How Do We Compete in 2017?

M

MadduxFanII

Swallowed by Mark Bowman
Simple, serious, honest question, if coming from a place of skepticism. What is the scenario, what needs to happen, for us to be competitive in 2017 when we open the new park? Not win the World Series (we all know there's no such thing as a team that's guaranteed to win a World Series), but to be competitive for the NL East title. In order for that to happen, what has to happen in the next couple years?
 
MadduxFanII said:
Simple, serious, honest question, if coming from a place of skepticism. What is the scenario, what needs to happen, for us to be competitive in 2017 when we open the new park? Not win the World Series (we all know there's no such thing as a team that's guaranteed to win a World Series), but to be competitive for the NL East title. In order for that to happen, what has to happen in the next couple years?
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Pitching prospects have to shake out. If say 3 of the guys we brought in work out we can trade Wood, Minor, and Miller for position talent.

If they fail, we're boned thoroughly.
 
We add offense after Uggla is off the books. That's how. The thought did occur to me maybe Liberty is fixin' to sell the franchise. Think about it.
 
I'll explain why I'm asking, even though I do mean this as a legit question.

So far as I can tell, in order for us to be a legit contender in the East come 2017, we need:

1. Absolutely no bad luck with our existing young starting pitchers- no injuries, no regression
2. Miller needs to, at the very least, solidify himself as a solid, middle-of-the-rotation starter and hopefully improve
3. Good luck with the prospect pitchers we've acquired- Foltynewicz and Jenkins in particular. They need to stay healthy and keep moving up the ladder
4. Kimbrel has to stay healthy and stave off any further decline in command
5. Freeman has to be more like the 2013 Freddie and less like the 2014 model- he certainly can't take a step back
6. Simmons has to either improve offensively or remain at such an otherworldly defensive level that he merits an everyday job
7. One of Jace Peterson or Rio Ruiz has to grab the third base job
8. Peraza has to develop into a solid second baseman
9. Someone has to come out of nowhere or be acquired to play left field
10. Someone has to come out of nowhere or be acquired to play center (we'll put "BJ Upton regains his stroke" as "coming out of nowhere")
11. Markakis has to remain a solid everyday player through his early-30's
12. Bethancourt either has to hit a little or really be as extraordinary defensively as the organization insists he is

And I have to say, that just...that seems like a lot of things have to go right. And there doesn't seem to be much margin for error. So I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something.
 
No you've basically hit the nail on the head MFII

Even with all that we will probably be a WC at best team. Mets are on a positive upswing, Marlins may be on an upswing, and Nationals are strong and have th efunds to keep their most important players.
 
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I think the strategy is to create a pipeline of young/cheap pitching along with a massive boost in payroll from the new TV deal/new stadium to buy an offense. Only thing is the free agent market is a big steaming pile of dog **** the next 2 years. There's actually a lot of top end pitching available but the best 2 bats are players we recently traded. The Nats have quite a few upcoming free agents so we could always piss in their cheerios by signing their players.

I think we are attempting to recreate the 90's braves so maybe we sign an ace FA starter after 20 15 like Greinke or Zimmerman in anticipation of competing in 2017. Minor could be traded for prospects if he rebounds. I think they are attempting an overhaul of our offensive philosophy to a more small ball and speed oriented team. I think we have seen our offense fail enough times in the playoffs to know that's what we need if we want to win in the playoffs. We actually have a decent group of hitting prospects now with Davidson, Peraza, Smith, Ruiz and both Petersons.
 
Pitching will be there. Just need to sign/trade for offense. Padres did it. It's possible 2b, 3b and cf will be played by our new prospects.

Similar questions would exist had we signed Heyward. Then you'd really have to count on Wood/Teheran staying healthy, plus you'd have to fill out the rotation, cf, lf, 3b, 2b with little in the way of money and prospects.

The risk is always going to be there. But if the team wants to compete in 17 and beyond then we're positioned well.
 
MadduxFanII said:
I'll explain why I'm asking, even though I do mean this as a legit question.

So far as I can tell, in order for us to be a legit contender in the East come 2017, we need:

1. Absolutely no bad luck with our existing young starting pitchers- no injuries, no regression
2. Miller needs to, at the very least, solidify himself as a solid, middle-of-the-rotation starter and hopefully improve
3. Good luck with the prospect pitchers we've acquired- Foltynewicz and Jenkins in particular. They need to stay healthy and keep moving up the ladder
4. Kimbrel has to stay healthy and stave off any further decline in command
5. Freeman has to be more like the 2013 Freddie and less like the 2014 model- he certainly can't take a step back
6. Simmons has to either improve offensively or remain at such an otherworldly defensive level that he merits an everyday job
7. One of Jace Peterson or Rio Ruiz has to grab the third base job
8. Peraza has to develop into a solid second baseman
9. Someone has to come out of nowhere or be acquired to play left field
10. Someone has to come out of nowhere or be acquired to play center (we'll put "BJ Upton regains his stroke" as "coming out of nowhere")
11. Markakis has to remain a solid everyday player through his early-30's
12. Bethancourt either has to hit a little or really be as extraordinary defensively as the organization insists he is

And I have to say, that just...that seems like a lot of things have to go right. And there doesn't seem to be much margin for error. So I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something.
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I think you pretty much nailed it. And one of the largest concerns is we've almost always had very good position prospects that were expected to produce in the majors. There was also a couple guys you could point to that were likely to be major leaguers. There is no position player I point to in 2017 and say "man, we got a really good hitter" except for Freeman.
 
MadduxFanII said:
Simple, serious, honest question, if coming from a place of skepticism. What is the scenario, what needs to happen, for us to be competitive in 2017 when we open the new park? Not win the World Series (we all know there's no such thing as a team that's guaranteed to win a World Series), but to be competitive for the NL East title. In order for that to happen, what has to happen in the next couple years?
Click to expand...

The plan must be, since we've now got 17 starters and are going to finish 36th in OPS, that we develop talented young pitching, which we have a knack for, and trade the extras to other teams for position players (especially outfielders) who have OPSes above .700.

In the meantime, this is nuclear winter. I'm going to focus on my hometown Mariners, who are fun to follow and watch.

Y'know, Frank Wren made some bad moves, and apparently was a dick, but he won. He won 190 games in 2012-13, 370 from 2010-2013. I don't think this was necessary or productive. Candidly, I don't care how our high A team looks or where our farm system was rated. (It was low, incidentally, because the good ones had all graduated to Atlanta, not because we were doing a poor job). I care about the Atlanta Braves. And they were about a .370 leadoff CF away from making a deep run in the playoffs.

I think it's great that were able to pay our Liberty Media parent a fat dividend with all the payroll we've saved. Attendance will be cut in half, and they'll push the reset button in two years, and hopefully it will all work.

In the meantime, I'm going to go do something fun with my precious free time. And following this team isn't fun.
 
MadduxFanII said:
I'll explain why I'm asking, even though I do mean this as a legit question.

So far as I can tell, in order for us to be a legit contender in the East come 2017, we need:

1. Absolutely no bad luck with our existing young starting pitchers- no injuries, no regression
2. Miller needs to, at the very least, solidify himself as a solid, middle-of-the-rotation starter and hopefully improve
3. Good luck with the prospect pitchers we've acquired- Foltynewicz and Jenkins in particular. They need to stay healthy and keep moving up the ladder
4. Kimbrel has to stay healthy and stave off any further decline in command
5. Freeman has to be more like the 2013 Freddie and less like the 2014 model- he certainly can't take a step back
6. Simmons has to either improve offensively or remain at such an otherworldly defensive level that he merits an everyday job
7. One of Jace Peterson or Rio Ruiz has to grab the third base job
8. Peraza has to develop into a solid second baseman
9. Someone has to come out of nowhere or be acquired to play left field
10. Someone has to come out of nowhere or be acquired to play center (we'll put "BJ Upton regains his stroke" as "coming out of nowhere")
11. Markakis has to remain a solid everyday player through his early-30's
12. Bethancourt either has to hit a little or really be as extraordinary defensively as the organization insists he is

And I have to say, that just...that seems like a lot of things have to go right. And there doesn't seem to be much margin for error. So I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something.
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That about sums it up. I think Albies could move quickly, but there's not much else in terms of hitting prospects in the system prior to the acquisition of Ruiz and the Petersons.

I think the big thing about acquiring all the pitching prospects is that we were woefully thin prior to the moves and the old rule of thumb is that you need 10 prospects per solid major league pitcher. I think that overstates the case a bit, but we should have solid rotations at each minor league stop next year, which gets us back to the mentality when we were a top-tier minor league system.

Hart is rolling the dice. I don't think anyone can dispute that regardless of how one feels about the moves. Health and successful development are going to be huge keys.
 
MadduxFanII said:
I'll explain why I'm asking, even though I do mean this as a legit question.

So far as I can tell, in order for us to be a legit contender in the East come 2017, we need:

1. Absolutely no bad luck with our existing young starting pitchers- no injuries, no regression
2. Miller needs to, at the very least, solidify himself as a solid, middle-of-the-rotation starter and hopefully improve
3. Good luck with the prospect pitchers we've acquired- Foltynewicz and Jenkins in particular. They need to stay healthy and keep moving up the ladder
4. Kimbrel has to stay healthy and stave off any further decline in command
5. Freeman has to be more like the 2013 Freddie and less like the 2014 model- he certainly can't take a step back
6. Simmons has to either improve offensively or remain at such an otherworldly defensive level that he merits an everyday job
7. One of Jace Peterson or Rio Ruiz has to grab the third base job
8. Peraza has to develop into a solid second baseman
9. Someone has to come out of nowhere or be acquired to play left field
10. Someone has to come out of nowhere or be acquired to play center (we'll put "BJ Upton regains his stroke" as "coming out of nowhere")
11. Markakis has to remain a solid everyday player through his early-30's
12. Bethancourt either has to hit a little or really be as extraordinary defensively as the organization insists he is

And I have to say, that just...that seems like a lot of things have to go right. And there doesn't seem to be much margin for error. So I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something.
Click to expand...

If you do the math on our pitching, we've actually got some attrition built in with about nine quality starters. And you can actually see a path with the infield, as there are a few ways that could go and be productive.

Where we have no answers is at catcher and outfield. We've treated those positions very cavalierly. I was thrilled when we developed Heyward and traded for the good Upton because of all those cobbled-together outfields. Back to the drawing board there.

And catcher, well, we just ****ed ourselves big time there. This dude can't hit and isn't going to. I'd say he's a catch and throw guy, but he's not even that, from what I saw.

So I agree, that's a lot of holes to plug between now and then. And unlikely we can do all that.
 
I think a lot will turn on the pitchers we've acquired. Miller, Jenkins, Fried, Viz, Banuelos, Foltynewicz, Sanchez.

Put that with what we already had in house and will still be under team control in 2017: Minor, Teheran, Wood, Hale, Hursh, Sims, Parsons, Grosser, Martin, Thomas, Cabrera, Williams Perez, Povse, Sobotka.

There is the potential for having a surplus of pitching we can use to acquire some hitters. But we have to keep in mind the attrition rate for pitching prospects is very high. And none of the guys we acquired right now would be ranked way up on prospects lists. Foltynewicz is probably the highest rated one and my guess he will be in the 40-50 range on BA's list. That's not bad. But a lot of guys ranked in that range don't make it. Randall Delgado for example was in that range at one point.
 
At some point in the next 2 years the Braves will start trading pitching for hitting, especially OFers. Someone like Teheran, Wood or Miller could get a young hitter from a contender trying to beef up their rotation. The younger guys could bring in an established MLB OFer that is pretty expensive from whatever team is in rebuild mode in 2016/2017.

Getting Moncada into the system would be a HUGE deal. He would immediately give the organization it's next Chipper or Heyward to follow in the minors.

The Braves will also be picking pretty high in the next draft, most likely a top 10 protected pick, so they should be able to add another impact talent at that time. If that talent is a college hitter, he might be able to make an impact at the MLB level by 2017.
 
Simmons, FF, and Markakis will be around. Simmons becomes a better hitter? FF gets a little more power?

Uggla gone. BJ and CJ close to gone if not gone.

Pitching has to be great. Tehran and Wood continue on their path. Miller becomes what he was projected under Roger/Braves. We get two more out of the trades this year.

CK is still CK. We have power bullpen arms in Viz, Hursh, etc.

Trade Minor for a stud position prospect.

Peraza does what he does in the minors. New 3B prospect come up ready to play....

It's tough....Miami sells off all their players. Mets pitching studs all get 2 TJs. Washington loses stars to Yankees?
 
Albies could be another guy that explodes through the farm. Very advanced approach for someone his age and he could be someone that is knocking on the door in 2017.
 
I just want to throw some names on the board to underscore just how good the Braves were at developing hitters during the years that we were getting credit for developing pitching.

From '91 to '96, the minors produced:

Gant

Justice

Blauser

Lemke

Brian Hunter

Vinny Castilla

Klesko

Javy Lopez

L.W. Jones

Jermaine Dye

Andruw Jones

with Honorable Mention going to guys like Eddie Perez, Tony Graffanino, Mike Mordecai, Mel Nieves (didn't stick, but netted us McGriff), Tony Tarasco, Keith Mitchell, et. al, who had varying degrees of success in the majors.

Anyway, here's hoping we draft another outfielder this year.
 
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