Why The Braves Traded Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson

All prospects are assets for a team either as a player at some future date or as currency for trades of pieces the team needs

Refilling the Bank Account

So far almost everyone the Braves traded returned some kind of pitching prospect, sometimes at the cost of current year payroll. Understanding why they made those decisions requires looking past 2015.

The Braves are a midmarket team with a payroll unlikely to rise above the middle of the pack is pure dollars.  Teams acquire players three ways; the draft, free agent signings, and via trade.

Players selected in the rule four (June) draft are with few exceptions, three years or more away from making an impact and projecting hitters when drafting high school players is far more problematic than projecting pitchers.

The Braves draft philosophy was and now once again is, draft projectable pitching and trade for everything else unless the bat is someone like Jason Heyward or Freddie Freeman. The caveat to this now seems to be draft pitching from the US and young everyday players from Latin America. The latter group of players are five years away in most cases.

The market for top of the line free agents is expensive and even players that fall into the above average but not star level aren’t cheap. That being the case a team like the Braves has to be careful when it commits out year payroll so it doesn’t end up like the Phillies. Hart managed to rid us of most of the horrible decisions made by his predecessor but it cost us assets we would have preferred to have kept. That leaves the trade.

Contrary to one frustrated fan’s tweet last night, the Braves do not plan a lineup with four pitchers in every game.  Their stockpile of good arms provides a bank account enabling them to allow other teams to take the risk of drafting and developing bats,  then trade for those bats with the those teams need pitchers they don’t have.

UPDATE:

According to the Gwinnett Daily Post the G-Braves pulled shortstop Daniel Castro and third baseman Adonis Garcia from the game against Charlotte in the second inning so they could be ready for promotion to Atlanta. While the Braves transaction page doesn’t shown this move or any other yet, this would fill the gaps on the Braves bench created by the trade.

UPDATE:

Freddie Freeman joins the two names above and Joey T returns to Gwinnett. See Alan’s piece here.

That’s A Wrap.

Most agree that the Braves need to find a couple of guys who’ll hit 20 homers a year to take a load off of Freeman and make opposing pitchers work harder because the lineup is longer. There’s also a feeling they would like to add a younger catcher who has solid defense and a league average bat.

The free agent market offers players that fill that bill but they are expensive signs. While they will do their due diligence and talk with all the players’ agents, the probability of the Braves engaging in a bidding war to get a player like Matt Wieters or bring back Justin Upton is extremely low. This highlights the importance of valuable trade pieces.

That the Braves traded two players with no future value to the team to improve their trade bank account isn’t a shock. I expect them to trade Jim Johnson and perhaps a few more pieces to continue to build that resource with a view to using it this off season.

Stay tuned here at the Take  for details of the trades to come and their impact on the Braves plans then give us your take on the deals.