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2014 Atlanta Braves Thread: HOF SMOLTZIE!

GPDeac said:
We will be scary bad next year (although starting rotation still well above average), but, we have moved a farm system from one that was among 5 worst in baseball, to close to top 10.
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Too bad they're better than the actual big league club.
 
seriously one of the few remaining position players on the big league team. poor freddie & simba.
 
JackBauer said:
Wish we could have somehow unloaded BJ in the deal. Even if it meant sending cash.
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No reason to do this since the team isn't looking to compete for a couple of years. It's not like we need to free up the money to sign another free agent. At this point it doesn't really matter if BJ Upton sucks again next year.
 
Well Gattis can't play left without giving his offense back up in defense. I think it's fine to question why he can't catch, although he hasn't stayed healthy there himself.

The problem with CB is he needs to improve significantly with the bat if he is going to be an every day guy. Oh yeah, his defensive tools haven't translated in games either from what I've seen other than his big arm.
 
Bethancourt doesn't even necessarily need to get hurt. He may just suck.
 
But CB has been pushed aggressively when he probably should have repeated a level somewhere along the way.
 
Man, unless a few of these prospects turn out to be the next Koufax, we are going to suck HARD for a few years.

My problem is that even after rebuilding, we are still going to need to sign some high priced FAs to really go for the division, and our FO has a pretty shitty record of that as of late.
 
MLB.com slots Foltynewicz and Ruiz in as our new number 2 and 6 prospects. Not sure if Jim Callis (formerly of BA) is behind the rankings but he moved to MLB to help with their prospect coverage.
 
Thurmann has the chance to be really good, but there's a lot of disagreement about how big that chance is. Has displayed feel for 3-4 pitches, but his biggest problem has been weirdly inconsistent velocity. Apparently his velo spiked leading up to the 2013 draft, then tailed off in his first full season, then went back up at the end of the season. Hard to say what's going on there, but there's definite upside. Could be an injury concern, could be a development concern, could be that he just isn't that good. But he'll have starts that really impress scouts, and that counts for something with minor league arms.

Ruiz has a smooth lefty stroke; hits for average and doubles power. Apparently commands the strike zone well. Scouts worry about his bat speed at higher levels, and its weird that he hasn't started turning doubles into homeruns. Still, he's been young for every level through A+, and he's produced so far. Defensively, he was billed as a multi-sport athlete coming out of high school (he was committed to play FB at USC), but apparently he's always been a step slow at 3B and he's a fringy runner. I read some reports last year that thought he'd kind of gained some weight. Sounds like he really just needs to hit the gym, because everyone always agrees that he has good hands and mechanics. Just looks less athletic than he used to be.

Foltynewicz will blow you away with his power arm, but the results have always underwhelmed. He's tinkered around with off-speed offerings, but he's never had great control or command of anything other than his fastball. Throwing 99 mph+ gas with some fringe offerings in a reliever role is probably his outcome, unless the Braves development staff can rework something.

IMO, their ceilings are Ruiz > Folty > Thurmann, but I'm actually a little torn on Thurmann/Folty. Scouting reports always liked Thurmann a lot better than his numbers. Not as much for Folty.

I'm doing this all from memory after following these guys for the last couple years, but Kiley McDaniel at fangraphs did a lot of big writeups recently.
 
Dave O'Brien seems to be all over Nori Aoki, so it's possible next year's lineup could look like this:

1. Aoki - LF
2. Callaspo - 2B
3. Markakis - RF
4. Freeman - 1B
5. Johnson - 3B
6. Upton - CF
7. Simmons - SS
8. Bethancourt - C
9. SP

What is the record for least home runs ever hit by a MLB team?
 
Say Hey Deac said:
1. Aoki - LF
2. Callaspo - 2B
3. Markakis - RF
4. Freeman - 1B
5. Johnson - 3B
6. Upton - CF
7. Simmons - SS
8. Bethancourt - C
9. SP
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Can someone with Insider post/summarize Keith Law's analysis of the Gattis trade?
 
Good news is that there won't be many times where we load the bases and fail to score a run.

Bad news, not sure how many times the bases are gonna be loaded.

Lots of 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 games coming this season...

Team will be stacked by 2017/2018 (THAT IS THE GOAL).
 
Say Hey Deac said:
Dave O'Brien seems to be all over Nori Aoki, so it's possible next year's lineup could look like this:

1. Aoki - LF
2. Callaspo - 2B
3. Markakis - RF
4. Freeman - 1B
5. Johnson - 3B
6. Upton - CF
7. Simmons - SS
8. Bethancourt - C
9. SP

What is the record for least home runs ever hit by a MLB team?
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Connie is still on the 40 man and he's Fredi's favorite toy.
 
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