International Signings, Trades and the Braves
By Fred Owens
” width=”492″ height=”738″ /> Former Padre and now Former Brave Jordan Paroubeck
The Trades
On Thursday afternoon we began to see the needed trades occur.
Trade #1
Cody Martin became a member of the Oakland Athletics in exchange for Oakland’s #53 slot value of $388,400. Martin was available for almost nothing in December so this was a pretty good move. Oakland is desperate to shore up their bullpen and using slot allocation allowed them to do it without affecting their existing depth.
Trade #2
Later the Dodgers sent their slot 87 allocation of $249,000 to Atlanta for 22 year old relief pitcher RHP Caleb Dirks and OF Jordan Paroubeck.
The Braves selected college closer Dirks in the 15th round last year. He appeared in 21 games that year between Danville and Rome and saved five games. This year he split time between Rome and Carolina appearing in 17 games with three saves. The Braves essentially replaced Dirks 91-94mph heater with A.J. Minter and his 96-99 heater in this year’s draft.
Paroubeck became a member of Braves along with Matt Wisler, Cameron Maybin, Carlos Quentin and a comp balance pick when they dumped Melvin Upton Jr. on the Padres because they coveted Craig Kimbrel so badly they’d do something silly to get him. Paroubeck was supposed to be a great athlete, a good outfielder and had potential to be a good hitter as witnessed by his .286/.346/.457 line in 157 PA in last year’s Arizona Fall League. So far this year he hasn’t picked up a bat or a glove.
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Trade #3
The last move came late Thursday when the Braves picked up $494,200 from the Rays (slots 73 and 103) for RHP Garrett Fulenchek. That brought the total of acquired pool money $1,131,600 and brought their pool to $3,590,000, leaving them either $97,600 or $410,000 depending on the actual max, short of their 150% max but providing enough to cover the reported signings with about $190K (or $500k depending on the actual maximum) to spare.
Fulenchek was the best looking and closest to arriving player the Braves have dealt so far. He was their second-round pick in 2014 and Baseball American placed him as the Braves #9 prospect and Fangraphs # 17 prospect when the season started . he woke up yesterday as MLB Pipeline’s #13 for the Braves and today he belongs to Tampa. The last move says something about the Braves stance moving forward. More on that in a bit.
Alan’s post gives the scouting data on Cruz and Pache. At 16 years old these guys are at least five years away from the majors while Fulenchek was at most 18 months away from being a valuable starter (ignoring TINSTAAPP of course). That factor – TINSTAAPP = there is no such thing as a pitching prospect – may well be the reason they made the trade.
The current generation of pitchers are almost expected to have elbow surgery making TINSTAAPP more applicable than ever. Add to that the lack of good bats and the limitations of the current draft and you can see that a team might think grabbing high upside hitters while they are still in figurative diapers is enticing.
In the past two seasons teams drafted pitchers who were already injured and/or recovering from injury. The Braves made it a strategy to acquire former high level picks from teams who were no longer willing to wait until the pitcher’s rehabilitation was complete. They obviously see that as a way of the world going forward. Bat’s on the other hand are only given up for pitching.
Draft pitching and trade for the rest is still valid however the cost of the bats goes up as the number of pitchers goes down so signing young bats makes sense. Alan will have more on this later today.
Next: Trades in the Future