Matt wisler

[Enscheff]

And it took them six years of losing including three 100 loss seasons.

It's good that you are committed to the process. I would not have minded.

But it doesn't appear that the braves ownership or management hierarchy are.

And the long term success of the Braves will suffer.

So congrats? Congrats on losing 94 games instead of 100? Should that be commended?

I suppose you think so...

 

[50PoundHead]

And the long term success of the Braves will suffer.

So congrats? Congrats on losing 94 games instead of 100? Should that be commended?

I suppose you think so...

I think a team can hit the middle to an extent by signing guys like Markakis to fill holes. I didn't like the 4th year with him, but it's not the end of the world. I think one can go bargain hunting like we did with Phillips this year and put a non-Keystone Kops team on the field.

 

[Enscheff]

I think a team can hit the middle to an extent by signing guys like Markakis to fill holes. I didn't like the 4th year with him, but it's not the end of the world. I think one can go bargain hunting like we did with Phillips this year and put a non-Keystone Kops team on the field.

One move like Markakis is fine. A couple "win now" moves would have been fine.

The Braves FO made more than a couple moves geared towards the 2017 season. Some of them came at a significant cost to the 2018+ teams. That is a problem. A big problem.

 

[Horsehide Harry]

No argument here. I'm not as in love with Wood and Peraza, but parts are parts.

I didn't like the length of the Markakis contract, but he's the least of our problems. He has been a decent placeholder. I can get both sides of the argument on Kemp, but he's not going to be here when we're set to contend.

But don't talk to me about keeping BJ Upton around. Guy had to go. I would have just released him to retain value on Kimbrel. But Upton had become a whiner.

The whole idea of Markakis being OK because he is a decent place holder is just something I can't get behind. You have to look at it from the point of view that he wasn't brought in and what that might mean. Not signing him frees up $11-$12M per year or about $45M overall that could have been used elsewhere.

Then you have to ask yourself if not him who? And the answer is that it doesn't matter. Having Markakis there means nothing, nothing in the scheme of rebuilding. Standing him out there instead of say Michael Bourn probably means a difference of 1-2 wins per year but in lost years anyway.

Meanwhile, you take that $11M and invest it somewhere else. IMO, a rebuilding club would be much smarter to corner the relief pitching market as much as possible and move those pieces to contending teams as opportunity arises.

 

[Enscheff]

The whole idea of Markakis being OK because he is a decent place holder is just something I can't get behind. You have to look at it from the point of view that he wasn't brought in and what that might mean. Not signing him frees up $11-$12M per year or about $45M overall that could have been used elsewhere.

Then you have to ask yourself if not him who? And the answer is that it doesn't matter. Having Markakis there means nothing, nothing in the scheme of rebuilding. Standing him out there instead of say Michael Bourn probably means a difference of 1-2 wins per year but in lost years anyway.

Meanwhile, you take that $11M and invest it somewhere else. IMO, a rebuilding club would be much smarter to corner the relief pitching market as much as possible and move those pieces to contending teams as opportunity arises.

Very interesting idea. What if a rebuilding team literally bought ALL available FA BP arms? How much could they trade those guys for at the deadline to contenders if they controlled over half of the available guys?

 

[Horsehide Harry]

Yes and shuttle your starters back and forth to AAA

Cary a 7-8 man pen and only 3-4 starters until you start trading some of the pen arms

 

[jpx7]

The thing is if you keep upton or buy him out you would then have to live in the reality where 1/5 of your payroll is committed to him.

That shouldn't have been a problem in non-competitive seasons.

And the reality of what that does to your ability to sign other players and international draft prospects.

Those are, or should be, distinct budgets.

If you are content losing 100 games and not making any effort to put a watchable produce on the field then it coukd have been done.

I'd much rather watch a few 100-loss seasons and see the team receive full value for rebuilding assets than watch a front-office misguidedly concern itself with "watchability", thereby wasting resources just to wallow in mediocrity.

 

[Enscheff]

Mediocrity would have been an improvement over the last few years. The FO wasted many assets to improve from horrible to terrible.

I think southcrack considers that a success tho, so it's hard to argue with that kind of opinion.

 

[auyushu]

Show me where I disagreed with Encheff about him having 2x the value as he does now? Clearly Julion's struggles contribute to that value plummeting. I'm not blind, but just assuming we could have Devers and Kopesh if we would have wanted, isn't really based in reality.

Reading comprehension issues eh?

\\Omar Voice " Oh, Indeed "

Lol. You responded to my post about Enscheff being 100% accurate about Julio having twice the value he has this year by saying:

"How is a mythical package of prospects that we have no idea was offered "100% accurate"? "

That is why I said you have reading comprehension problems, and you are apparently still having them since I never said we could definitely get Devers+ for him or that my hypothetical trades were 100% accurate, though I think we could have gotten Devers by himself or Espinoza + Kopech. Devers was struggling badly until around the all star break last year.

 

[Carp]

Very interesting idea. What if a rebuilding team literally bought ALL available FA BP arms? How much could they trade those guys for at the deadline to contenders if they controlled over half of the available guys?

If they are on short term deals and not for top end money, then that is ok. But for someone so staunchly against investing in pitching, it seems rather odd that you'd want to invest 12 million or more per season (over multiple years in all likelihood) into the most volatile group of pitchers.

 

[Enscheff]

If they are on short term deals and not for top end money, then that is ok. But for someone so staunchly against investing in pitching, it seems rather odd that you'd want to invest 12 million or more per season (over multiple years in all likelihood) into the most volatile group of pitchers.

Did I say I wanted to do it?

Or did I say it was an interesting idea and posed more questions to go deeper into an analysis of the idea?

Reading comprehension folks, please.

 

[Carp]

It seemed rather implied in your post. But point taken.

 

[VirginiaBrave]

The Braves didn't trade Julio because they mistakenly allowed contention in 2017 to enter into the calculus of his value. They stupidly thought they could go half in on the rebuild, and contend in 3 years rather than the usual 5 years all rebuilds take. So rather than "settling" for a fair return on Julio, they were looking for an overpay...and didn't get it.

This insanely ignorant notion that the Braves could compete by 2017 caused the Braves to completely waste a LOT of value that should have been applied to the 2018 and later teams. The Braves are in a good position to be competitive in 2019, but consider how much BETTER position they would be in had they not used so many resources on the fools errand of building for 2017:

2-3 more Top 100 guys for Teheran

Wood and Peraza still in the system

A much better return for Kimbrel by keeping BJ's contract

An additional $18M per year without Kemp

An additional $11M per year without Markakis

Vacancies in LF and RF to add players that are actually good

Control over Swanson's age 29 season

About $30M extra this year by not paying Colon, Dickey and Garcia

Probably higher picks in the draft

All of those resources went towards winning in 2017...and it was a moronic thing to attempt. Everyone said they wouldn't win in 2017, but the FO decided they could...and they were wrong.

The Braves would be much better off in 2018 and later had they followed the correct process during the rebuild. Not trading Julio was a big part of that. The FO screwed up, but obviously the pozzies will never admit it. I said it was wrong with it happened without the benefit of hindsight. It was wrong then, it was wrong now, and it will be wrong tomorrow.

Here is the thing though. You are not in the Braves front office yet you have this fantasy that you are. You type out these long involved posts like instructions sheets, the Braves should have done a,b, and c. You type it like you know 100 % it would have worked. We all know nothing works exactly as laid out that is life.

 

[50PoundHead]

The whole idea of Markakis being OK because he is a decent place holder is just something I can't get behind. You have to look at it from the point of view that he wasn't brought in and what that might mean. Not signing him frees up $11-$12M per year or about $45M overall that could have been used elsewhere.

Then you have to ask yourself if not him who? And the answer is that it doesn't matter. Having Markakis there means nothing, nothing in the scheme of rebuilding. Standing him out there instead of say Michael Bourn probably means a difference of 1-2 wins per year but in lost years anyway.

Meanwhile, you take that $11M and invest it somewhere else. IMO, a rebuilding club would be much smarter to corner the relief pitching market as much as possible and move those pieces to contending teams as opportunity arises.

But if you're tanking, why spend the money at all? Just take the $11 per and put it on the bottom line and wait with it.

I guess my point is that I've watched some pretty ugly Braves baseball in the late-1970s and late-1980s and there's nothing worse than having a team look like an episode of The Three Stooges. Here's the rub (and we've talked about the previous regime a lot and what they did or didn't do): the minors were pretty much bare of anything that looked like a possible contributor at the big league level. Things were that thin. They had to sign players to field a big league team. Some of the $11 million was going somewhere and I don't know what kind of assets you can obtain for that $11 million that would be marketable in trade merchandise.

 

[Jaw]

They had to sign players to field a big league team. Some of the $11 million was going somewhere and I don't know what kind of assets you can obtain for that $11 million that would be marketable in trade merchandise.

And, no matter how much any of us wanted them to, they were NEVER going to completely give up on the first year at the new taxpayer funded park. Their analysis seems to have concluded that the PR blowback from doing so would have caused more damage than the failure to maximize trade assets during the rebuild. I doubt that anyone here has enough data to conclude that they were wrong.

 

[Southcack77]

But if you're tanking, why spend the money at all? Just take the $11 per and put it on the bottom line and wait with it.

I guess my point is that I've watched some pretty ugly Braves baseball in the late-1970s and late-1980s and there's nothing worse than having a team look like an episode of The Three Stooges. Here's the rub (and we've talked about the previous regime a lot and what they did or didn't do): the minors were pretty much bare of anything that looked like a possible contributor at the big league level. Things were that thin. They had to sign players to field a big league team. Some of the $11 million was going somewhere and I don't know what kind of assets you can obtain for that $11 million that would be marketable in trade merchandise.

I believe the only major league OF on the roster when they inked Markakis was BJ Upton, the worst contract in baseball. The alternative to signing Markakis would have been to try and find some reclamation project or one year deals. But essentially, they were going to have to pay someone to do the job. Markakis happens to do the job competently at a properly valued contract without any drama.

I can understand complaining about a lot of things about the club, but the scat thrown at Markakis is always a little surprising. I guess some folks cannot handle the mixed message, but here is a guy that has blocked no one, whose opportunity cost is minimal, who has been a decent player.

If the point is that they should have lost a lot of games for a very long period of time, ok, but Markakis isn't standing in the way of that.

 

[Preacher]

There's no doubt the stadium complicated this thing, but there's also no question that the FO didn't fully maximize this rebuild.

I think we are still in a good spot overall, but imagine if we hadn't made the horrific HO trade, compounded it with the Kemp deal and hadn't signed Marks..... and instead had taken that money and thrown it further into our J2 signing period, maybe we could have added another ~5+ impact youngsters with that money; we would have lost more games and Senzel would be in our system right now instead of IA, we would have whatever return we could have gotten for JT..... they've made plenty of moves I really like; but the rebuild could have been so much better if only FANS and FO types could have sucked up a couple really bad years.

 

[JxnMissFan]

There's no doubt the stadium complicated this thing, but there's also no question that the FO didn't fully maximize this rebuild.

I think we are still in a good spot overall, but imagine if we hadn't made the horrific HO trade, compounded it with the Kemp deal and hadn't signed Marks..... and instead had taken that money and thrown it further into our J2 signing period, maybe we could have added another ~5+ impact youngsters with that money; we would have lost more games and Senzel would be in our system right now instead of IA, we would have whatever return we could have gotten for JT..... they've made plenty of moves I really like; but the rebuild could have been so much better if only FANS and FO types could have sucked up a couple really bad years.

The Markakis contract shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as the HO trade. I would put the trades of BJ and Johnson to clear salary way ahead of Markakis as set backs to the rebuild.

I don't want to do the math right now but my guess that those cost saving moves have not saved much over just straight out releasing those guys.

 

[Southcack77]

There's no doubt the stadium complicated this thing, but there's also no question that the FO didn't fully maximize this rebuild.

I think we are still in a good spot overall, but imagine if we hadn't made the horrific HO trade, compounded it with the Kemp deal and hadn't signed Marks..... and instead had taken that money and thrown it further into our J2 signing period, maybe we could have added another ~5+ impact youngsters with that money; we would have lost more games and Senzel would be in our system right now instead of IA, we would have whatever return we could have gotten for JT..... they've made plenty of moves I really like; but the rebuild could have been so much better if only FANS and FO types could have sucked up a couple really bad years.

Just like Frank Wren's tenure has to be judged with the understanding that the Braves leadership demanded that they try to contend every season, you have to acknowledge that by all accounts the Braves leadership was unwilling to sanction what the Astros underwent. If you judge the GM with the understanding that he was not free to not care about the record for four years, you might cut him a break.

You might also not insist that every single move turns up roses and you might also not create a list of grievances for every quibble you have.

While the five or six folks here, which probably includes me for the most part, would have been ok with outright tanking for a few years, the majority of the Braves fanbase would not have been and would not have understood it or been willing to be patient if they could. And even those supporting it would have come up with their list of mistakes and not been happy.

 

[Southcack77]

The Markakis contract shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as the HO trade. I would put the trades of BJ and Johnson to clear salary way ahead of Markakis as set backs to the rebuild.

I don't want to do the math right now but my guess that those cost saving moves have not saved much over just straight out releasing those guys.

Braves would still be paying BJ 16.5m this year, I think.

It's still funny how comically bad Braves free agent signings turn out to be. BJ hit .184 and .208, still incomprehensibly horrible.