New Feature: Braves Debates

The Verdicts

Question 1: Despite not making a trade for Chris Sale or Chris Archer, the Braves have been very busy this offseason. What free agent acquisition or trade this winter has been the best move the Braves have made to this point?

Andy: Sean Rodriguez
Chris: Jaime Garcia
Brent: Bartolo Colon

Judge’s Opinion: On Sean Rodriguez, I feel Andy made a compelling argument. For a pretty cheap price, the Braves got a good utility man who, if used properly, could also be a fine addition to the lineup. That said, Chris hit you hard with the Zobrist/Rodriguez comparison and the lack of historic success, something that was difficult to argue against. Meanwhile, I must say that I enjoyed Brent’s simple, but to the point argument. Baseball’s supposed to be fun, right? Chris also came after you, though I had a tough time agreeing with the idea that signing Colon wasn’t something serious teams do. Colon may be a clown, as Chris argued, but he’s a clown with a 3.79 FIP over nearly 600 innings over the last three years

Chris hit all the points and did so with gusto. However, he made one critical error and Brent got him for it and wins this round. Chris admitted that Garcia wouldn’t turn the Braves into a winner. Further, Brent also laced into Andy for limiting Rodriguez’s appeal to platoon work. To that point, while the argument lacked much in the form of advanced metrics, Brent made the most complete argument possibly by not trying to make the biggest. He made his appeal and stuck with it while making quick, pointed attacks at Andy and Chris that both stung. He gets the point.

That said, as Brent and others echoed, it’s hard to argue that any of these moves were bad. They were each pretty smart ones for 2017.

Question 2: One word for the front office since Frank Wren was fired could be “active.” Not all could be winners, though. What move by the front office has been the worst? To make this question fair, I am removing the Hector Olivera trade from the Dodgers as a possibility.

Chris: The Non-Moves During Summer of 2015
Brent: Re-signing A.J. Pierzynski
Andy: Trading for Matt Kemp

Judge’s Opinion: This was a tough question to answer, which is a testament to how well the Braves front office has performed under John Hart and John Coppolella. Even when the deals aren’t necessarily winners, they rarely look that bad in retrospect.

Chris turned the question upside down and attacked the moves that weren’t made. Doing so makes for a compelling argument. Personally, I thought (and wrote) of what the Braves could have gotten for guys in 2015 and watched in sadness as both trading deadlines passed with certain players still Braves despite Atlanta going nowhere that year. It appears, at least on the surface, like a missed opportunity to add something to the system of potential future value. What shocks me is that neither of the other commentators went after the idea that the Braves failed by not trading a player like Maybin or Grilli before it was too late. Certainly, we don’t know how desired these players actually were on the open market, do we? Perhaps there wasn’t as much interest as we could have hoped. But nobody made that argument so I can’t penalize Chris’s for it.

Brent sticks with Pierzynski, who was originally brought up by Chris, but suggests that the bigger sin was not, as Chris argued, failing to deal him in 2015, but bringing him back for 2016. At first, I hadn’t considered just how the Pierzynski signing ultimately hurt the Braves. Pierzynski was signed on November 12, ten days into the 2015-16 offseason. However, was Tyler Flowers really on the Braves’ radar at the time? He wouldn’t be non-tendered until December 2 and signed two weeks later with the Braves. Of course, I imagine the prospect of Flowers being non-tendered was a good bet considering his .656 OPS over the three years before.

What pushed me to a decision in this case was the rebuttals. Both Brent and Chris went heavy after Andy, but he held up against the scrutiny by firing back. While Brent made a good body blow arguing from the public relations aspect of getting something for Olivera to save face, Andy was able to fire back at the defensive metrics criticisms by pointing out the years of available information suggesting Kemp is not just a bad defender, but a terrible one. In the end, Andy’s comparison between the investments between Pierzynski and Kemp was the thing that won me over the most to his case.

Not getting something for Grilli or Maybin back in 2015 was frustrating, but even had deals been completed, who’s to say what asset or assets the Braves got in return and whether they would have been better than C-prospects? Pierzynski returning in 2016 was a mistake and an avoidable one that may have hurt the Braves’ bargaining position in dealing Bethancourt as Brent argues. That was a thoughtful position that really intrigued me. However, the question asked for the worst deal and for the money invested into a very flawed player, Kemp takes the cake.

Though, now I regret taking away the original Olivera trade because I believe it could have been a rather interesting fight between arguing which deal was worse – trading for Olivera or trading Olivera away. Perhaps another day, we’ll revisit it.

Question 3: The Braves have a lot of veterans, but the future of this team is found in the farm system. Using Andy Harris’s recently finished Top 30 Prospects, what prospect not ranked in his Top 15 will have the biggest impact on the 2017 Atlanta Braves? You can use prospects not in Andy’s Top 30 as well.

Brent: A.J. Minter
Andy: Lucas Sims
Chris: Caleb Dirks

Judge’s Opinion: I’m not surprised that all three of you chose to push a reliever as the person most likely to make the biggest impact. Each came from a slightly different background, though. Minter was drafted as an injured reliever who the Braves were very high on. Sims was, as Chris pointed out, a top prospect in the system before the additions of higher rated talent and his own stagnation/troubles over the last couple of years. Dirks was a 15th round selection out of a small college in California who the Braves traded away only to reacquire him.

All three are excellent options. Brent’s choice of Minter makes sense considering the domination by the left-hander last season. Brent also makes a smart argument of detailing how his path to the majors isn’t quite as crowded as it might be for righties. I also appreciate that Brent mentions his expectations as I asked for the prospect capable of having the greatest impact. I wasn’t particularly moved by any argument that the 40-man roster will have any impact on keeping Minter in the minors considering, as Chris argued to some degree in favor of Dirks, John Coppolella has never seemed that concerned with the 40-man roster. Chris’s point that managerial usage could limit Minter was a compelling one, though. While Minter’s stuff appears as nasty as anyone’s in the organization, how much faith his manager quickly has in him could be an issue – both for this exercise and fan’s patience during the season provided Minter gets to the majors.

Sims has a pair of legitimate pathways to the majors, as Andy suggests. The Braves might accept that his greatest chance for success will be as a reliever who uses his fastball/curve to get outs. On the other hand, a strong start in the Gwinnett rotation might give him a leg-up should a spot in the big league rotation open up. The problem with Sims and both Brent and Chris addressed it from different ends. Brent argued that he wasn’t more likely to be a difference maker while Chris hyperbolically mentioned how long Sims has been a prospect. We’ve been waiting for Sims so long that maybe we ought to accept that he’s just not the prospect we had hoped. Further, I believe Andy argued himself to a degree. He mentioned how crowded things were for right-handed relievers while trying to sell Sims as a possible reliever in his own right.

Personally, I’ve been a big Dirks fan for a few years now. Putting that aside, I can appreciate how difficult this question was after the first two were taken off the board. Prospects after the Top 15 are generally either A-ball guys with higher ceilings or Double-A/Triple-A players with lower ceilings. That said, in the context of answering my question, Dirks is a tremendous choice because of the numbers he has put up. That said, the glut of right-handed arms definitely could play up here.

This was a tough decision. Unlike the first two questions, I believe picking first really was a factor and that’s why I’m going with Brent. While I can see managerial usage becoming a factor, the easier road to the majors could be a big reason in getting Minter to the majors and if healthy, I believe Brent was right about the lefty having the best shot to be a difference maker. I must say, though, it was very easy to see both Sims and Dirks also playing a role in the 2017 Braves bullpen. The difference just came down to who made the greater argument for their guy making the biggest impact. When it came to that, I sided with Brent.

And the winner is…

The first Braves Debate winner is Brent Blackwell! He won me over at first with Bartolo Colon being the best offseason pickup and clinched victory by arguing that A.J. Minter would have the greatest impact of prospects who missed the Outfield Fly Rule Top 15. Andy Harris and Chris Jervis made compelling arguments throughout, but Brent takes the victory.

If you are curious, had Chris won the third round, we would have had a tie. In that case, I would have gone with the most consistent arguments throughout. Luckily for me, that didn’t happen as it would have been very difficult to make a choice there.

Participant	Appearances	Games Won	Rounds Won
Brent Blackwell	1	1	2
Andy Harris	1	0	1
Chris Jervis	1	0	0

Congrats to Brent and thanks to Andy and Chris for taking part in the first of hopefully an ongoing series. Did I make the wrong choices? Let me know below or via Twitter.