While perusing recent Atlanta Braves-related Twitter feeds and Facebook posts, I noticed many who take public statements from General Managers at face value. I have fallen for this as well, and others will if they are not careful. In fact, I started to fall into this trap this morning while scrolling through MLB Trade Rumors. This particular article caught my eye because I recently dug into the Cincinnati Reds’ system when I targeted Raisel Iglesias and Jared Hughes in the trade proposal piece we did here at OFR last week.
This particular line especially had my mental wheels spinning:
“President of baseball ops Dick Williams told MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon yesterday that “other teams aren’t spinning their wheels talking about players we’re not interested in moving at this point,” and there’s even been talk of Cincinnati adding pieces controlled beyond the 2018 season in an effort to return to contending next season.”
I assume Williams meant several members of the Reds’ quality relief corps who came up regularly in trade banter. After all, this is a market looking for relief help. You don’t have to be an expert at reading between the lines to guess that.
Reading this piece, I went through several stages of thought:
First thought: Really my first thought was more one of surprise. The 45-58 Reds were thinking about buying at the deadline? And doing so with the thought of contending as soon as next year? This is why they aren’t willing to part with cheap, quality relievers?
Second thought: Maybe this IS reasonable. There could be reason to legitimately go that direction for the Reds. Their starting rotation is terrible, but mostly young and inexperienced. I noticed when looking at team needs that they’re actually pretty good on the offensive side. They do have good prospects in Nick Senzel, Hunter Green, and Taylor Trammell, even if the farm seems a little bare.
Third thought: Trust nothing at the trade deadline other than a trade confirmed by multiple, legitimate sources! GMs will say pretty much anything to make the value of their assets go up, and our minds want to make it make sense. As we get close to the deadline, there’s a lot of gamesmanship that goes on. This could very well be a prime example of a GM using an eager media to his advantage. And it wouldn’t be the first time.
A realistic look at the Reds shows that of their few highly rated prospects – Senzel, Trammell, Green, and Jonathan India – all are position players other than Green, a promising righty who is in A ball. In fact, Senzel is the only impact prospect reasonably within a year of the majors. Meanwhile, their MLB starting pitching is in shambles. After finishing next to last in starting pitcher fWAR last season, they brought in Matt Harvey to help anchor a young rotation, and so far he has led them to dead last in SP fWAR this season. There’s still promising arms in Tyler Mahle and Luis Castillo, but overall, they need serious help in the rotation, which is additionally weighted down by the heavy weight of Homer Bailey’s sunk cost through next season ($23 million in 2019 and currently posting a -0.3 fWAR this year).
I don’t know which of these is true. I can, however, venture an educated guess based on looking at the Reds situation, and not just trusting the words of the GM. That guess is the Reds aren’t desperate to move their relievers now, but would probably love to take advantage of the portion of the buyers looking for controllable relievers if the right deal comes along for a controllable starting pitcher who is MLB-ready, or nearly there. Sounds like that deal is not there, yet. A statement like this could play a role in an age-old strategy to flip the way one or more GMs views the situation through public perception of how desperate a team is to move its assets.
I find the statement suspect, so I’m guessing other GMs also find it suspect – but it does plant that little seed of doubt that sticks with you: Maybe what he says is reasonable?
How Does This Affect Potential Braves Trades?
When I played pretend Atlanta Braves GM, I was thinking the Reds might be desperate for quality starting pitching and made an offer that favored me: Max Fried and AA reliever Thomas Burrows for Iglesias and Hughes. Hey, I’m a Braves fan and prospect lover, so I acknowledge I might be low-balling the offer, but as a GM, why not start low? But this sort of statement from them basically tells us we’ll have to make a stronger offer, or move on to another deal. It banks on the notion that one of the teams the Reds are negotiating with is desperate enough to pay a steeper cost rather than walk away or stand pat in the current offer in hopes as the clock ticks down the Reds will feel more pressure to take it. If I am Alex Anthopoulos, and I have an offer out on these guys, I’m feeling some pressure right now to up it, and I probably would. This is a moment where we can leverage our system depth to meet a need with relief pitchers under control for two more seasons.
Whatever Alex Anthopoulos might or might not be doing behind the scenes (and he’s annoyingly closed-door about it for us antsy fans), the main takeaway it to trust nothing, especially public GM statements supposedly revealing strategy. They all have ulterior motives, especially when the statement is made by a seller at the trade deadline. And none of this factors in the active public relations departments and creative ‘leaks’ of players’ agents, who are trying to influence outcomes for their clients.
All we know now is that we’ll know more when the dust settles in a few days. At that point, we can start speculating about who has and hasn’t cleared waivers! The baseball fun never stops!
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