Grade the front office this offseason.

Dalyn said:
#meaninglessbutsoundsprofound
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Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
 
sturg33 said:
Heyward trade: C+ ... As Zito said, didn't like the return for an elite, affordable talent like Heyward. Also, what hurts this one is I think we needed to keep one of Heyward or Upton long term and that is significantly less likely

Markakis signing: F ... baffling

Upton trade: C ... Went for quantity over quality, and injured quantity at that. After the Heyward trade, was hoping we'd try to sign him long term

Winkler pick up ... A+

Man Ban trade: A- ... not a lot of downside here... but it looks a little worse after the Kimbrel trade. Still no real complaints

Ricardo Sanchez: B+ ... high upside arm, so i like that. But Kibitza does seem like a good bet to make the big leagues, so hardly a low risk move

Gattis trade: A- ... Traded Gattis at his peak value... just wish we got more hitting

Stella trade: B+ ... looks worse now, but we are have a ton of depth here

Kimbrel trade: A+ ... I think closers are overrated and easier to replace... clearing that salary plus getting the prospects kind of saved the offseason

Overall: B- ... Losing talents like Heyward and Upton and not acquiring a single impact bat back is inexcusable. We have a lot of work to do to get back to relevance. The Kimbrel trade gives me confidence they can do it a little sooner than befroe
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Mostly agree. Main disagreement is I have a much more negative view of the Gattis trade.
 
sturg33 said:
Also we have to remember in the Heyward and Upton trades we also traded a sandwich draft pick.

Heyward, Walden, and a high pick is an awful high price for Miller (OK w/ potential), and Jenkins (pure lottery ticket, more likely to fail than not)
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Yes. Some people have been getting excited about the picks we got in the Cahill and Kimbrel trades. But those are significantly less valuable than the ones we gave up as part of the Heyward and Upton trades.
 
zitothebrave said:
Paul Snyder retired after 2007. That's when the farm went downhill. 2008 draft produced 5 major leaguers, Spruill, Kimbrel, Clemens, Oberholtzer, Hoover. 2009 produced 2. Minor and Hale. Maybe 3 if Northcraft can ever make the jump.

2010 first year after Clark left, Cunningham, Simmons, Gosselin, Terds, Shreve, and Gattis, and maybe some more as Drury and Leonard are both in the upper minors. 2011 Ahmed, Graham, La Stella, and Schlosser, With guys still in the upper minors Gilmartin, Kubitza, and Martin. 2012 has produced as many major leaguers as 2009 with Wood and Simmons. and of course we still have Sims in the upper minors.

You may be thinking, what about international guys? Well we did net a big one in 08, Julio Teheran. But I'm pressed to think of others. Could be my memory failing me. But it's not like Wren and co sucked at getting international signings, Peraza, Mejia, Albies, Camargo, Cabrera, and other guys who have value to our system were there.

To me the greatest fallacy is that Wren wrecked our system. He restocked our depleted system that JS left him with and 1 mediocre and 1 poor draft left him with not much in the minors. So he went out and got guys to stock our upper minors and build our depth.
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zito, I don't subscribe to everything Billy Beane says, but one of his sayings that I think has a lot of merit is that there's not a lot of difference between the bottom quarter of major league players and the top quarter of minor league players. And if you look at most of the guys you've mentioned from the Wren years, they are fringe guys. You can't hammer Gosselin in one post and then trot him out as a positive for Wren. Guys like Gosselin and Terdoslavich are dime-a-dozen (and Leonard isn't with us anymore).

Wren didn't wreck the system, but I don't think he truly re-built it either. He traded two guys who will likely be in the Pirates' starting rotation for Nate McLouth. He traded three guys who have been in the majors for Michael Bourn. Four of the five players in the Justin Upton deal have played in the majors and Drury will probably debut later this season (and every one of the guys traded by the Braves except Prado were either minor leaguers or had just touched the big leagues). These trades all looked good on paper and we did get some results from the deals and none of these trades come close to the idiotic trade for Teixeira, but you can't continue to drain your system if you aren't a big budget team that is going to compete in free agency. I agree that if we are going back to the Braves' Way, it better be the Braves' Way the preceded the last few years of JS' tenure when he started fumbling around in the dark.
 
NinersSBChamps said:
The more this Kimbrel trade resonates with me, the worse it is. It's a historic bad trade. Craig right now is the best pitcher in history. Sample size and what have you aside...the numbers don't lie here. They gave him away for unproven kids. Even if these kids prospects end up living up to their billing it's still an awful deal. When he goes into the Hall of Fame wearing a Padres cap you all will know how awful this trade is, was, and will be.
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And this ladies and gentlemen, should tell you all that you need to know.

"Best Pitcher in history" - amazing.

:snort::snort::snort::snort:
 
Heyward- Could they have gotten more, maybe/probably but we dont know the market for him when he's a FA to be about to command alot of dollars.

JUp- Same, both were good trades given the situations.

Gattis- Pretty good trade, his value would be sunken if they waited.

Kimbrel- Hate to see him go but to get rid of BJ's deal while eating none of it is a win.

Markakis- Dont love the length of the deal but i understand why they did the deal.

All in all, a busy offseason.

Also have 6 picks in the top 75 to keep loading up the farm system, would like to see some high school bats added.

I can see it either way with going for it one more year or blowing it up, but quite simply, the farm system had to be restocked, it was in awful shape when Hart got GM.

The 2016 winter will be interesting, will have some money to play with, and have lots of trade chips.

Need to add some bats, and retool the pen.
 
gilesfan said:
JT/Wood/Minor/Cahill/random 5th starter donk plus Kimbrel and a lineup of:

La Stella
Justin Upton
Freeman
Gattis
Heyward
CJ/Callaspo
Simmons
Melvin/Young

would win a heck of a lot of games.
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Minor is already out for god knows how long.

So the rotation would be like JT, Wood, Hale, Cahill, Martin/Stults/Wandy, etc.

And again, what happens when JUp/Heyward leave?

You just cant push your chips all in and try to go for it especially when we dont have a massive payroll.

Also, whose to say we dont have a similar season to 2014?
 
NinersSBChamps said:
Look at the numbers, ace. Statistically speaking he is the best pitcher in history right now.
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I don't need to see the numbers "ace". If you actually believe Craig Kimbrel is the greatest Pitcher in history, many of us have heard all we need to know.
 
clvclv said:
I don't need to see the numbers "ace". If you actually believe Craig Kimbrel is the greatest Pitcher in history, many of us have heard all we need to know.
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He has the best ERA in pitchers with at least 200 innings or something like that.

But you can't compare 1 inning a game to a starter. Sometimes CK is mowing down 678 in the order. He could get 3 saves vs the Marlins and never have to face Stanton. If CK was the best pitcher ever he'd be in the rotation.
 
Kimbrel is definitely the most dominant reliever in MLB history if you compare their first 5 years...

Can he keep it up? Who knows
 
A little early for me. I would have to grade incompletes on most.

One I had the biggest problem with was dealing Walden away for not-much. Especially now.

REALLY like Markakis signing. Already seeing why.

and wondering why it took so long to bring EYJ into the mix.
 
still don't like Markakis signing. If it was a 1 or 2 year I'd love it.
If we had a stud RF waiting to come up, then I'd be ok with it. B/c I could see Markakis in RF for a year or two, then moving over to LF and being a mentor, etc.

As it is I'm thinking that we likely fill our OF with FA signings or trades. Long shot for Davidson to be ready for LF in 2017, right? Probably even in 2018 as he'd be like 21 or 22 and no idea if he'll hit.

I don't think we'll like 2017 or 2018 Markakis. And I know it might not be BJ, Uggla, KK, Lowe bad......but I think it will be Chris Johnson bad.

Or maybe his veteran presence will be so great he can manage and be a back up OF and PH....that would save us some Fredi money and no Fredi...
 
For hindsight....what would have to happen for this to be a successful offseason?

Playoffs in 2017?

If out of all this we get 1 top 10 pitcher with 6 years of control, is it worth it? If we get one top 20 pitcher, and 6 years of 2 above average regulars is it worth it?

Personally for an A I think:
1. Shelby Miller needs to be top 30 pitcher while here
2. One of the many starting pitchers + Sims needs to turn into a top 20 pitcher with 6 years of control
3. One of the position prospects needs to be 6 years of an above average regular
4. Payroll flexibility needs to land us a Free Agent position player that at least performs to the level of his contract
5. 3 other guys need to be positive WAR guys with 6 years of control
6. We land an above avg MLB player that can be in the majors w/i 4 years from our many top 100 picks
 
Rosenthal has a lengthy article up this morning that seems to question the notion that the Braves needed to rebuild their farm system. He makes some fair points at times, but the logic here is suspect to me. He seems to be measuring the health of the the farm system based on past successes, moreso than on the state it was in last Fall. I am a bigger Frank Wren fan than most around here, but this analysis seems a little dicey.

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/...ark-braves-renaissance-john-schuerholz-040815
 
Exactly, the missing point is that during the Braves run of division titles they ALWAYS had a top 5-10 farm system. The farm was in shambles right now based on the last 2-3 drafts and when you are a mid market team like the Braves and all that great talent you inherited started to get expensive a couple of bad drafts are a killer.
 
Have y'all seen Gondeee's take on the Braves offseason trades (his best to worst ranking list)?

This is it: http://www.gondeee.com/2015/04/20/ranking-braves-offseason-trades-from-best-to-worst/

My comments on his take:

I mostly disagree with Gondeee on how he ranks these trades. A couple he ranks as bad or among the worst I'd rank as at least average or better, such as the Varvaro for Kurcz deal. Plus I'd rank among the good or even potentially among the best deals the Man-Ban trade that he ranks as poor. I like Shreve as much as anyone but the Man-Ban trade was a no brainer IMO.

BTW, I actually rank the Justin Upton trade among our best trades this past off-season. Which might surprise y'all, then again it might not if you think it's because I rank other trades too low. But this ranking for me has a lot to do with my view on so called lesser names in the deal along with Fried's potential. I really like the potential with Peterson and Smith while also seeing potential with Dustin Peterson too. And if the headliner of the deal Fried comes back strong I could see the Justin Upton trade turning out to be our best deal in the end.

That said, I am not hardline on any of my own rankings as it's too early to be IMO.
 
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