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Atlanta Braves’ John Hart Lays Out the Off-Season Plan

ByAlan Carpenter|
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Jun 17, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Los Angeles Angels bench coach Dino Ebel puts up the starting lineup card in the dugout against the Arizona Diamondbacks during an interleague game at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Our Ryan Cothran was privy today to info from a conference call that Braves’ President of Baseball Operations John Hart held with season ticket holders in which a wide-ranging Q&A was exchanged.  Ryan captured the essence of the most interesting questions and when taken together, the answers seem to give us a tremendous insight into the plans for this off-season.  Ryan has graciously done this legwork and allowed me to add interpretation.

UPDATE:  A Correction and Hat Tip on the original source is in order here:  I’ve been informed that the juicy stuff comes from Hap in a comment posted at BravesJournal.us.  We do appreciate that being shared with Braves Country, and certainly wish to give proper credit for that effort.

First off, here’s Ryan’s original tweet on the subject.

To save your eyes some trouble, here’s a transcript of the above.  Note that these are paraphrased quotes – not necessarily recorded/transcribed direct quotations.

More from Tomahawk Take

  • About Mike Minor:  “They finally found what was wrong with his shoulder”
  • “We’re going to be competitive next year”
  • “We are going to jump the bullpen hard”
  • “We’re going to play hard in the free agent market and probably less so on the trade market”
  • On Left Field:  “It’s probably not going to be that sure bet, big money bat”
  • “We might look at a platoon in left field”
  • On Christian Bethancourt:  “Do we give him the bulk of the playing time?”
  • “I think Shae is a guy we will be able to count on May 1”
  • Regarding prospect starter Max Fried:  “In April he will be on an innings limit… 100-120 regardless of where he is playing”
  • Regarding hitters in the pipeline and Mallex Smith specifically:  “We don’t have those close to ready mid-order bats.  What we do have is a close to ready lead-off hitter.”
  • “I think Ozzie (Ozhaino Albies) is a perfect #2 hitter… again, not a power hitter”
  • “As far as a power bat… Austin Riley… also Dustin Peterson“
  • “Not as loaded with bats in the upper levels but we have some in the lower levels we like”
  • “We are more likely to go after bats in the Free Agent market than pitchers”

Lots of Stuff Here

Here’s my first take on what I’m seeing from these answers:

The biggest thing, though, is the information about Left Field and Catcher.

CATCHER:  If they are indeed intent to “play hard” in the free agent market, “less so” in the trade market, and not go for a big left field bat, then that almost certainly means “catcher”… and that almost certainly points toward Matt Wieters.

There are a handful of other free agent catchers available this off-season:  names are Alex Avila, Chris Iannetta, Dioner Navarro, Brayan Pena, Geovany Soto, and our current catcher, A.J. Pierzynski.

Of these… none would qualify as “playing hard” in free agency other than Wieters.  He’s clearly the class of this group, even with his flaws.  Navarro might be the second-best choice, but it’s a distant second in terms of potential.  Working with Scott Boras to iron out a deal will thus be… interesting.

LEFT FIELD: The notion of a platoon is interesting, given that Nick Swisher is a switch hitter.  It’s less clear what the Braves might do here – whether using Swisher in LF or as a bench bat.  Or how Cameron Maybin or Michael Bourn might be used – or even retained.

Over his career, Swisher hits LHP slightly better than RHP (.265 vs. 243… neither particularly noteworthy).  Lefty hitting Bourn hits RHP as a career rate of .273; Maybin hits LHP for .242 (but .254 vs. RHP).

But mentioning a platoon would seem to suggest the acquisition of another player to go with… somebody else.

So it would seem that there’s some work to do here – and perhaps Hart is looking to the outside for help here… which would require a trade to remove one of the incumbents on the roster.

Among free agent possibilities, the best options among the not-high-dollar players would be Kelly Johnson and Rajai Davis… perhaps David DeJesus or Alejandro De Aza.  Which is to say… we might already have better options on the roster.

Yes, Denard Span is a free agent, too, but with Mallex Smith on deck, would you want to spend a lot on a 32-year-old for several years?

The only other possibility I can fathom here is Jose Bautista, who has a $14 million club option that Toronto would surely pick up… and he’s not exactly a platoon candidate either, so that’s a red herring.

BULLPEN:  It has been known that this was going to be a focus of effort.  Already, the Braves have Shae Simmons and Jason Grilli both set to return at some point (Shae in May as suggested above… Grilli should be available near that same time frame, perhaps a bit later).  Arodys Vizcaino will be back, and then it will be a talent show to see who can emerge from there.

It could also be that the Braves are interested in trying to sign free agent relievers as they did a year ago in Jim Johnson and Grilli.  I won’t list the possibilities here, as there’s literally about two dozen of them.

In any case, good information provided by Hart today and good job by Ryan to capture that for us.  Team President John Schuerholz is scheduled to be on the game broadcast tonight – it will be interesting to see if he corroborates any of this information in his interview.

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