think we compete until late 2018 at the earliest really, so neither move bothers me that much. But if I truly thought we had a chance to compete these two deals would really tick me off, as they pretty much ensure our offense won't be that great if both players are here.