Looking towards 2025

The two guys the Braves hired from the Giants seem to specialize in player analytics. Now if you only get the dinosaur coaching staff to use the pre-game script to best utilize the team day in day out.

Outside their miracle year in 2021 when the Giants finished 52 games over .500, they were a below .500 baseball team for the remainder of the Zaidi regime.

Snitker may not be able to properly utilize a bench, but until he has a legitimate bench, the answer remains murky. Braves are currently built for having the same 9 (with the exception of catcher) out there pretty much every day and we saw that when the injuries hit, there weren't ready replacements because the bench was terrible. I realize that a team isn't going to have all-stars on the bench, but we really had the Island of Misfit Toys in the dugout. Again, I'm not defending Snitker because a lot of his decisions seem, putting it kindly, odd, but if the guys he's trying to plug in simply aren't very good, it's going to be a mess regardless of how analytics are used. And before you pounce on me, I find analytics to be valuable. But I also find roster construction to be valuable as well.
 
Outside their miracle year in 2021 when the Giants finished 52 games over .500, they were a below .500 baseball team for the remainder of the Zaidi regime.

Snitker may not be able to properly utilize a bench, but until he has a legitimate bench, the answer remains murky. Braves are currently built for having the same 9 (with the exception of catcher) out there pretty much every day and we saw that when the injuries hit, there weren't ready replacements because the bench was terrible. I realize that a team isn't going to have all-stars on the bench, but we really had the Island of Misfit Toys in the dugout. Again, I'm not defending Snitker because a lot of his decisions seem, putting it kindly, odd, but if the guys he's trying to plug in simply aren't very good, it's going to be a mess regardless of how analytics are used. And before you pounce on me, I find analytics to be valuable. But I also find roster construction to be valuable as well.

How many teams could afford to survive the injuries the Braves had this past year? It was a minor miracle they won 89 games given who was missing all year.
 
The Twins might be looking to trade Willi Castro due to a large arbitration class and he being a projected $6.2M super sub.

He played 56 games at SS last year. I don’t know his defensive stats at SS compared to the other positions he played, but I’d rather have him over Laureano.
 
How many teams could afford to survive the injuries the Braves had this past year? It was a minor miracle they won 89 games given who was missing all year.

I agree. No team could. My only point is that the replacements for the injured guys were basically AAAA fodder. If a team is going to have a full-time DH in this era, it is imperative to have a super-utility guy and the Braves didn't have anyone like that.
 
Outside their miracle year in 2021 when the Giants finished 52 games over .500, they were a below .500 baseball team for the remainder of the Zaidi regime.

Snitker may not be able to properly utilize a bench, but until he has a legitimate bench, the answer remains murky. Braves are currently built for having the same 9 (with the exception of catcher) out there pretty much every day and we saw that when the injuries hit, there weren't ready replacements because the bench was terrible. I realize that a team isn't going to have all-stars on the bench, but we really had the Island of Misfit Toys in the dugout. Again, I'm not defending Snitker because a lot of his decisions seem, putting it kindly, odd, but if the guys he's trying to plug in simply aren't very good, it's going to be a mess regardless of how analytics are used. And before you pounce on me, I find analytics to be valuable. But I also find roster construction to be valuable as well.

How many times must you be told that the bench is terrible because nobody wants to sign with the Braves to rot on Snit’s bench?
 
I'm hoping that with Acuna's knees he becomes a nearly fulltime DH sometime soon. And no stealing bases allowed.

Acuna has been a negative defender for a while now despite the jumping catches he makes 5’ in front of the wall. Coming off a 2nd major knee surgery he might need to be the DH next year.
 
I agree. No team could. My only point is that the replacements for the injured guys were basically AAAA fodder. If a team is going to have a full-time DH in this era, it is imperative to have a super-utility guy and the Braves didn't have anyone like that.

We may need to put a more emphasis on the bench but the team is built to have the starters play the majority of its games. However, guys like Laureano and Merrfield played well once we got them. Getting rid of TDA so Snit cant platoon or play him over Murphy all the time was probably a needed move. And one that saves quite a bit of money to use in other areas (SS/LF/bullpen/SP/bench, etc).
 
I don’t know if the Rangers would even entertain it but I’d take Seager over any SS upgrade.

7/221.5 remaining. Hard pass for me for a guy that, on average, misses 40 games a year.

Carlos Correa is probably more attainable than Seager and under a better contract if we're looking at taking on an expensive contract.
 
7/221.5 remaining. Hard pass for me for a guy that, on average, misses 40 games a year.

Carlos Correa is probably more attainable than Seager and under a better contract if we're looking at taking on an expensive contract.

Money would have to be exchanged of course but I wouldn’t mind Correa either.
 
Money would have to be exchanged of course but I wouldn’t mind Correa either.

I wonder what the cost to acquire Correa would even be, knowing he comes with the massive contract. But he's another one who seems to miss time every year.
 
I’m still hoping we bring Shumaker in for some kind of role and then let him take over next year.
 
7/221.5 remaining. Hard pass for me for a guy that, on average, misses 40 games a year.

Carlos Correa is probably more attainable than Seager and under a better contract if we're looking at taking on an expensive contract.

I hadn't thought of Correa and if it weren't for the length of his contract, he'd almost be a no-brainer. He's been injured a bit since coming to Minnesota, but the guy is still money when he's on the field. Hard to know what the Twins will be doing seeing that the Pohlads have put the team on the market. They have a nice stream of prospects coming up through their system (no guarantee of anything) and they might want to just do a rebuild seeing the holes that they have.

Talk about a family of dip**** owners. The team wins its first playoff series in more than a decade and the ownership decides to cut payroll dramatically. Killed any excitement in the fan base and things really soured and turned to cynicism as what we call "Pohlad Pocketbook Protection" up here in Minnesota.
 
It might be worth noting the current luxury number is $223M, which is a good bit under the first cap of $241M. I really hope they aren't trying to reset the penalties, but if they are this roster could be considered complete with $12M-$15M left to spend this offseason assuming a few million left for the deadline.

Writers in the MLBTR chat seems to think the Braves are ducking under the tax. I really hope they’re wrong.

AA

9:27 What kind of hot stove action am I cookin' up between restructuring contcats and the surprise delining of D'Arnaud?

Tim Dierkes

9:29 For the Braves, it could be as simple as knowing they already have Sean Murphy and are ready to break in Drake Baldwin. If they believe in Baldwin, there's not a lot of room for another $8MM catcher. And perhaps they tried to peddle TDA and failed. So I'm not necessarily convinced this portends an Adames signing or something, especially with the news Joe Jimenez will miss the season.

Darragh McDonald

9:29 I would take AA's shuffling as a bad sign for Atlanta's spending capacity, not a good one. It's not that he's liquidating assets for a big investment. He's looking for change under the couch cushions.

Steve Adams

9:30 I don't think those moves are a precursor to anything significant. I think it's just a matter of recognizing they're already right up against the luxury tax as a third-time payor before they do anything. It's the downside of extending all these guys when they're so young. Because most extensions are backloaded, Atlanta's bottom-line payroll on a year-to-year basis is a lot cleaner than their luxury-tax bill, which is based on the contracts' annual values.

I very much like Darragh's analogy.

I think they'll still make some additions, but I'm not buying any Willy Adames speculation and I think Max Fried's gone.
 
Actual payroll paid by the Braves can go up (making AA's "payroll goes up" comments true) while the luxury number goes down due to all the backloaded extensions.
 
The good news is that we don't need a lot of additions. Soto is the dream but unlikely. Fried/Burnes/Snell/Adames are the type of guys we would sign if we had money to burn and their market wasn't outrageous.

But I am also good with something like Eovaldi and Kim.
 
I think it was directly attributed to the Jimenez injury.

They knew they'd have to replace him with a high dollar arm.
 
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