Braves offseason thread

[Commercecomet24]

We are going to need to trade for an arm or a legit LF/SS to win another ring

Naw we got plenty of arms, one of the top staffs in mlb and arcia is doing a very good job. Lf is kinda of mess but Rosario is starting to pick it up, ozuna that's another story.

[smootness]

Agree. You have nearly 2/3 of the lineup locked up for 7-8 years and Strider. They most likely will not pay Fried's asking price and Morton is about done. So there are a lot of questions with depth, LF, and a couple of spots withe the rotation. That's why all of those pitching misses hurt, the Braves had a LOT of holes in the pitching rotation and weren't willing to spend $ there outside of 1 year contracts. They got fill in success from those guys I mentioned but nothing sustained, and when they held on to them too long, their values diminished.

They need to get another title in the next couple of years and it'll be a good run. I'm glad the Braves payroll is expanding, but it's only going to get worse for them. Fried's gonna be gone. SOMEBODY is going to pay 5-600 mill for Ohtani, whether that's the Mets or Dodgers. Phillies are going to continue to spend stupid money. It's going to be hard to keep up with those guys if the Braves can't replenish the minor league talent and build up some trade capital.

It's always easy in hindsight to say, 'We should have kept ___ and gotten value out of ___ while we could have.' The problem is, you never really know who those guys are beforehand. That's why AA kept most of them, because the odds of some of them hitting are high when you have that many. And you know some won't, and that's ok if several do. And we've had several hit in a big way. If Soroka comes back healthy this year, we suddenly have an embarrassment of riches in the rotation. Look around baseball, nobody has 'enough' pitching.

And the reason our farm system is so weak right now is because a) we have graduated a bunch of really good players in the last few years, and b) we have drafted low and had serious international restrictions. Those international restrictions have now been lifted, so we should be able to once again pull actual talent from that market, and we need some time to re-stock. It's in no way a failure of AA that our farm system is weak right now. It's actually a product of us doing such a great job of actually graduating our talent into legit MLB players. And because we have so much young talent locked up long-term, it buys us the time to restock and rebuild our farm system.

Obviously it remains to be seen what happens with player health and how the farm system gets built back up, but AA so far has provided just about a masterclass on how to do it.

[smootness]

We are going to need to trade for an arm or a legit LF/SS to win another ring

Not true at all. All we really need is decent health. If we added an arm or a legit LF/SS, we would become the unquestioned favorites.

[shoeless joe]

It's always easy in hindsight to say, 'We should have kept ___ and gotten value out of ___ while we could have.' The problem is, you never really know who those guys are beforehand. That's why AA kept most of them, because the odds of some of them hitting are high when you have that many. And you know some won't, and that's ok if several do. And we've had several hit in a big way. If Soroka comes back healthy this year, we suddenly have an embarrassment of riches in the rotation. Look around baseball, nobody has 'enough' pitching.

And the reason our farm system is so weak right now is because a) we have graduated a bunch of really good players in the last few years, and b) we have drafted low and had serious international restrictions. Those international restrictions have now been lifted, so we should be able to once again pull actual talent from that market, and we need some time to re-stock. It's in no way a failure of AA that our farm system is weak right now. It's actually a product of us doing such a great job of actually graduating our talent into legit MLB players. And because we have so much young talent locked up long-term, it buys us the time to restock and rebuild our farm system.

Obviously it remains to be seen what happens with player health and how the farm system gets built back up, but AA so far has provided just about a masterclass on how to do it.

If every single free agent walks with nothing in return then it is on AA. And that is one reason the farm is in the shape it’s in. Other teams are bringing up youngsters, signing stars, and maintaining a solid or even great farm system. To act like it can’t be done is just an excuse.

And I’m not advocating for trading upcoming free agents. But at this point some of them need to be signed. Fried should be locked up before next season.

[Really Clark?]

If every single free agent walks with nothing in return then it is on AA. And that is one reason the farm is in the shape it’s in. Other teams are bringing up youngsters, signing stars, and maintaining a solid or even great farm system. To act like it can’t be done is just an excuse.

And I’m not advocating for trading upcoming free agents. But at this point some of them need to be signed. Fried should be locked up before next season.

Hard to lock up Fried when he is wanting to go to free agency

[StarkVegasSteve]

If every single free agent walks with nothing in return then it is on AA. And that is one reason the farm is in the shape it’s in. Other teams are bringing up youngsters, signing stars, and maintaining a solid or even great farm system. To act like it can’t be done is just an excuse.

And I’m not advocating for trading upcoming free agents. But at this point some of them need to be signed. Fried should be locked up before next season.

The farm is also in the shape it's in because we missed a little on guys like Pache and Waters and guys like Strider and Harris have developed faster than anticipated.

[msstate7]

The braves' farm sucked last year too... well, until it brought up Harris, strider, Grissom, and even elder (huge down the stretch last year). Is any farm producing the mlb talent of the braves?

[StarkVegasSteve]

The braves' farm sucked last year too... well, until it brought up Harris, strider, Grissom, and even elder (huge down the stretch last year). Is any farm producing the mlb talent of the braves?

The difference with the last probably 8 years is from 2015-2021 and now the Braves had the best farm system is baseball during that stretch. It was all home grown and now they're all in the majors. Acuna, Albies, Swanson, Riley, Fried, Strider, Harris, Elder, Soroka. No team since the early 90s Braves have hit like that. We all had hoped that the next crop of that would be Strider, Harris, Grissom, Shewmake, Waters, and Pache but two got called up early and two others got traded or didn't pan out. The stockpile will have to start again VERY soon, but I trust AA to get it done. He's done it twice before.

[msstate7]

Pache and langeliers netted us Olson, so they were beneficial.

Waters netted us JR Richie, so who knows if drew was beneficial.

Grissom looks like he can be an mlb hitter, but not sure he has a position with the braves. He could be used a trade piece imo.

Contreras helped land us Murphy, so that and last year makes him beneficial.

Shewmake looks like a bust

[parabrave]

Pache was a bust. He was sent up to AAA just to get him out and away from the other players/ I thought Drew Waters was going places. Shewmake needed another year at AA. When he went up people were surprised

[msstate7]

Pache was a bust. He was sent up to AAA just to get him out and away from the other players/ I thought Drew Waters was going places. Shewmake needed another year at AA. When he went up people were surprised

Pache helped us get Olson; so while pache was a bust for A's, I don't count him as a bust for braves. He brought value to the braves with Olson. Langeliers looks bad also for A's, who was in that trade.

[BuckyIsAB****]

Not true at all. All we really need is decent health. If we added an arm or a legit LF/SS, we would become the unquestioned favorites.

We could use another legit starter. We have 3 established and 1 of them is hurt. LF speaks for itself

[RockyDog]

Arcia is out for a while so Grissom should be called back up. Time to see if he is going to be a SS or help out in LF and DH short term.

He is definitely not a trade piece at this time with all of the sudden injuries. And unfortunately a lot of the mock trade scenarios that were thrown around during spring training and before had him paired up with Ian Anderson. So you can throw that out the window now. But to move forward on any kind of trade in the future it?s gonna have to include either Grissom or Shewmake. They are the highest values left of the position players.

[shoeless joe]

Hard to lock up Fried when he is wanting to go to free agency

You may be correct but the last I saw during spring training was that he was ready and willing to talk extension with Braves.


Just went back and looked at that article. Fried said “if that’s something that comes to the table we’ll talk about it.” So not as promising as I’d remembered. And that’s where AA has to be able to make a measured decision. If there’s no shot to re sign him he could get an absolute haul in return after this season. Obviously would be made easier if everyone else in rotation steps up. We’ll see. But letting every established veteran all star walk while maintaining a week farm doesn’t seem like a recipe for success.

[smootness]

We could use another legit starter. We have 3 established and 1 of them is hurt. LF speaks for itself

And my point is that even with those apparent issues (and I disagree that we have 3 legit starters. We have 2 aces, 1 very good starter, 1 very good starter coming back from injury, 1 veteran who is definitely a legit starter, and a bunch of young guys with ability), we're still a WS favorite. If that's how you're defining legit starters, then no team has 4-5 of them.

[smootness]

If every single free agent walks with nothing in return then it is on AA. And that is one reason the farm is in the shape it’s in. Other teams are bringing up youngsters, signing stars, and maintaining a solid or even great farm system. To act like it can’t be done is just an excuse.

And I’m not advocating for trading upcoming free agents. But at this point some of them need to be signed. Fried should be locked up before next season.

That's one of the consequences of having a contender. You don't want to trade Freeman and Dansby while you're in the middle of a WS run. If that's what you're advocating, then yikes.

As for other teams, please give me the other teams who have called up and signed as much talent as the Braves have over the last 4-5 years, not even adding in the supposed solid/great farm system these teams are still fielding. The Dodgers may be the only team capable of fielding a true contender and possessing a top farm system year after year because they're the only team with unlimited money to play with. And even they have struggled to keep graduating talent from their farm system, which is why they're a little down this year.

If you added Strider and Harris to our system, we'd be at worst middle of the pack with two studs, and everybody would feel good about our farm system. It's actually because we have graduated talent successfully that our farm system is now down. That, and the restrictions on our international signings. We have had lower draft picks, basically no international signings, and we've been graduating our talent all while trying to keep our major league talent and build a contender. That is always a recipe for a down farm system. Where we need to start growing it back is by hitting on some draft picks (we'll see how last year pans out, I liked those picks) and being as aggressive as we can be internationally now that our restrictions are gone. But getting back to a top-5 system will be very, very hard during this window over the next 5-6 years.

[SilentSteel16]

The braves' farm sucked last year too... well, until it brought up Harris, strider, Grissom, and even elder (huge down the stretch last year). Is any farm producing the mlb talent of the braves?

You mean like the Padres,Mariners, Rays, Orioles,Dodgers,or the White Sox. You take those 6 teams out and yes Braves are easily top 10

[shoeless joe]

That's one of the consequences of having a contender. You don't want to trade Freeman and Dansby while you're in the middle of a WS run. If that's what you're advocating, then yikes.

As for other teams, please give me the other teams who have called up and signed as much talent as the Braves have over the last 4-5 years, not even adding in the supposed solid/great farm system these teams are still fielding. The Dodgers may be the only team capable of fielding a true contender and possessing a top farm system year after year because they're the only team with unlimited money to play with. And even they have struggled to keep graduating talent from their farm system, which is why they're a little down this year.

If you added Strider and Harris to our system, we'd be at worst middle of the pack with two studs, and everybody would feel good about our farm system. It's actually because we have graduated talent successfully that our farm system is now down. That, and the restrictions on our international signings. We have had lower draft picks, basically no international signings, and we've been graduating our talent all while trying to keep our major league talent and build a contender. That is always a recipe for a down farm system. Where we need to start growing it back is by hitting on some draft picks (we'll see how last year pans out, I liked those picks) and being as aggressive as we can be internationally now that our restrictions are gone. But getting back to a top-5 system will be very, very hard during this window over the next 5-6 years.

Not advocating for trading studds instead of going after the latest WS title.

To your other question about maintaining a farm and still competing at a championship level…obviously the dodgers are the cream of the crop right now. You’ve also got the rays, cardinals, Mets, Yankees, and brewers that are all legit WS contenders that also have a farm system ranked in the top half of the league.

It’s doable. Again, win another title during this run and I won’t care what the farm looks like and they can go thru a 10 yr rebuild that no one will question. However, it is absolutely ridiculous to think that competing, maintaining a top half farm system, AND not letting every veteran all star walk is some pipe dream that can’t be done.

[SilentSteel16]

If you are talking pitching depth and talent there is a HUGE drop off after Padres, Tigers and Rays, what those 3 teams have done over the past 5 years has been unreal. I am a big time Astros fan but pitching development of those 3 orgs have been phenomenal.

[msstate7]

You mean like the Padres,Mariners, Rays, Orioles,Dodgers,or the White Sox. You take those 6 teams out and yes Braves are easily top 10

The braves are the current WS favorite, winner of east division 4 straight years, and 2021 WS champs bc they have developed as good as anyone in baseball. Lol, at having some of those teams producing mlb talent better than the braves.