Olivera

UNCBlue012 said:
I was damn excited at first, I mean, look at what we had. But man it sucks thinking about what we could of gotten for Alex. Heck, we could of kept him, he's been excellent. He'd be a perfect number 3-5 guy. Teheran, Newcomb, Blair, Wood... lots more to come to that.
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I am glad we traded Wood. I think his speed decline is something to worry about. However, I think we could have gotten more or at least younger for what was our #1 prospect and a good LH starter. I still hold out hope for HO.. but that trade doesn't fit the diagram that had been happening.
 
Julio3000 said:
I really do think that some of us have been hasty in judgement of Olive. Seriously, the guy had barely played baseball at all in the last two years, and it's got to take some time to get the rust off and otherwise calibrate things. I really think we need to see him for a reasonable amount of time before we can confidently say if he's a scrub or not.
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Actually, taking that a step further, he's had one season since 2011. For seven years, though, he was an extraordinarily consistent hitter in Cuba.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Actually, taking that a step further, he's had one season since 2011. For seven years, though, he was an extraordinarily consistent hitter in Cuba.
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I've been pretty bearish on the trade from day one, but 200 ABs across several different levels after a two-year layoff is just not enough time to for me to make judgements about the guy. I saw some distressing things and some encouraging ones. We'll see how it goes.
 
I was honestly surprised at how raw he looked that last month. He had better bounce back at least some or it approaches Len Barker badness for me....
 
sturg33 said:
Worst trade I can ever remember the Braves making
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Lots worse...

Len Barker classic Ted Turner bungle up with that one.
JD Drew a warm body could've played RF for us that year and we probably win the East and at least we would have gotten to see Waino as a Brave for a little while.
The Murph trade just based simply on the fact nothing we got back was worth anything. And wasn't Tommy Greene part of that deal too?
Tex on both ends. We got bent over by Texas and LAA on both ends of that one.
Dye for Tucker and Lockhart
DJ and Grissom for Lofton and Embree. Given the talent we had at the time I honestly believe we could have let Maddog walk re-signed Glav and still kept winning divisions.
 
Here's what worries me most about Olivera. Watching him play and watching that swing, his ability to hit seems to be built entirely on bat speed. He's not got a very advanced eye so he has to have good bat speed to be able to wait that extra split second to recognize the pitch or to be able to foul the ball off when he's fooled. When you have great bat speed it can cover up a multitude of deficiencies at the plate. The problem is guys like this don't tend to age very gracefully.

When you hit your early 30's your bat speed will naturally start to slip. Some guys mitigate this with a good batting eye or a swing that's built more on precise mechanics. However, when you don't have a great eye and have been reliant on your bat speed, when your bat starts to slow all of a sudden you're having to cheat a little and start your swing earlier to be able to catch up with a good fastball. You can't wait to recognize the pitch anymore. Having to guard against the fastball like this makes you much more vulnerable to changeups and breaking balls.

A good example is Dan Uggla. He hit 31 and saw his batting average drop over 50 points in one season. Uggla is a guy who was always very reliant on tremendous bat speed. When he hit 31 he saw his bat speed slip just a bit. When he waited to recognize the pitch and got a fastball, he was consistently late and ended up skying the ball straight up a lot (which is what often happens when you're late on fastballs). When he was sitting on a fastball and started his swing earlier to catch up with it, he became very prone to chasing terrible offspeed pitches. How many times did we have to watch up chase a breaking ball in the dirt? Uggla drew a fair number of walks but that was more due to him taking a lot of pitches than it was to an exceptional batting eye.

What's worrying to me is I saw a lot of the same problems plaguing Olivera in his time with Atlanta. He was often late of fastballs resulting in a lot of balls popped up on the infield. Olivera had more than twice the average rate of infield fly balls. He was also exceptionally vulnerable to offspeed in the dirt.

And here's the biggest thing, Olivera will turn 31 the day after opening day. I'm afraid the Olivera our front office had in mind when they made the trade was the 26 year old who murdered the ball in Cuba. The problem is you can't even really treat Olivera in Cuba and Olivera now as the same guy. With the injuries, the time off, the difference in competition, and the difference in age, there's not much comparison.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope his struggles were more adjusting to the game in the US. But it just seems to me like Olivera is a prime candidate to have his game completely implode.
 
But you could also say that Olivera is likely to age better than guys like Uggla, because he doesn't have nearly the wear and tear on his body that normal 30 year old baseball players do.
 
Carp said:
But you could also say that Olivera is likely to age better than guys like Uggla, because he doesn't have nearly the wear and tear on his body that normal 30 year old baseball players do.
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While it is true he doesn't have the miles on him that other players do, that's only a small piece of it. There are all sorts of muscle mass and hormonal changes that a player is powerless to stop short of pharmaceutical intervention. Besides, Olivera hasn't shown he's going to hold up particularly well. Between the issues he had in Cuba, the elbow stuff, and the hammy tweak that he took forever to recover from, things could look better.
 
He still put up an OPS over .700 in the majors last year, even while looking apparently terrible.

When I say I don't like the trade, it's because I think he'll OPS somewhere around .750 rather than the .800+ the Braves thought they were getting. But now we have people suggesting he'll OPS way below .600? That's crazy.
 
Klaw has mentioned in his last chats that he doesn't think Olivera is a regular player. So maybe he does bottom out.

I'm holding out hope. But I really don't feel it in my heart.

.260/.335/.427
 
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