Megathread: Braves lose Maitan, Bae and 10+ plus International Sanctions.

Super said:
Simply cutting HO was the right move. Getting Kemp back made zero sense unless the FO believed he'd be a valuable contributor.
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You know that. I know that. The front office probably knows that. The problem is in the business side of things. You're not going to get the bean counters to agree to simply cut a guy you owe as much money as we owed to HO. It's stupid but that's reality.
 
To rehash the HO problem you have to know who was really behind the trade to begin with. We don't

However, since there could be no analytics worth anything you have to call it a scouting trade

As a scouting trade it has to be considered an EPIC fail.

Trading HO instead of just releasing him drew attention away from that epic scouting fail
 
It's hilarious that folks are willing to cook up all these machinations the FO did to save face on bad trades and "the business side of things", yet refuse to believe they did the same sort of thing firing Coppy.

They heaped praise on Coppy after slamming Wren. Now they can't go back and say they were wrong and Coppy sucked too.

It would look just as bad as simply paying HO to go away.

Comical that you guys defend the Kemp trade as a saving face trade rather than a poor scouting trade, and then can't figure out the Coppy firing was also done to save face haha.
 
50PoundHead said:
I still think a lion's share of some fans' ire toward Markakis boils down to who he replaced and not Markakis in particular.
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they had the same fWAR this year :HeywardWut:

Heyward had the edge in bWAR, but Nick bested him there last season.

For half the price!
 
Super said:
they had the same fWAR this year :HeywardWut:

Heyward had the edge in bWAR, but Nick bested him there last season.

For half the price!
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I don't even want to go there. Heyward is the superior player by a good margin, but his departure left a sour taste in a lot of fans' mouths and whomever replaced him was going to be "not Heyward."
 
50PoundHead said:
I don't even want to go there. Heyward is the superior player by a good margin, but his departure left a sour taste in a lot of fans' mouths and whomever replaced him was going to be "not Heyward."
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Yeah, I plead guilty there. Being down on the Neck signing was never really about Neck. He's a good soldier and has been as advertised, as thoroughly uninspiring as that is.

I hated the reflexive "we replaced an All-Star Gold-Glover with an All-Star Gold Glover! All is well!" spin. I hated losing Heyward. I hated that Markakis even wore the same damned number on his uni. With the benefit of hindsight, it looks a bit different, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Now, after that, my pivot was to "my favorite player to watch is gone and the team is going to suck, but at least I can see Tron Simmons every night..."
 
50PoundHead said:
I was 50/50 on the Kemp move with the downside being he is who he is (guy who can still hit some, but can't play defense anymore). They wanted a guy to stand in LF and do something with the bat. Handled correctly, he can still contribute a little. Didn't like the financial aspect of the deal, but I get the saving face angle due to Olivera's epic failure.

I still think a lion's share of some fans' ire toward Markakis boils down to who he replaced and not Markakis in particular. It looks like he's reached the end physically. He was miserable in September. While they probably can't unload Kemp, I can see someone taking Markakis (and some of his contract). Not a classic 4th OF because he can't play CF, but I can see him being a decent 350 AB guy in the right role with the right team.

Where I do differ is on the Swanson promotion. I get the occasional barb (and as long as they are polite, I don't mind), but I have been critical of the aggressive promotion schedule the front office has used with a bunch of guys. Some are ready (Albies), but I don't think that Swanson was. Still a work in progress and I still think he'll be at least an average big league player.

But basically, you bring out a point that seems to get lost. This is a business and a business that relies on interest from the fan base and sometimes a front office has to go to odd lengths to accomplish that. And we have to remember, it's not about the hard cores that are in here. It's about getting the average guy on the street to buy in (and buy tickets).
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The Kemp/Olivera trade in reverse. As was just pointed out, the old, ricketty Markakis performed as well as Heyward this year - and the Braves are only on the hook for ~ $10 million for him rather than trying to find a way move Kemp to make room for Acuna.

Those screaming about Kemp always seem to get a little quieter when you bring J-Hey's contract up. The Kemp situation is bad, everyone agrees. How and why the Braves are in that situation is much less important than trying to fix it as quickly and painlessly as possible while trying to give the typical fan something to hang his hopes on. Is Kemp the Kemp that won an MVP? Of course not, and everyone HERE knows it. The thing is, there are usually about 15,000 to 20,000 paying customers at SunTrust every night that aren't remotely aware of how far away from that player he actually is.

Everyone here is perfect when it comes to making roster decisions - at least until someone takes the time to scroll back through old threads to point out that they're not. Of course, Heyward's "got time on his side". That just happens to mean they've got a younger version of Markakis making $127.5 million between now and 2023. Wonder who the Braves would need to fire if they'd signed him to that deal???
 
Interesting point by Dave Cameron that I hadn't considered about Maitan:

"I don't think MLB really wants to make a guy like Maitan a free agent unless they have to, though. If he gets $20 million or something if his contract is voided and he's allowed to sign with anyone for whatever teams want to offer, then it will become even more obvious to future players that it could be financially advantageous to them to engage in shady activity with a team, then turn in the team they signed with in order to become a free agent."
 
clv, I think you're whistling past the graveyard about Kemp. He's a lump in LF who provides some pop when healthy, which is seldom. That was hardly a revelation. We'll see how much value he has when we try to deal him.

We are all just reading tea leaves at this point, but I think the likeliest outcome now is that Hart is pushed out and DM becomes the HMFIC. If that happens, and if the Coppy infractions turn out to be relatively minor, it's hard to see this as anything other than a JS coup. I think it's about a 50/50 proposition right now. We'll see.
 
50PoundHead said:
I still think a lion's share of some fans' ire toward Markakis boils down to who he replaced and not Markakis in particular. It looks like he's reached the end physically. He was miserable in September. While they probably can't unload Kemp, I can see someone taking Markakis (and some of his contract). Not a classic 4th OF because he can't play CF, but I can see him being a decent 350 AB guy in the right role with the right team.
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A lot of posters overthought the rationale for the Markakis signing. It was a matter of him having local connection and the expectation that he'd be trusted to provide veteran presence for the kids coming up to help turn them into pros.

Aside from that, of course you're right. Just recall what the response was to Martin Prado for replacing St. Kelly.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
To rehash the HO problem you have to know who was really behind the trade to begin with. We don't

However, since there could be no analytics worth anything you have to call it a scouting trade

As a scouting trade it has to be considered an EPIC fail.

Trading HO instead of just releasing him drew attention away from that epic scouting fail
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I agree HO was a major scouting fail. The Braves thought he was going to be good. All things considered that seems like more of a Coppy idea than a John Hart idea, but we may never know.

The Kemp thing who knows who pushed for that.

While I see getting rid of HO and acquiring Kemp as two completely separate decisions, I agree that the front office packaged the decisions together to put a positive face on the HO trade. They wanted to make it seem like Kemp was some sort of genius bargain based on some kind of sunk cost analysis and that never made any sense to me.

The front office's need to try and win press cycles on this sort of stuff bothers me. They should not have cared whether people thought the HO trade was a total mistake or not. Teams make mistakes. Just won the mistake and move on.

That's why I really worried that they would not move Kemp because it would be a PR hit. Take the hit, pay the money, get on with life. I'm more hopeful this could happen now.
 
Okay I just thought of this and it kinda has me worried.

What does all of this mean for Ozzie Albies? We all know that the dinosaurs in the front office were never really high on him. But since he has been called up he has been SOOOOO popular with the fanbase. Is it now more likely that he will be traded, given that they people who really saw how valuable he was are now gone? Man, I really hope that they have changed their mind on him, because that would be the biggest mistake we have made in the rebuild if we ended up trading him. Someone please tell me I'm wrong and Ozzie is definitely going to be a Brave.
 
BeanieAntics said:
Okay I just thought of this and it kinda has me worried.

What does all of this mean for Ozzie Albies? We all know that the dinosaurs in the front office were never really high on him. But since he has been called up he has been SOOOOO popular with the fanbase. Is it now more likely that he will be traded, given that they people who really saw how valuable he was are now gone? Man, I really hope that they have changed their mind on him, because that would be the biggest mistake we have made in the rebuild if we ended up trading him. Someone please tell me I'm wrong and Ozzie is definitely going to be a Brave.
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I've thought about this but have chosen to ignore it and hope it goes away...like a medical problem.
 
clvclv said:
Don't you remember what you would've done for a $100,000 sports car when you were 18???

That's simply the story being "reported" (no one named sources or put their names to it, it's just what they heard, kinda like Bowman and DOB - ell, like Shanks for that matter) - I didn't comment on whether I believed it one way or the other. Given the other stories we're beginning to hear about Coppy's practices you think it's out of the question? I have no clue, but will wait to see if the story has legs personally.
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I would have to believe his agent would know enough to tell the Braves to kindly **** off and give him the extra $100,000 instead.
 
Albies will be traded for someone like Jake Odorizzi just to try to make this team more of a playoff team.

.....and it will be a colossal mistake.
 
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