Heyward ... Should we trade him now?
- Thread starter jcc03004
- Start date
jsebe10
Well-known member
It's not just a "move" to improve your club, but it's a great chance to unload him for some great talent in return. By hanging on to him, you risk Jason having a typical Jasom offensive season and destroying the value. Look, writing is on the wall, kid wants to get paid and ATL is not that suitor. Open up your eyes people. He's not a little kid anymore.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
Sorry man, but I don't have the slightest clue what your'e saying. We should trade Jason because if we don't, he'll have a typical Jason offensive seasona nd destroy his value? So he'll get paid? Isn't that an oxymoron? If he hurts his value wouldn't he not get paid? And as far as getting paid who's to say it isn't Atlanta who'll do it?
After addressing that silliness, a typical Jason offensive year is what he's done the last 2 seasons. So I don't get how he'll lose value with a typical Jason offensive season.
jsebe10
Well-known member
I never said Jason will get paid. I said HE WANTS to get paid. This season Jason established himself as arguable the best defensive RF in the NL and his offensive stock rose a bit due to what he did in the leadoff position after his treacherous start, so it's safe to say that Jason could be in demand right now. What happens if we need his bat lower in the order to produce runs and he doesn't do well, like his history suggest? It would yes then deminish his value. Maybe not over night but it would deminish it, yes. And Atl never has and never will pay a player $20 mil plus, that's what your boy will command.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
Heyward hits. He has every year of his career but the one he was hurt all season. Maybe Heyward isn't quite as good of a hitter as Justin and Freddie, or maybe he's better, only time will tell. But what we do know based on Jason's 4 year career is that he's a well above average hitter. He did well in the leadoff because of being healthy. Not because of some magical leadoff juju.
We have again 4 years of sample with jason. There are 3 years that he hits. His rookie year he was at a 134 wRC, 2012 he was at 121, 2014 at 120. 3 years he was one of the best defenders in baseball those same years as well. The single only outlier season was 2011, where he was only about average defensively and below average offensively. Which to anyone who would objectively look at the data point out that that season was the outlier and given the massive defensive fallout one could deduce that he was likely hurt.
Atlanta will have to pay players approaching 20M. Or you can kiss Freddie, Jason, Justin, and potentially Minor and Julio goodbye. Great baseball players make 15-25M. Braves will keep 2 great players. Under the old model they had Chipper and someone else. This past year it was Uggla and Upton. There's no way the Braves will pay Bossman 15M over 5 and not consider giving Jason 20M.
We have again 4 years of sample with jason. There are 3 years that he hits. His rookie year he was at a 134 wRC, 2012 he was at 121, 2014 at 120. 3 years he was one of the best defenders in baseball those same years as well. The single only outlier season was 2011, where he was only about average defensively and below average offensively. Which to anyone who would objectively look at the data point out that that season was the outlier and given the massive defensive fallout one could deduce that he was likely hurt.
Atlanta will have to pay players approaching 20M. Or you can kiss Freddie, Jason, Justin, and potentially Minor and Julio goodbye. Great baseball players make 15-25M. Braves will keep 2 great players. Under the old model they had Chipper and someone else. This past year it was Uggla and Upton. There's no way the Braves will pay Bossman 15M over 5 and not consider giving Jason 20M.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
We also paid Lowe 15M.
Given what we've been willing to pay guys like Lowe, BJ and Uggla, I think we can infer the club will be willing to go up to an AAV of 20M or so for the free agency period of Jason's and Freddie's careers. And as has been pointed out, we conveniently have Uggla, Justin Upton and Medlen all hitting free agency after 2015 along with Jason. So if we chose to combine all of those funds, we could easily afford Heyward at an AAV of 20-25M. We also will have Kimbrel leaving after 2016 if not sooner, and that will free up funds for keeping Freeman. We can afford to keep both Heyward and Freeman at a combined AAV of 40-45M.
I'm not addressing the question of whether it would be wise or not to do so. But as a simple matter of budget math, you look at the combined amounts that Justin Upton, Medlen, Uggla and Kimbrel will be making and that gives you an idea of what you can reallocate to Heyward and Freeman if that is the direction you want to go in. Heyward, Freeman, Kimbrel, Medlen, Uggla and Justin Upton will make a total of about $50M in 2014. We can take $45 of that $50M and reallocate to keeping Heyward and Freeman if we want. It is not a big stretch from a budgeting perspective.
To take things one more step, if you want to keep Simmons long-term, the salary streams that you reallocate to him are the ones that BJ and Chris Johnson are going to be making.
That's one strategy: make Freeman, Heyward and Simmons your long-term core. And go cheap elsewhere.
That strategy has a certain amount of appeal to me. But obviously there are other strategies out there. You can allocate money to getting that ace, whether it be Price or Tanaka or someone else. Or you can spread it out over a larger number of good but not outstanding players.
Given what we've been willing to pay guys like Lowe, BJ and Uggla, I think we can infer the club will be willing to go up to an AAV of 20M or so for the free agency period of Jason's and Freddie's careers. And as has been pointed out, we conveniently have Uggla, Justin Upton and Medlen all hitting free agency after 2015 along with Jason. So if we chose to combine all of those funds, we could easily afford Heyward at an AAV of 20-25M. We also will have Kimbrel leaving after 2016 if not sooner, and that will free up funds for keeping Freeman. We can afford to keep both Heyward and Freeman at a combined AAV of 40-45M.
I'm not addressing the question of whether it would be wise or not to do so. But as a simple matter of budget math, you look at the combined amounts that Justin Upton, Medlen, Uggla and Kimbrel will be making and that gives you an idea of what you can reallocate to Heyward and Freeman if that is the direction you want to go in. Heyward, Freeman, Kimbrel, Medlen, Uggla and Justin Upton will make a total of about $50M in 2014. We can take $45 of that $50M and reallocate to keeping Heyward and Freeman if we want. It is not a big stretch from a budgeting perspective.
To take things one more step, if you want to keep Simmons long-term, the salary streams that you reallocate to him are the ones that BJ and Chris Johnson are going to be making.
That's one strategy: make Freeman, Heyward and Simmons your long-term core. And go cheap elsewhere.
That strategy has a certain amount of appeal to me. But obviously there are other strategies out there. You can allocate money to getting that ace, whether it be Price or Tanaka or someone else. Or you can spread it out over a larger number of good but not outstanding players.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
Yup. To me it looks like the Braves may be switching to a low budget pitching model given their drafting and so on. My hunch is that our payroll will go up when Jason and Freddie hit FA anyway. BUT like you said, we'd be basically shuffling money around. What I think is likely is that Uggla's money rolls to Heyward, and the Uptons roll to Freddie. Question is what do we do with the rest of the money?
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
There won't be a lot left over. Approximately speaking:
Heyward gets the combined Heyward, Justin Upton, Medlen streams.
Freeman gets the combined Freeman, Kimbrel, Uggla streams.
Simmons gets the combined BJ and Chris Johnson streams.
There will be a little left over but not much. Enough for a couple pitchers and a couple positon players in their arb years. But that would be about it. Elsewhere we go cheap. Really cheap. It is an approach that requires having about 3 starting pitchers and 3 regular position players a year making pre-arb salaries. In other words introducing one rookie pitcher into the rotation a year and one rookie position player into the lineup per year.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
The Braves payroll will be higher. People are doom and gloom but we're moving to a new stadium. You think Liberty will want to present this team in a new stadium with Todd Cunningham starting in the OF for us?
jsebe10
Well-known member
Ask Casey Kotchman or Mark Kotsay that question. Look, the Atlanta payroll has been btw 90-95 mil the past 11 seasons, in what way could anyone assume the payroll would be higher in the future regardless of who's hitting the market and a new venue.
I agree, and that is why La Stella needs to start at 2nd and Wood needs to be our 5th starter. We must have good, young, cheap talent on this team in order to remain competitive.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
That's not a fact at all. The Braves payroll by season assuming you're counting this year as number 11 (rounding)
2004 - 90
2005 - 86
2006 - 90
2007 - 87
2008 - 102
2009 - 97
2010 - 84
2011 - 91
2012 - 94
2013 - 90
You're right there is a general trend but liberty has gone high before. And there will be a new TV revenue which at least a chunk of that will be injected into this team. And again, there's a multi-hundred million dollar stadium coming, they're not gonna christen it withuot Freddie or Jason. I doubt they do it without both.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
The key though is for TLS to stay down a month, it will give us time to assess Uggla and it gives us more cheap time for TLS. If we call him up opening day we have him under team control for 6 seasons, if we call him up in May we have him for 6 years and 5 months.
Very good point. Agreed.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
TLS is not the kind of prospect that you worry about saving service time. If he starts the year in the majors and never sees the minors again he would be a free agent when he is 31. He lacks the secondary skills like speed and power to be an all star caliber player. He can still be a valuable player if he hits for a good average and OBP. Now a player like Heyward its worth it. 1 month delay in service time is only going to make TLS a super 2 arbitration player. Need to hold him till some time in June for full benefit anyways.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
But we can keep him cheaper through his peak and then non-tender if he's slumping in his 30s.
The Braves still had star players with those guys on the roster. Are most people assuming we let Heyward and Freeman walk while not spending their money on anyone else? By that time the only player making a lot of money will be BJ. The money will get spent somewhere.
Heyward
<B>Voted Worst Poster <br>'13, '14, '15 (Co-Winner
I agree with that, mainly on Jason, i dont think he wants to be with the Braves long-term, sucks but thats reality.