Braves 2014 FanSided Faux Winter Meetings Epilogue

The 2014 FanSided Faux Winter Meetings are over, it was interesting and enlightening. Here’s the final roster and some insight into a couple of moves that drew a lot of interest. To refresh your memory on the details of the moves follow these links.

Day 1 Update

Day 5 Update

Sunday Update

Deadline Deals

Braves Roster Following the 2014 FanSided Faux Winter Meetings

I’m breaking this up into those nontenders, comings and goings and the final roster including payroll.

Nontendered Players

The Braves nontendered the following players

This should be fairly straight forward. The first three are injured pitchers after two and in Venters’ case three TJ surgeries. They probably won’t pitch next year and personally I’ll be surprised if Venters gets anywhere near his previous form. Of the other two Medlen has the best chance of returning. Beachy’s motion puts so much stress on his elbow that I rate his chance at less than 40%.

The Ins and Outs

Here are the players moved both ways for the Braves. The list is not  a match of who was traded for whom, just a list of  the players.

There were a couple who didn’t even stop for coffee. W.e traded for them and then used as currency for future trades

The only “out” that isn’t a player is a $3M a year for the next three years to the Orioles as part of the Upton/Jimenez transaction.

Minor League Acquisitions

In the final flurry of deals at the deadline I offered four players minor league contracts with spring training invites. This had to be done at the end because of the way the free agent bidding process worked.

Franklin Morales

RHP

The 40 Man Roster With Payroll

When the week began I determined that I would stay at or below last season’s payroll of about $112.5M.  This wasn’t a rule although we did have to have a reasonable payroll. I felt based on last year’s attendance – attendance drives income,income drives the following year’s payroll – it would be unrealistic to spend more. This is the kind of thing GMs do – for other reasons – all the time. I don’t know what other teams did, this was just a self imposed limit.

We were restricted by roster and CBA rules. I was offered a trade for this year’s first round draft pick Braxton Davidson. The rules of the draft say a drafted player may not be traded for a year following the draft. I did see one team do that as a PTBNL but I felt – personal decision before I  began  – that this was not a way I was going to operate. I stayed out of the international market and the international draft pick market.  That is such a mess rules wise it wasn’t worth the time.

Strategically I looked for fair value for my players and tried to be realistic about what they were worth. It was expected by some that I would be swamped with offers for Gattis and Justin. I believe I had three or four conversations started from the outside and none of those were ever revisited. I wanted to keep a lineup that would be competitive with a chance of having it all come together. There was therefore no dumping of every outfield bat we had and playing AAAA players.

I didn’t bid on any big free agents like Jon Lester or Pablo Sandoval because I knew what the market would be (Neiman Marcus) and I was only willing to shop at Macy’s or Kohl’s.  Some might say I contradicted that at the end but that wasn’t shopping. I never considered initiating a trade involving Mike Minor or Alex Wood though I was ask about Wood twice. I told everyone at the start that I would listen on everyone but I would expect value that fit my needs. Those offers never materialized.

You’ll notice Tommy La Stella is still on this roster. I believed he was traded but that trade happened after our rosters locked so that trade never happened. I could have asked the Cubs for the deal as I did for the Heyward deal once I did figure it out but I chose not to.  More details later, here’s the final roster.

I managed to stay within my payroll target, move BJ, extend Justin, and I think put together a team that would be more than competitive.

The Lineup

I’m not tied to this by my AGM Andrew Snyder asked me for a projected lineup and here’s what I came up with.

Jennings      R

Lowrie          S

Freeman

Upton

Reddick /Ruggiano

A. Simmons

La Stella

Bethancourt

Rotation

Teheran

Minor

Kennedy

Wood

Miller

Bullpen

Jimenez

Varvaro

Russell

Jaime

Sipp

S. Simmons

Kimbrel

The Questions

• Why take Ian Kennedy and his $10.3 (MLBTR estimated) salary instead of giving Aaron Harang or someone similar $1M again.

The simulated trade involving Kennedy was initiated by the Padres who were looking for a third baseman. We revisited this off and on for a few days before we made the deal. Initially I was looking for Jesse Hahn but taking Kennedy allowed me to move CJ’s contract and while it added $4M this year it cleared the backload we were facing the out years.

The next question suggested that Kennedy was a mediocre pitcher and not worth the $10.3 arbitration number;  essentially saying I could have done as well for less. I did look at pitchers available and made a couple of inquiries about Jared Cosart but in the end I came back to Kennedy.

A lot of the questions about Kennedy go back to his Yankee days when the hype – as usual – was more that the player could live up to. Since coming to the NL and even though he pitched in Phoenix which is bad for every pitcher’s ERA.

Since coming over in  2010 Kennedy’s pitched to a 3.81 ERA, 3.89 FIP and a 1.249 WHIP in 1006 2/3.  In that span only two other  NL pitchers posted a combined ERA and FIP of 4.0 or less, a WHIP under 1.300 and pitched 1000 or more; Clayton Kershaw and Cole Hamels. That’s well worth his $10M price tag and might make him an extension candidate if he continues to pitch to that level

• Why extend Justin and Not Jason; Why give Justin so much?

Jason vs Justin:  As much as I love what Jason COULD be he isn’t that guy yet. Take away the love of the man, the joy at watching him flying around the bases, the thrill of him making a game saving catch and you have something akin to Nick Markakis.

Markakis is a good player but his team turned down a $17M option this year. Sure Jason’s defense is better but is it $7M a year better? Probably not. During the internal discussions about Jennings, Andrew said he’s such a good player but he’s never broken out. That’s Jason. A change of scene may do it for him or he may end up as one of the nearly was…
On the other hand Justin’s thump will hang around for at least 5 years. If he wins us a World Series in that time he’s worth the money. I know the power dissipates with age thing is true but not for everyone.

Nelson Cruz is still thumping at 34 going to be 35. David Ortiz is another. I would expect Justin to opt out at 32 and sign a big AL deal. Justin is a rare commodity in today’s game a power hitter and a great team guy. I felt that the Braves needed a 1-2 / L-R punch and after watching the market – Hanley Ramirez just got 4 at 88M. Pablo Sandoval 5 at near 20. Together they hit 26 in season home runs last year; Justin was better.  Inflation makes those future dollars look smaller.

I see both sides of  this discussion and would have considered a realistic trade but I never got anything close to the Heyward offer and I waited until 5 minutes before deadline to do both Upton deals. It could be a horrible deal or he and F5F could power us a a couple of world series berths. That would easily pay the bill.

That’s A Wrap

I know this was a simulation and in the end nobody lost anything for a bad deal. It was however a well played simulation, no one gave anything away – to me anyway – and everyone understood that a trade is best when both sides get what they want. By the end of last week I was losing what little sanity I had left so I enlisted Andrew Snyder as my AGM to get me through the weekend. He was a tremendous help in finalizing both the deal with the Rays for Jennings and the swap for Detwiler that we flipped into the trade for Jimenez.

This was a tiny lesson in how hard it is to balance what you want with what you have and what’s available while staying within payroll and keeping the roster in tact. It give a tiny bit of insight into the chaos that goes on in a real GM’s mind while balancing these things with the day to day running of the club. That is I think why we’re seeing more president of baseball operations / GM setups; with the money involved it’s just too much for one mind to wrap itself around in any detail.

I’ll try to answer any questions you may have about the way things played out. Thanks for following along with this, now to take a deep breath before San Diego and the real meetings