Atlanta Braves GM John Coppolella Q & A

Apparently GM John Coppolella held a mini Ask Coppy for A-list members a little over week ago, Fortunately for those of us who aren’t A-listers, Ivanski over at Braves Reddit posted a summary.  The report isn’t as detailed as we get from Twitter but it addressed some of the thing’s we’ve been discussing.

Herewith that summary with some editorial comments by yours truly.

Prospects

The prospect questions were about what you would expect from any fans, they wanted to know about the big names with Acuna and Gohara at the top of their list.

Coppy considers Ronald Acuna the best prospect in baseball. Lots of teams inquired about him but the calls stopped when the Braves made it clear he wasn’t available. Whether Acuna will spend September in Atlanta is still under discussion but he said fans should expect him soon.

He appears to be saying they haven’t decided anything and at the same time we’ll see him soon?  The news that he’s going to play in the AZL (Max Fried, Austin Riley, Touki Toussaint, Corbin Clouse, Josh Graham, Alex Jackson, and Anfernee Seymour will go as well) leads me to believe we won’t see him in Atlanta until next year.

Coppy was more definitive about Luiz Gohara; barring unforeseen circumstances he will pitch in Atlanta this year.  For those who don’t recall, the Braves acquired the Brazilian righty last January along with left reliever Thomas Burrows in exchange for Cody Martin, Shae Simmons and Mallex Smith.

We know how Gohara progressed and but not much about Burrows. The 6’1″ lefty was drafted in 2016 after working as a reliever in College.  Burrows spent this year with Rome in that role. So far he’s thrown 62 1/3 innings in 36 games, striking out 85 and walking 21 while pitching to a 2.01 ERA.

Burrows’ 56% ground ball rate and 14% line drive rate held opposing hitters to a .197 average and allowed only four extra base hits; two doubles a triple and one home run. That trade seems to have worked out well.

Coppy said that he expects both Austin Riley and Alex Jackson to debut sometime in 2018. While Riley’s made a good case for that, it’s a fast turn around for Jackson given that the Braves had to move him back to catching from exile in the outfield.

Offseason priorities

Answers to questions about the Braves offseason shopping list  seem to indicate they’ve decided to pick up Tyler Flowers option. I say that because Coppolella suggested he wanted to upgrade third base and the bullpen.

Third base is an obvious vacancy, Adonis Garcia is a nontender candidate, Brandon Phillips is a free agent and Rio Ruiz hasn’t been able to take the job when it was there to be taken.  The only third base free agent worthy of consideration is Mike Moustakas and  there will be a line of teams bidding for him.

Steve Adams writing for MLBTR discussed Moustakas in relation to the Mets and projected  “. . Moustakas to land a five-year deal worth $90MM this offseason. . .”   He also suggested Moustakas’ low OBP might cause teams to pull back from that.

The numbers please

Prior to 2015 I’d agree however, in the last three seasons the Royals third sacker has a .276/.329/.504/.834 line good for a 119 OPS+. His fielding seems to have taken a step back over that period – particularly this season according to FRAA and DRS while UZR has him up slightly; it all depends on which one you prefer. None are bellwethers though  I tend to prefer FRAA.

I wrote elsewhere that I think Moose with ask for and get seven years not five. I also suggested that instead of an $18M AAV, the market will drive his contract as high as $19.5M.

I believe the Braves will try to grab him but won’t get drawn into a bidding war. Instead they’ll use their prospects to trade for someone like Jedd Gyorko whose .257/.324/.482/.805 line since moving to St Louis isn’t as gaudy but his contract is relatively inexpensive and runs through 2020.

Coppy hinted that trades were coming in a response to a question about pitching depth.  He indicated that they have 15 starting pitching prospects who look to arrive is a short period and some will have to be used to improve the team through trades. That would seem to indicate a willingness to use that depth to make a big jump next year.

General comments

Coppolella feels that the minor league system is strong, While catching depth has improved over the past 18 months he feels that’s the area requiring more depth.

Ask about his favorite metric he chose wRC+, The the team’s proprietary baseball operations analytics platform – nicknamed ‘Tomahawk’ – contains a wealth of other data that he obviously didn’t discuss but wRC+ is considered a pretty solid offensive metric.

Before you run off to check over the last two seasons Moustakas has 117 wRC+ and Gyorko 122 wRC+; that means nothing about preference or availability of course.

Fans ask about the manager for 2018 and Coppy said Brian Snitker has done a good job particularly in clubhouse culture and mentorship of young players. He went on to says that another consideration is that they want to put in place a manager who can win a World Series.

Before everyone goes off on Coppy’s evaluation of Snit’s performance, take a step back and remember that the alternative is to fire him now. The second half of his response indicates that Snitker isn’t necessarily safe and the Ken Rosenthal article suggests there is movement internally to change things.

"Others view the changes as Hart and Coppolella “testing the waters” for additional moves with the major-league staff at a later time. . . The Braves have yet to exercise manager Brian Snitker’s option for 2018. Additionally, bench coach Terry Pendleton and first-base coach Eddie Perez are throwbacks to the Schuerholz era. . .”"

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• The Weakest Braves Homers Since 2015
• Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
• Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves

That’s a  Wrap

The session wasn’t particularly long nor did it cover a wide breadth of subjects.  His statements do not mean his search for a top of the line starter is over, so your dreams of Chris Archer, Michael Fulmer or whomever are still viable.

In fact, I think that’s his real priority but he can’t actually throw that out there now. Trades are a negotiation and while other teams may believe that’s his goal, they also have to pay attention to what he actually says.

Next: From Wentz he came..

I don’t expect the post season to be quiet nor do I see the front office giving away the farm in some bidding war. So far they’ve been prudent in their trades, each having a specific goal. So have worked well while others have not. As Ron Washington would say if ask “That’s the way baseball go.”