Minor League Thread Part Deux

Super said:
How much $ went into him? Hurt last year for sure and I can’t imagine the effect is just gone this year.
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If I recall it was around 25 million last year. And I believe after all the moves the Braves are only on the hook for Fletcher this year and he's done after 2025.

We went over this a lot last year. The Braves had a decent amount of cash available for 2024 and not necessarily the same amount of cash for future years. They could have used it on a one year deal and been in the same position again in 2025 and needing someone to play a corner spot. Or did what they did with Kelenic and gamble that it pays off in a multi year solution. It didn't work out. But coming off a historic offesive season in which they had the likes or Rossario out in LF I thought it was a schrewed move.

Still didn't have an effect on 2025 though. The team was always letting Max go and not pay for TOR prices on a free agent starter.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
White is 31 and basically a 4th outfielder. I wouldn’t expect to much from him. He is better than the other options and if he can be serviceable as an infielder then I don’t see any reason he can’t get 500 AB and provide .700-.750 ops level play.
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Saw him play live last year when Gwinnett was in St. Paul. Looks very athletic and smooth in the batters' box and on the basepaths. He played CF that night and had trouble with a few fly balls but was athletic enough to adjust in time. I've watched a lot of baseball over the years and White is the kind of guy who could stitch together a decent season out of nowhere and then go back to his normal level of performance. Curious to see what happens when Acuna returns. Could be a White/Verdugo platoon in LF until Profar returns (provided White and Verdugo perform).

As for Kelenic, what's been laid out here by many is pretty much the case. He's not killing us budgetwise this year, but all the machinations the Braves employed to acquire him did hamper the team at the deadline last year. We're still paying David Fletcher $6.5 MM to be a backup in Gwinnett so there is that. I just always thought it was an example of the front office and pro scouting staff getting too clever by half using his EV or something else to justify the move. Funny thing is they could have signed Profar for a measly $1 MM or so before the 2024 season when he was an FA (not that they would have because Profar hadn't been that good prior to 2024).

In an aside, what the h*ll is Dider Fuentes doing in Mississippi?
 
Fuentes is shopping there
50PoundHead said:
Saw him play live last year when Gwinnett was in St. Paul. Looks very athletic and smooth in the batters' box and on the basepaths. He played CF that night and had trouble with a few fly balls but was athletic enough to adjust in time. I've watched a lot of baseball over the years and White is the kind of guy who could stitch together a decent season out of nowhere and then go back to his normal level of performance. Curious to see what happens when Acuna returns. Could be a White/Verdugo platoon in LF until Profar returns (provided White and Verdugo perform).

As for Kelenic, what's been laid out here by many is pretty much the case. He's not killing us budgetwise this year, but all the machinations the Braves employed to acquire him did hamper the team at the deadline last year. We're still paying David Fletcher $6.5 MM to be a backup in Gwinnett so there is that. I just always thought it was an example of the front office and pro scouting staff getting too clever by half using his EV or something else to justify the move. Funny thing is they could have signed Profar for a measly $1 MM or so before the 2024 season when he was an FA (not that they would have because Profar hadn't been that good prior to 2024).
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Didier is shopping in Mississippi?? 🤔. Wrong state...lmao
 
thewupk said:
If I recall it was around 25 million last year. And I believe after all the moves the Braves are only on the hook for Fletcher this year and he's done after 2025.

We went over this a lot last year. The Braves had a decent amount of cash available for 2024 and not necessarily the same amount of cash for future years. They could have used it on a one year deal and been in the same position again in 2025 and needing someone to play a corner spot. Or did what they did with Kelenic and gamble that it pays off in a multi year solution. It didn't work out. But coming off a historic offesive season in which they had the likes or Rossario out in LF I thought it was a schrewed move.

Still didn't have an effect on 2025 though. The team was always letting Max go and not pay for TOR prices on a free agent starter.
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If fletcher is currently being paid $6.5m, how is that no effect? Kelenic is also taking up a roster spot as he did last year. $25m is a lot for a guy who never showed a thing at the major league level.

There weren’t a ton of options they missed out on because of it (outside Joc I can’t really find one). But not sure I’d call $25m for a flamed out prospect shrewd.
 
Super said:
If fletcher is currently being paid $6.5m, how is that no effect? Kelenic is also taking up a roster spot as he did last year. $25m is a lot for a guy who never showed a thing at the major league level.

There weren’t a ton of options they missed out on because of it (outside Joc I can’t really find one). But not sure I’d call $25m for a flamed out prospect shrewd.
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Kelenic was good in 2023 and there was a lot to be optimistic about given his pedigree. It was a sensible move with the information we had at the time. It didn’t work out, and to thewupk’s point the majority of the risk was isolated to the 2024 club.

The $6.5m committed to Fletcher isn’t insignificant (I can think of a few relief pitchers who cost that much who’d be nice to have). With that said, it’s less than 3% of our payroll. I’m not going to lose sleep over that.
 
chop2chip said:
Kelenic was good in 2023 and there was a lot to be optimistic about given his pedigree. It was a sensible move with the information we had at the time. It didn’t work out, and to thewupk’s point the majority of the risk was isolated to the 2024 club.

The $6.5m committed to Fletcher isn’t insignificant (I can think of a few relief pitchers who cost that much who’d be nice to have). With that said, it’s less than 3% of our payroll. I’m not going to lose sleep over that.
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1.5 WAR (109 games), 32% k rate, .359 BABIP, .333 xwOBA as a bad defensive OF. I hesitate to call that good.

The lack of OF options that offseason makes it not as bad. But $25m last year and $6.5 this year isn’t nothing and yeah outside of OF there are ways to actually improve your team with that $. Big swing, big miss by AA is apropos of Kelenic’s career I guess.
 
Super said:
If fletcher is currently being paid $6.5m, how is that no effect? Kelenic is also taking up a roster spot as he did last year. $25m is a lot for a guy who never showed a thing at the major league level.

There weren’t a ton of options they missed out on because of it (outside Joc I can’t really find one). But not sure I’d call $25m for a flamed out prospect shrewd.
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It was a gamble that didn't pay off. 6.5 million for a payroll well over 200 isn't that signifigant. Again, the team was coming off a historic offensive sesaon. And had the team not been destroyed by injuries last year it wouldn't have been an issue at all. It didn't work out but the money spent last year with all those moves isn't effecting what the team is doing now.
 
thewupk said:
It was a gamble that didn't pay off. 6.5 million for a payroll well over 200 isn't that signifigant. Again, the team was coming off a historic offensive sesaon. And had the team not been destroyed by injuries last year it wouldn't have been an issue at all. It didn't work out but the money spent last year with all those moves isn't effecting what the team is doing now.
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But that's really part of the issue. A team just can't make assumptions that everyone who had a career year is going to gave another career year. I get why they wanted Kelenic and he was decent in 2023. The problem is (zbhargrove, who I greatly respect thinks otherwise) we did take a circuitous route to get him instead of just giving the Mariners something of greater value on the front end and that limited our in-season ability to make an acquisition or two to tide us over once Kelenic went into his second-half funk. We would have been better off to not do that deal and simply sign Verdugo after the 2023 season. The 9+ MM he got from the Yankees would have been less of a budget problem. Of course, there probably wasn't some obscure measurement that would have led the scouting staff to fall in love with Verdugo.

Kelenic still has a shot. He's young and maybe he turns it around in Gwinnett.
 
50PoundHead said:
But that's really part of the issue. A team just can't make assumptions that everyone who had a career year is going to gave another career year. I get why they wanted Kelenic and he was decent in 2023. The problem is (zbhargrove, who I greatly respect thinks otherwise) we did take a circuitous route to get him instead of just giving the Mariners something of greater value on the front end and that limited our in-season ability to make an acquisition or two to tide us over once Kelenic went into his second-half funk. We would have been better off to not do that deal and simply sign Verdugo after the 2023 season. The 9+ MM he got from the Yankees would have been less of a budget problem. Of course, there probably wasn't some obscure measurement that would have led the scouting staff to fall in love with Verdugo.

Kelenic still has a shot. He's young and maybe he turns it around in Gwinnett.
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Sure for 2024 Verdugo or someone like him would have been a better gamble. But AA wasn't making a move just for 2024. He got creative in trying to find a long term solution with the extra cash he had. It didn't work out but I like that out of the box thinking when the team for all intents and purposes is already stacked.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
I personal think the Kelenic gamble was fine. But just because you moved mountains to get him doesn’t mean you keep going back to that dried up well. It didn’t work so move on. Which they did.
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Signing Profar was them moving on from Kelenic. He was just a place holder until Acuna was ready anyways.
 
Super said:
1.5 WAR (109 games), 32% k rate, .359 BABIP, .333 xwOBA as a bad defensive OF. I hesitate to call that good.

The lack of OF options that offseason makes it not as bad. But $25m last year and $6.5 this year isn’t nothing and yeah outside of OF there are ways to actually improve your team with that $. Big swing, big miss by AA is apropos of Kelenic’s career I guess.
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He was a 2.1 bWAR player. Yes, that is good. And then consider he was 23 years old with the pedigree of a Top 10 overall prospect. It hasn't worked out yet and I doubt that it ever will. But there was plenty of reason for optimism at the time of the trade.
 
thewupk said:
Sure for 2024 Verdugo or someone like him would have been a better gamble. But AA wasn't making a move just for 2024. He got creative in trying to find a long term solution with the extra cash he had. It didn't work out but I like that out of the box thinking when the team for all intents and purposes is already stacked.
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This team is built for a specified window of contention. Unless they viewed Kelenic as someone who could extend the window, I don't think the move made any sense. Unlike you, I'm not that big a fan of the outside-the-box thinking in the acquistion department. I think we've seen a similar problem with the plethora of contract extensions.
 
50PoundHead said:
This team is built for a specified window of contention. Unless they viewed Kelenic as someone who could extend the window, I don't think the move made any sense. Unlike you, I'm not that big a fan of the outside-the-box thinking in the acquistion department. I think we've seen a similar problem with the plethora of contract extensions.
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Why wouldn't they have viewed Kelenic as someone to extend the window? They didn't acquire him to be a AAAA player. The idea was to have an above average player in left for the next 5 years for dirt cheap.
 
In ACTUAL Minor League news... David McCabe continues to impress at the plate in AA with more walks than K's. But he's most definitely a DH only type of guy. If he weighs less than 240 I would be surprised.
 
50PoundHead said:
But that's really part of the issue. A team just can't make assumptions that everyone who had a career year is going to gave another career year. I get why they wanted Kelenic and he was decent in 2023. The problem is (zbhargrove, who I greatly respect thinks otherwise) we did take a circuitous route to get him instead of just giving the Mariners something of greater value on the front end and that limited our in-season ability to make an acquisition or two to tide us over once Kelenic went into his second-half funk. We would have been better off to not do that deal and simply sign Verdugo after the 2023 season. The 9+ MM he got from the Yankees would have been less of a budget problem. Of course, there probably wasn't some obscure measurement that would have led the scouting staff to fall in love with Verdugo.

Kelenic still has a shot. He's young and maybe he turns it around in Gwinnett.
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I mean, I don't love how the Kelenic thing worked out and I'm not above criticizing AA... I think there's plenty to criticize him about. I just don't think the Kelenic thing was this huge disaster like some are making it out to be. I just don't think it's a huge deal and some folks are being a bit overdramatic. No, he wasn't ever great in the majors but he had huge prospect pedigree and he showed flashes... one of those flashes right before got hurt from getting angry and a couple more with the Braves last year. So, to me it was a fine gamble if the Braves thought they could fix him. Doesn't appear that is going to happen at this point, but I don't believe it hurts the team that bad.
 
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