The Strategic Conundrum

nsacpi

nsacpi

Expects Yuge Games
The Braves, for 2015 and beyond, have a very clear obstacle to success. This obstacle comes in the form of four hitters in the lineup (BJ, CJ, Bethancourt and Simmons) with very problematic offensive projections. Now there are various ways to partly overcome this. Fredi Freeman could have an MVP season. The pitching could be exceptional. One or two of the four could have a much better than expected season (this happened with CJ and Simmons in 2013). All these things are possible.

But the most direct solution is to replace some of these guys with players with more productive offensive projections. This applies for both 2015 and beyond. The post-season is young and we could yet see this happen. However, so far the steps taken have deepened the conundrum. The trade of Heyward removes an internal option for replacing BJ in center. The trade of La Stella more or less cements Peraza at second at some point in 2015, greatly reducing the possibility he could used in center or third. Then there is the whole Gattis to left field and commitment to Bethancourt at catcher.

The rest of the post-season could reveal that there is some sort of plan by John Hart and company to address this strategic conundrum. It could be that its resolutions depends on the accumulation of assets (such as Miller and Jenkins) or reduction in salary commitments at other positions. So far, however, the steps taken would appear to deepen the conundrum.

How might it be resolved?

First a championship team can certainly live with one weak hitter if his other contributions make up for it. So there isn't an issue with carrying Simmons as a number 8 hitter. The issue is Simmons plus the three others. Internally, the potential solutions have shrunk with the moves made by the front office so far this off-season. The best remaining internal solution is Kubitza at third. There is no more than a 50% chance that he will in fact turn out to be the solution and he needs some time in AAA. But it is a reflection of the state of affairs that he offers the best internal hope for addressing the strategic conundrum.

With the reduction of internal options, it becomes even more important (for 2015, 2016 and 2017) to find a replacement for BJ in center. This to me was our biggest issue going into the off-season and that remains the case.

I think Bethancourt's presence in the lineup is also going to be a big problem. But given his age and potential, it makes sense to give him an extended tryout.

Hart has his work cut out. Maybe he has a brilliant plan that will reveal itself in time. But the moves taken so far would appear to take us further away from a resolution of our main problem.
 
Again, it's like complaining about the first move in a checker game. It was the first move. It's not even Thanksgiving. He has built teams before.
 
Gonna wait to see what other moves are made especially with some money to spend with the eventual trade of Justin coming as well.
 
We're not even close to being done yet. Let's see what sort of return we get for J-Up/Gattis and let's see what he can do with BJ's/CJ's contract.
 
I reject the premise that Simmons and Bethancourt are going to be black holes in the lineup.

Simmons, lest we forget, won a batting title in the Carolina League, which is usually well-stocked with strong pitchers. His first full season was followed by what we old-timers call the sophomore jinx. I am fully prepared for a bounce-back season as he matures and learns from his mistakes of 2014. And he will. He's too good a ballplayer not to.

Bethancourt, as he matures physically, has added components to his game.
These have been his batting averages year-by-year as he as PROGRESSED through the system: .267 (Dominican SL at age 16); .277 (GCL and Appy at age 17); .251 (age 18, first full-season as pro, in Rome, 108 games); .289 (age 19, was .303 at Rome when promoted); .243 in 2012 (first time in AA, injured much of year, only 71 games); .277 in 2013 (repeated AA at age 21, youngest regular in the league); .283 in AAA in 2014. He begins 2015 at age 23!
I see a man growing in his profession. He began adding some power components in 2013 and had a few homers in the AFL that year as well. Doesn't strike out much, either.

Overall, I liked the breakdown of the outfield problems, but these two are going to be part of the solution.
 
FWIW, Buster Olney recently ranked Andrelton Simmons as the best SS in MLB.

Here's what he wrote:

Simmons is not the perfect player, by any means; picking the No. 1 shortstop is not the same now as it was in 2001, when you had your choice of Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter, Miguel Tejada and others. Simmons had a .286 on-base percentage last season, with seven homers among just 29 extra-base hits in 540 plate appearances. It would be very reasonable here to make a case in the No. 1 spot for a better hitter, or maybe two or three others.

But a highly ranked executive put it best when explaining why he’d have Simmons as the No. 1 shortstop. “He’s the best defensive shortstop, easily -- a great defender at a position where defense is the most important thing."

Especially in an era in which offensive numbers are down and teams are looking for an edge with their positioning, having a shortstop with both the best arm and best range is an enormous asset.

There is a lot of skepticism among evaluators about whether Simmons will be anything more than an average hitter, given the nature of his swing. But the Braves have him under contract through his age-30 season, which means they should have at least six more seasons of shutdown defense at shortstop, making him a tremendous asset.
 
No arguments from me on your analysis. I thought they should have traded La Stella (and another piece) to the A's for John Jaso and moved J. Upton before Heyward if they were intent on moving one or both. Chris Johnson and Melvin Upton have to go and if we have to swallow a big chunk of change to do that, so be it. Those two are the biggest problems we face going into the season and we have no really viable internal options. Kubitza maybe, but both he and Cunningham would probably best serve the team in reserve roles. Thanks a lot Frank Wren for busting the budget on crap and wrecking the minor league system.

I don't know if Bethancourt is going to be anything more than an average hitter and Simmons has to make some changes or that's where he'll end up as well. There's way to much swing-and-miss in this line-up.

Lots to think about. It is early and there are still options out there. But it is imperative that we get the crushing level of swing-and-miss out of this line-up.
 
Good points by Rico. It's not a given that those two are hopeless. I really thought Simmons would have a better offensive year. New year, new coach, another year older, and I think he's an athletic genius, if you will.

I hold out a candle for Johnson. i remember him talking about using the park "gap to gap" and "staying up the middle" in '13 when he was runner up for the batting title. I recall him saying he was trying to hit for more power last year. Simply, he lost his stroke. Seitzer's philosophy is exactly what CJ needs. It's a match. If CJ goes .310/.350/.450, a lot of angst on that deal goes away.

Melvin is hopeless. Probably best to get what you can and eat it.

I think one way we can retool on the fly is by focusing our hitting acquisitions on young vets who have worked through their growing pains, have remaining control and are ready to break out. back to Fat Upton. If our trading partner turns out to be Seattle, they have three guys who fit that profile- Saunders, Ackley, and especially Brad Miller.

Miller is particularly useful to us because he can play second (very well) if Peraza is not yet ready and eventually take over at third if CJ doesn't pull it together. He hit extremely well at every level coming up.

Young vets. Hitters who profile a lot like SMiller does as a pitcher. Have to trust your scouts, and your scouts have to be right more than they're wrong.
 
nsacpi said:
Yeah, sometimes unorthodox openings are effective in chess.
Click to expand...

Yes, and he really shored up a need very solidly, to the point where he really doesn't need to worry about starting pitching any more. And he really did prior to that deal.

It wasn't a frivolous way to spend Heyward, is my point. Now he should spend on hitting, if he can find value. I think he can.
 
Steamer OBP and OPS projections for the 4 players in question:

Bethancourt .281 .642

BJ .292 .652

Simmons .304 .681

CJ .304 .694

Johnson is the best hitter in the group, but he has the least defensive value by a substantial margin.

If we want to improve, whether near-term or by 2017, the logical places to look for upgrades over the apparent incumbents are catcher, center and third.
 
nsacpi said:
Steamer OBP and OPS projections for the 4 players in question:

Bethancourt .281 .642

BJ .292 .652

Simmons .304 .681

CJ .304 .694

Johnson is the best hitter in the group, but he has the least defensive value by a substantial margin.

If we want to improve, whether near-term or by 2017, the logical places to look for upgrades over the apparent incumbents are catcher, center and third.
Click to expand...

Honestly, catcher isn't settled. A certain number of teams could like Bethancourt included in any deal. Gattis could make his hay behind the dish with someone like Ross as a signing (he and Lester are apparently very close friends ).
 
If we're looking to build the old school way of pitching and defense up the middle we're going to be fine with Bethancourt, Simmons, and Peraza. The problems are B.J. and C.J. We need these guys gone and I think packaging them with Minor and Gattis in two separate deals are the best way to go about it.
 
In a lot of our discussions, we're blurred the distinction between upgrading at third and center and getting rid of CJ and BJ or more precisely parts of the contracts. The two things are not exactly the same. Moving CJ and BJ and parts of their contracts would have benefits. But doing so would not necessarily involve bringing in upgrades at center and third. It is likely to be a multi-step process. But I do think it is useful to view the various decisions Hart makes this off-season within the prism of whether they make it easier to reduce the number of dead spots in the lineup.
 
Chico said:
If we're looking to build the old school way of pitching and defense up the middle we're going to be fine with Bethancourt, Simmons, and Peraza. The problems are B.J. and C.J. We need these guys gone and I think packaging them with Minor and Gattis in two separate deals are the best way to go about it.
Click to expand...

The thing is that our old school way also included several top flight hitters as well. Chipper, Andruw, Javy, Justice, Giles, McGriff, PEndleton, Klesko, Sheffield, Gant, Drew and so on so forth. The bulk of our run we had 2 HOF position players, and other very good pieces around them offensively. Without Jason and Justin, offensively we have Freeman and Gattis and nothing else. CJ is average at best, everyone else sucks. Looking at our minors, we have no great hitters coming along the way either.

Our top position prospects

PEraza - Light hitting SS. Should hit for average fine but shows no exceptional patience or power.
Bethancourt - all glove. You can maybe hope he will develop into something good, but I'm totally skeptical.
Kubitza - Everyone should know my opinion. Guys who strike out as much as he does in the minors usually aren't very good in the majors. Especially with his power. If he had Ryan Howard power and Ryan Howard's minor league K rate, I could cope a little bit better with it.
Albies - Fantastic young talent, but very far off, Seems very much in a similar vein as Peraza so far though his walk rate has been better so far.
Davidson - Fantastic young talent, but also very far off.

Compare that to the readiness of our pitching.

Aside from young pitching in the majors (Julio, Wood, Miller, Minor) we have SIms, Parsons, Hursh, Graham, and Jenkins to name a few guys who could be in the majors shortly. We have tons of options at pitching, nothing for hitting. If the Braves are smart (which they dont' seem to be) they don't trade Justin for anything short of a Teixeira haul of several major league ready players with 2 of them being position players. We should invest our pennies into Justin because as someone pointed out, right handed power is at a premium right now. WE have a great one at it.
 
I find it hard to believe that Simmons and Bethancourt are suddenly going to learn what a walk is so unless they are routinely hitting .310 they are going to be black holes as fair as hitters. Their batting averages in high A doesn't mean squat.
 
BremanFan88 said:
I find it hard to believe that Simmons and Bethancourt are suddenly going to learn what a walk is so unless they are routinely hitting .310 they are going to be black holes as fair as hitters. Their batting averages in high A doesn't mean squat.
Click to expand...

I can see Simmons improving because he is such a great contact hitter, so he could have a high average season one of these days. Whatever the case he will still not walk much or strike out much. But Simmons value is tied to his defense, he is the best defensive shortstop in MLB. So he is the one player in our line-up that I am okay with regardless his bat.

Bethancourt has a great throwing arm and plenty of potential defensively. But I still find his overall defense very overrated as he isn't a good pitch framer, he doesn't block as many balls as you'd think and too often his strong throws are not on target. Then when you add that to his offense I am just not that high on him. He will swing at almost anything usually and that just won't work in MLB. That said, I do like his arm a lot (if only he could improve on his throwing accuracy) and he runs very well for a catcher. I just don't think much about him otherwise. I am also not that hopeful for much improvement given the reports that he is also lazy (though that certainly explains some of the balls he fails to block, etc).
 
Moncada would be a great signing in light of the areas we need to upgrade. He would become the centerfielder of the future, the near future. He would provide some insurance should Kubitza not improve at third. He makes much more sense than Tomas in light of our needs.

Center is really our most problematic position.

At short, Simmons defense make up for his offensive shortcomings. I'm not high on Bethancourt, but given his youth and potential I'm ok with an extended trial. Plus as long as we have Gattis we can move him back if Bethancourt is a bust. At third, CJ is likely to be somewhere between the 2013 and 2014 versions going forward. Not great, but something we can live with. Plus there is Kubitza in the wings. So really, the area that Hart has to zero in on is center.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top