Kimbrel As A Trade Candidate

Kimbrel is now, in my opinion, the most valuable player on the team (all things considered--fans, ability, money, age, etc etc). I can't imagine a trade the other team would do that would be worth losing Kimbrel for. Some of us have just forgotten what it is like to not have him. Keeping Kimbrel is the only way this Mukaki Rebuild actually has a chance of creating Hart's magical 2017.
 
Dalyn said:
Kimbrel is now, in my opinion, the most valuable player on the team (all things considered--fans, ability, money, age, etc etc). I can't imagine a trade the other team would do that would be worth losing Kimbrel for. Some of us have just forgotten what it is like to not have him. Keeping Kimbrel is the only way this Mukaki Rebuild actually has a chance of creating Hart's magical 2017.
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Agreed, I do not think he will be traded.
 
The reason I'd consider trading Kimbrel now is because it accelerates the "quick fix" Hart & Company were looking for. IF it is to Toronto and you get back Norris plus, you've "fixed" the pitching for the foreseeable future as well as improved the overall system depth with the deals (Norris, Miller, Fried, Jenkins, Peterson, Peterson, Smith, plus Pentecost and another piece in a Kimbrel deal, and 2 of the top 30 picks in this year's draft) while clearing the same amount of money that lies dead in Uggla and B. J..

Now you want to be competitive in 2015 - 2017, right? Keep Gattis, sign Mike Adams for half what Kimbrel makes ($4 million), trade Minor for Charlie Blackmon, and sign Shields ($18 million) and payroll sits at less than $103 million INCLUDING Uggla and B. J.. If you had to go a little higher to get Shields, there would be plenty of room.

CF- Blackmon, RF- Markakis, 1B- Freeman, LF- Gattis, 2B- Callaspo, 3B- Johnson, SS- Simba, C- Bethancourt

would have a really good chance to be "competitive" with a rotation of Shields, Teheran, Wood, Miller, and Norris.

Maybe you're a little less confident without Kimbrel at the back end, but I'd be pretty comfortable letting Grilli, Adams, and Johnson handle the 9th until Simmons (or even Vizcaino) can take over. Moving forward, you'd have Uggla and B. J.'s money coming off to pay the raises, meaning ANY payroll increases could be entirely devoted to signing a free-agent bat or possibly thrown at Moncada.
 
sturg33 said:
Uggla's money doesn't even cover the raises of our core that we recently locked up
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The "improved" TV deal we got covered the extensions given to the core (including Heyward's) and left another $150-ish million to spare.
 
clvclv said:
The reason I'd consider trading Kimbrel now is because it accelerates the "quick fix" Hart & Company were looking for. IF it is to Toronto and you get back Norris plus, you've "fixed" the pitching for the foreseeable future as well as improved the overall system depth with the deals (Norris, Miller, Fried, Jenkins, Peterson, Peterson, Smith, plus Pentecost and another piece in a Kimbrel deal, and 2 of the top 30 picks in this year's draft) while clearing the same amount of money that lies dead in Uggla and B. J..

Now you want to be competitive in 2015 - 2017, right? Keep Gattis, sign Mike Adams for half what Kimbrel makes ($4 million), trade Minor for Charlie Blackmon, and sign Shields ($18 million) and payroll sits at less than $103 million INCLUDING Uggla and B. J.. If you had to go a little higher to get Shields, there would be plenty of room.

CF- Blackmon, RF- Markakis, 1B- Freeman, LF- Gattis, 2B- Callaspo, 3B- Johnson, SS- Simba, C- Bethancourt

would have a really good chance to be "competitive" with a rotation of Shields, Teheran, Wood, Miller, and Norris.

Maybe you're a little less confident without Kimbrel at the back end, but I'd be pretty comfortable letting Grilli, Adams, and Johnson handle the 9th until Simmons (or even Vizcaino) can take over. Moving forward, you'd have Uggla and B. J.'s money coming off to pay the raises, meaning ANY payroll increases could be entirely devoted to signing a free-agent bat or possibly thrown at Moncada.
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Liberty as a company are cheap ass bastards. They ain't going to do it. I love this, but their track record.........nah, not going to happen.
 
If Kimbrel stays healthy I expect that he will be traded at some point before his contract runs out. I just don't see them keeping him his entire contract and then letting him walk. But how sooner or later that will be might have a lot to do with one of our young relievers showing they're a legit replacement at closer.

That said, I just hope that I never have to see Kimbrel pitching for a team like the Yankees. It was bad enough seeing Mac and Prado playing there, among others. So if we lose him one day as I expect, then let it be to a team like Houston or Oakland.
 
Braves1976 said:
If Kimbrel stays healthy I expect that he will be traded at some point before his contract runs out. I just don't see them keeping him his entire contract and then letting him walk. But how sooner or later that will be might have a lot to do with one of our young relievers showing they're a legit replacement at closer.

That said, I just hope that I never have to see Kimbrel pitching for a team like the Yankees. It was bad enough seeing Mac and Prado playing there, among others. So if we lose him one day as I expect, then let it be to a team like Houston or Oakland.
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Hart is building the team like the Royals last year.

High contact, OBP, strong pitching/bullpen.

I really dont see them trading Kimbrel although i did have a dream we traded him lol.
 
Paying for a premium closer is a luxury that only big market clubs have (even if his deal is below-market).

Don't get me wrong, I love having him as much as everyone else does. That said, we're about to find out the hard way (just as Kansas City is) that small market teams simply can't compete when they're paying 10% of their total payroll to someone who pitches 60-70 innings - no matter how good he is.

There's no doubt in my mind that he was given his extension in the hopes that a bigger market team (or someone making a serious run) would decide they just HAVE to have him and will substantially overpay. If you didn't have the resources to extend guys like Heyward and Justin, you lock up every player you have that is entering or is in their prime to deals that will give them surplus value going forward. Toronto is the "right team at the right time" to deal him to - they have the need (he very well could be the last piece they need), their ownership has committed the resources to making a run (the Martin signing PLUS the much higher arbitration figures they're going to be paying Donaldson when he's hitting in that park 81 times a year), and they have the impact prospect depth and GM who likes to make noise and isn't afraid to trade from it. With the other inexpensive arms they have (Stroman, Hutchison, Sanchez, Hoffman, and Osuna), Martin blocking Pentecost for the next 5 years, and Buerhle and Dickey's contracts conveniently expiring following this season so they can spend freely on a Price/Cueto/Greinke/Samardzija/Zimmerman to replace one of them (while spending the rest to extend Bautista), they're in the perfect position to have every one of their important pieces locked up to make a serious 4-5 year run.

If there's ever going to be the "perfect storm" that develops for trading Kimbrel, the forecast likely won't ever be better.

To accentuate my point a bit, can you imagine what price the Marlins would be willing to pay in prospects to have Freeman protecting Stanton until his opt-out year???
 
I flip-flop on trading Kimbrel. On the one hand, I see him as one of the most valuable commodities that the Braves have and could bring significant return in a rebuilding situation. OTOH, I think it is important that a young pitching staff gets the reward of a win after having pitched well for developmental purposes.

I really don't see the Braves being good enough to really justify having Kimbrel on staff from a purely W/L perspective (if the replacement blows 10 wins for a 70 win team whereas Kimbrel would have only blown two, how big of a deal is it really?)

But, the whole developmental aspect concerns me a bit.
 
I think Kimbrel's future with the Braves somewhat turns on the development of Simmons and Vizcaino. Before developing shoulder soreness, Simmons was making an outstanding contribution from the pen. If he returns to that level of success, it would be much easier to trade Kimbrel.
 
Mark Bowman
@mlbbowman
The #Braves do not have any desire to trade Kimbrel. They remain optimistic about the upcoming season.

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Um wut?
 
It is really a shock that an organization would say they are not looking to trade a player and that they think they are going to be good in the upcoming season?
 
What players have we traded that was signed to a long term contract? I can't think of any. The players we are trading are players this organization doesn't feel they can resign. I'm sure they have mapped out which players on the current roster they want to build around, my guess is Freeman, Kimbrel, and Simmons are all on that list.
 
“We love our core group,” Hart said. “We have added quality players around this group to allow us to compete while strengthening the farm system. We’ve added (Nick) Markakis, (Jason) Grilli, (Jim) Johnson, A.J. (Pierzynski) and others to help us compete this year. We have never entertained trading (Kimbrel) and have had zero conversations with any clubs about Craig. I want him finishing out a World Series win.”
 
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