What If the Atlanta Braves Decided to… BUY?
Transactions to Complete this Rebuild
At the appropriate times of need between now and next April, do the following…
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- Promote Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies to the majors
- Promote A.J. Minter to the majors
- Option Adonis Garcia to Gwinnett
- A.J. Pierzynski plays out his contract and retires
- DFA Erick Aybar (or have him play out the year)
- DFA Lucas Harrell
- Take what you can get for Eric O’Flaherty
- Release Hector Olivera
Your new rotation becomes:
- Teheran, Gray, Foltynewicz, Wisler, and (Blair/Gant/Perez/etc)
Your new set of position players are:
- INFIELD: Freeman, Albies, Swanson, Frazier
- OUTFIELD: Davis, Smith, Puig
- CATCHERS: Flowers and Barnes
- BENCH: Peterson, Beckham, Francoeur, d’Arnaud or Garcia
Now you have speed – and plenty of it; even off the bench. You have Power. You have Pitching. You also have all of this on easily affordable terms.
Now you have a contender for 2017… and all of the higher-end pitching prospects are still in the pipeline. You also still have guys like Austin Riley, Braxton Davidson, all of the international kids that are coming up…. and you’ve bought enough time to get them to the majors.
Are these the best acquisitions? Among available talent it’s pretty close. You simply can’t assemble Mike Trout, Jake Arrieta and Josh Donaldson. But this group will certainly improve the team by using the pitching prospects (and some others) to get bats.
Is there risk? Definitely. But with 3 big bats instead of just one, that will mitigate the risk. And the cost exposure will not be that great.
Want to really open up SunTrust Park? Let’s do it with a bang.
Next: Resetting the Calendar Day
So you see: selling might not be the right answer this Summer.