Atlanta Braves Roster Disaster

The 2016 Atlanta Braves Roster Has been a Disaster

After the 2015 season Atlanta Braves General Manager John Coppolella and President of Baseball Operations John Hart said they were embarrassed by the post All Star Game collapse and vowed that it wouldn’t happen again.  It appears they were right, it’s impossible to collapse when you’re already at the bottom.

The Gold Standard Is Fools Gold

When the Braves were just 0-9 Coppolella blamed the tough schedule and the injury to Ender Inciarte for the team’s woes  before saying, “. . .ultimately it comes down to our execution, and we haven’t played up to our abilities early in the season. It’s very disappointing.”

"The Braves are a gold-standard organization, and to start out the season in this manner is embarrassing and unacceptable. John Schuerholz and John Hart have been great mentors in terms of trying to keep things in perspective. We have so many other great things going on in other areas of our organization, but we do need to start playing better and winning more games."

He went on to tell MLB.con that he believed the club’s 25-man roster was better than the group that finished last season 67-95. He told the AJC his rationale.

"“I think it’s a deeper lineup, better bullpen, growth of young players and improved health,” Coppolella said. “Those four factors, I think, put a better team out there for us. Whether or not it leads to a better record … it’s a better 25.”"

Well, that’s what he gets for thinking.

Next: Change what change?

Nothing Changes when nothing changes

It’s not that last year’s roster was better; it wasn’t.  A few names have changed but there’s essentially no difference between the two 25 man lists.

Cameron Maybin is gone – mistake – by Inciarte is in his spot. We replaced Christian Bethancourt with Tyler Flowers, Shelby Miller with Jhoulys Chacin, Trevor Cahill et al with Bud Norris. The bullpen merry-go-round has different horses but the results have been about the same. Arodys Vizcaino, Matt Withrow and a recovering Jason Grilli at the back look solid and Alexi Ogando’s been sound but we’ve seen bit players go up and down and faith placed in Eric O’Flaherty with let’s say inconsistent results. The bullpen might actually be okay if we could get to them with a lead and use them sometime after the sixth inning instead of the third fourth and fifth,

Andrelton Simmons is gone but we have Erick Aybar whose bat and defense are worse but in reality that hasn’t been a factor. This roster suffers from the same two lineup issues as last season; lack of depth and lack of pop. The proof comes from the injury to Gordon Beckham when the only players available for call up without a roster move were pitchers.

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The roster is made up of AAAA players and worn out vets bookended by Nick Markakis, Freddie Freeman, Julio Teheran and when healthy Inciarte. None of the rest would start on a good team. On top of that it consists of 25 pitchers, the 12 everyday players currently with the team, Inciarte, Beckham and Hector Olivera;  that’s simply bad planning. As I was writing this Ken Rosenthal linked his post from late this afternoon put it this way.

"The Braves will gain significant financial flexibility this offseason, thanks to at least $50 million in expiring contracts. Some of their top prospects will be ready for the majors, or close to it, in 2017. Bud Black, or someone like him, could be the new manager. Here’s the problem: If the Braves failed to properly evaluate this year’s roster — an understatement, the way things are turning out — who’s to say their other evaluations can be trusted?"

Who indeed would make that leap?

Next: What Next?

What to do?

We can’t play on Yoenis Cespedes, Jose Bautista or Edwin Encarnacion in the FA market, our middle infield is in the minors and it’s hard to see them signing a guy like David Freese after they passed on him a few weeks ago. Wilson Ramos and Matt Wieters are in the group so maybe we can get a catcher and we might take a flyer on Colby Rasmus in the outfield. Indications are that the path to improvement will be through trades but with power bats in short supply the price may well be more than they afford without returning the minor leagues to pre-2015 levels.

Bad Contracts – Bad Contracts wanted here please!

I opined last night during the slaughter that the Braves were frantically trying to find a way to change things as witness by the ill-advised and fatally flawed attempts to trade Olivera Tonight Jeff Passan tweeted out supporting evidence for that proposition

Suddenly Alan’s suggestion that we talk to Milwaukee about Ryan Braun – without the Olivera dump he offered – doesn’t seem so far out in left field. No other bad contracts jump off the screen for me as most are DH types or broken pitchers and we have plenty of those.

The apparent desire for comp round draft picks and plans to buy every Latin American player make it look more and more like 2017 is a dream and 2018 merely a hope.

Next: Finally. . .

That’s A Wrap

The single-minded focus on pitching demonstrated since Hart and Coppolella took over seemed to become an obsession that resulted in some really odd trades.

Maybin was dumped for two pitchers we may never see in Atlanta as anything other than bit players so it was essentially a salary dump.  The trade of Andrelton Simmons was not an exchange of talent no matter how much Coppolella protests, I believe there was more behind the scenes to the trade but until that information surfaces we have to take him at his word and that word is just wrong.

Aybar may recover to mediocrity but so far he looks like the rapidly declining player he was last year. Sean Newcomb is walking a batter for every strikeout at Pearl and has a 1.300 WHIP to show for it. He also walked right past fans trying to get autographs in spring training, while Dansby Swanson and Mike Foltynewicz made u-turns to sign for fans and especially kids.

It didn’t have to be this way, Ian Desmond signed for a song in Texas and in spite of his bad start at the plate he would have been a plus at third base. Freese signed 2 weeks into spring training and has settled in to play good third base for the Bucs. Those two players and Maybin would have made this team significantly better.

Of course those players would have cost a few dollars and we know they are conscious of that now; or are they? The haven’t released O’Flaherty because they don’t want to eat his salary but now they want to throw money at bad contracts to gain draft picks

As Rosenthal said 2015 is lost, Fredi Gonzalez will be fired when we get home. Some unlucky guy will be chosen to take his yolk and drag it through to the end of the year when he too will be sacrificed along with the rest of the staff.  All we can do is hope that we get a good manager who to work with the young players and that Rio Ruiz, Ozzie Albies and Swanson make the jump early, successfully and stay hot.