What to do with Uggla now?

This is the type of deal I expect Wren to come up with for 2B. He will probably be looking to "fix" 2B again in 2-3 years when he is paying a 35+ year old Brandon Phillips to be terrible, but it should fix the position for now, and the Braves are in a position to win a WS NOW. He will slide right into the cleanup hole that Uggla was supposed to man, all the while playing excellent defense at 2B. The prospect going the other way is going to hurt, because the only players of any value may end up being really good (Wood, Sims, CB).

However, since this is trade would be pretty even salary-wise, it allows Wren to make other moves as well. All of a sudden signing a guy like JJ to an incentive laden deal with a $10M base salary makes a ton of sense. Getting a solid LHed bench bat is possible with the extra money as well.
 
zitothebrave said:
Hey some of us have liked La Stella for much longer than just the past week or past season :snort:

That said, I liked Tommy as a value player. I think he'll be that. One thing I've learned in the last decade is not every quality major leaguer is a top prospect. When you see guys who only do 2 things or even 1 thing but do it extremely well there's value to that. We've now had 3 of those guys in recent years who've been key to our success recently. In the past it was Bourn and Prado, Bourn was a speed and defense guy who made acceptable contact. Prado a good contact guy with acceptable power. And Chris Johnson a line drive extraordinaire.

For me Tommy piqued my interest in 11 buy I rarely get excited for guys in one season, in 12 is when I really started following him. I think anytime you have a minor league player who walks more than he Ks he's worth getting a little excited for. He's shown to me that there's a very real chance he could be like Pedroia with the bat. Obviously not close to as valuable of a player as Pedroia cause aside from hitting very well, Dustin is a good baserunner and great defender. I think that's the type of guture we may have in Tommy, of course he may never hit it but if we can have a roughly 3 WAR or so 2B for cheap why not take it? Before this year, Uggla's worst season was a 2.2 fWAR, I don't think Tommy is as bad defensively as Uggla was for us in 2011 and I don't think a 111 wRC+ is out of the question for him.

In the end this is how I look at it, in 2013 Braves 2B combined for a 0.6 fWAR, we had the 3rd highest team fWAR in the NL. Where we struggled was quite obvious, CF and 2B. Now we made up for CF with outstanding catchers, Freddie, Justin, CJ, and Jason, but honestly how much much worse if at all can Tommy be than our 2B last year? He had Dan no hit no field Uggla and Elliot No Hit OK Field Johnson. How can Tommy be much worse than them?

Odds are we can't trade Uggla for much we'll largely be in the same boat we were in with Lowe. For me what will likely happen is Fredi makes 2B open competition between Uggla, Tommy, and Tyler.
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Good post. Pena's in the mix, but they'd probably prefer to have him available as supersub. Hopefully, La Stella keeps raking in the AFL. Still see him as a year away. Why rush, if there's at least another year to work on the defense?
 
There is no additional traction. This is a duplication of the same stuff that was reported. I am going to merge these two threads.
 
As long as the prospect isnt a top one, i wouldnt mind BP at all.

With Mac all but gone, CB is off limits.
 
How much better is BP than Uggla? What's the WAR? OBP? They're the same age essentially. BP had Votto and Choo in the same lineup and drove in 98. His defense is better than Uggla's. He is signed for two years longer. Only 2 years from getting out from under Uggla. Take those two years and 26 million and give em to Mac. BP is not a Braves type player. JMO.
 
It makes no sense. Yes I would much rather have Phillips but no way I want to take on another contract like that.
 
Wouldn't mind BP, but the longer contract is a deal breaker. It isn't in our FO nature to block a prospect either.
 
In the future, ATL should stay away from any deal that involves the Florida Marlins. I can only think of two, Uggla and if y'all will remember, Mike Hampton had Marlin involvement to make that deal work.

As far as Uggla/BP, each time is going to have to bite the bullet, with Cincy needing to move BP more than ATL needing to move Uggla. In another setting, BP will outperform his 2013, while Uggla has essentially become Rob Deer lite.
 
I'm only on BP if the Reds are dumping him....like Uggla + C prospect for BP.

I don't love the contract cost or the length.

I wish I knew what the Braves didn't like about LaStella. He seems like a solid player that fits our needs and is cheap.

With BP + Uptons I wonder what our ability would be to keep other guys. We'd probably be able to keep 2 more 10 million plus guys.....but that means we're losing some of guys out of Heyward, FF, Simba, Minor, Tehran, etc.
 
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