Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: 1 inning, 1 price, 1 plan
Braves, like Mets before them, banking on future making up for lost season
DAVID LENNON / NEW YORK NEWSDAY
BOSTON – For decades, all the Mets ever wanted to be were the Braves, a pitching-rich perennial division winner.
But here in 2016, the script has flipped, and it’s Atlanta with the slashed payroll, the stocked minor-league system and little chance of winning on a nightly basis.
For many other teams around baseball, in every division, that’s just fine, too. Another year of a high draft pick, and maybe another year closer to contention with a cost-effective, homegrown roster.
Playing in New York, the media capital of the world, the Mets received endless grief for Sandy Alderson’s original five-year plan, which eventually was pushed to six by Matt Harvey’s Tommy John surgery. But elsewhere? As the Braves flood their Twitter feed with construction photos of new SunTrust Park [yeah, that was on the previous page!], scheduled to open in 2017, they’re probably looking to divert attention away from the daily happenings at Turner Field, where the play on the field has been about as appealing as the dingy surroundings.
Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez refuses to make excuses for the team’s 5-18 start, but everyone with a tomahawk across his chest knew this was coming. When Atlanta dealt Andrelton Simmons to the Angels in November and then flipped Shelby Miller for the Diamondbacks’ top prospects — including shortstop Dansby Swanson, the No. 1 overall pick in 2015 — the fan base was put on notice.
See you in Cobb County in 2017. No hard feelings.
“We did this to ourselves, right?” Gonzalez said Thursday before that night’s game at Fenway Park. “You trust the process, you trust your people and this is what the plan is. We’re the Atlanta Braves. We could have dropped a $150-million payroll any time we want. But we didn’t. We felt like we needed to stock the pipeline and get depth, so we did it to ourselves.”
THE WAITING GAME
The Braves didn’t have to look beyond their division for the blueprint. The Nationals rose to prominence with the help of two No. 1 picks in back-to-back years: Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper. The Mets chose wisely with a pair of smart first-rounders in Harvey and Michael Conforto, but also greatly benefited from Alderson’s savvy salary-dump trades.
Just as the Mets whittled their payroll down from $142 million in 2011 to $84 million for the start of the 2014 season, the Braves are tightening their belts for a brighter future. They’ve cut close to $30 million in the past two years, a 26 percent reduction from 2014, as they wait for their young prospects to mature.
ESPN’s Keith Law listed the Braves as his top-ranked farm system after the haul for Miller. Baseball Prospectus has them third. Atlanta also has the No. 3 pick in this June’s draft and certainly seems on pace to be the favorite for next year’s No. 1 overall.
[ much more at the above link ]
Ed. note: I don’t really look at this as a Mets blueprint – it’s more like the track taken by the Astros and Cubs. The Mets got a couple of ‘hits’ with draft picks (despite an arguably terrible draft history) and a couple of nicely complementary trades to put together their pitching staff, but never really “blew up the roster” as the Braves have done. They might already be ‘all world’ not if not for their own financial issues.
Next: Reports of His Demise May Be Premature
The Braves have gone bigger and more creative in their own trade pursuits…and deeper with salary changes. We’ll see which way worked best in a few years.