GDT #59, 6/6/14: Braves (Teheran) vs. Diamondbacks (McCarthy); 9:40 EDT

To those who don't like Chip Caray, remember, it could be worse: The Braves play-by-play guy could be Ken Harrelson or Michael Kay.
 
Why are people still wanting to move Jason from the top of the order?

Jason
Tommy Gun
Freddie
Justin
Gattis
CJ
Simmons
Money Bags
 
Why are people still wanting to move Jason from the top of the order?

Jason
Tommy Gun
Freddie
Justin
Gattis
CJ
Simmons
Money Bags

3 lefties in a row and 2 that have issues with them? You need a righty. Switch Freddie and JUp and move CJ to the 8th spot.
 
Since May 11th Heyward has hit 348/423/511 for a WRC+ of 164.

In those 23 games he has reached base in 22 of them and has had an 11 game hitting streak and his current 10 game hitting streak. Only struck out 14.4% of the time.
 
That will be the real test of how much payroll is going up. To keep both we will need a payroll north of $140M, maybe 150M by 2017.

And then there is Minor as well who seems to be as sure of a bet to stay healthy as it gets. Some really tough choices to make moving forward. If Liberty wants this team to go into Cobb County with the right vibe to generate monster revenues then they really need to open up the vault.
 
Heyward really seems to be going to the opposite field lately more often. Is that just observational bias? I am looking at some spray charts and don't really see a difference from last year.
 
Heyward really seems to be going to the opposite field lately more often. Is that just observational bias? I am looking at some spray charts and don't really see a difference from last year.

I think the sequence is teams were busting him inside earlier in the season, and he made an adjustment to handle those pitches. So the pitchers made an adjustment and starting pitching him outside more and he is handling that as well. But mainly the opposite field hits represent the fact they are pitching him that way lately.
 
So lets say you get the following contracts:

Upton 6 years 120 (only a 5M per year increase)
Heyward 8 years 180
Minor 6 years 96

Do those players sign those deals and can the Braves stay at 140M with those contracts?
 
So lets say you get the following contracts:

Upton 6 years 120 (only a 5M per year increase)
Heyward 8 years 180
Minor 6 years 96

Do those players sign those deals and can the Braves stay at 140M with those contracts?

Lets do the math. Per annum that works out to

Heyward 23M
Upton 20M
Minor 16M

Total of 59M

Let's look at the other obligations. Current contracts call for the following salaries in 2017

Freeman 21M
BJ 17M
CJ 9M
Kimbrel 13M
Teheran 6M
Simba 8M

Total from this group $74m

Total for the 9 players listed above: 133M

The remaining 16 will have some guys in their arb years like Gattis and Wood. Those guys will be making some money as well by then. So yeah a payroll over 150M will be needed to keep everyone together.

I think we can keep both Heyward and Justin with an overall payroll of less than 150M. But it would have to involve moving a couple of the players listed above.
 
Man, that CJ contract didn't make much sense...especially with Kubitza showing some life in AA.

I suppose you don't really want to tap out all of your reserves so you don't have any flexibility. I'd love to keep Minor but if we don't we just have to have faith in the farm system. I guess thats the best thing to do for the Braves is to lock up the hitters and trust the great develolpmental staff to churn out starting pitchers. It would really help if we could get a first round pick out of Santana next year.
 
Lets do the math. Per annum that works out to

Heyward 23M
Upton 20M
Minor 16M

Total of 59M

Let's look at the other obligations. Current contracts call for the following salaries in 2017

Freeman 21M
BJ 17M
CJ 9M
Kimbrel 13M
Teheran 6M
Simba 8M

Total from this group $74m

Total for the 9 players listed above: 133M

The remaining 16 will have some guys in their arb years like Gattis and Wood. Those guys will be making some money as well by then. So yeah a payroll over 150M will be needed to keep everyone together.

I think we can keep both Heyward and Justin with an overall payroll of less than 150M. But it would have to involve moving a couple of the players listed above.

They might have to move CJ but having Heyward/JUp/FF/Simba/Kimbrel/Minor/Julio locked up would be incredible.

Not sure they can keep both JUp/Heyward and Minor though but no one really knows what the payroll will be going forward.

Although it takes two to tango.
 
Man, that CJ contract didn't make much sense...especially with Kubitza showing some life in AA.

I suppose you don't really want to tap out all of your reserves so you don't have any flexibility. I'd love to keep Minor but if we don't we just have to have faith in the farm system. I guess thats the best thing to do for the Braves is to lock up the hitters and trust the great develolpmental staff to churn out starting pitchers. It would really help if we could get a first round pick out of Santana next year.

Kubitza may or not turn out to be a regular at the big league level, but that doesn't make the Johnson contract a good decision. Guys like Johnson are replaceable parts and he's got a better-than-market contract (at least in my view). One of the odd things about Fredi in Atlanta is that I seem to remember when he managed the Marlins, he moved guys around. It seems the approach here (except for the shuffling to replace Uggla) has been to trot the same guys out there every day. There's no reason that a solid third place platoon could be constructed that would be both more productive and less expensive than Johnson is going to be.
 
I love that people continue to underrate the Braves recent prospects. So many people look so stupid on guys like Gattis/Simmons/Wood and soon to be TLs.
 
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