Atlanta Braves winter meeting simulation summation
By Fred Owens
The roster
The simulated roster has only 38 players. I added Dirks, Demeritte and Webb because a) we needed more players and b) I didn’t understand Dirks being left off anyway. He had one outing in September where gave up four runs in three innings. Remove that appearance and this is what you have.
| ERA | K/9 | BB/9 | K/BB | WHIP | Str/Pit |
| 3.25 | 10.21 | 2.78 | 3.67 | 1.16 | 65.9% |
Dirks averages 10+ Ks / 9IP since turning pro.; I suspect a lot of teams would like a reliever who can do that. Webb was a similar case and Demeritte is really the only bat close to ready. He may not be great but he’s essentially free. I digress.
There are two vacancies on the 40 man, I’ll simulate filling those later.
| 25 Man (Simulated) | (Rest of the 40-man) Simulated |
| Ender Inciarte | Mauricio Cabrera |
| Ozzie Albies | Jesse Biddle |
| Freddie Freeman | Jacob Lindgren |
| Khris Davis | Jacob Webb |
| Ronald Acuna | Caleb Dirks |
| Tyler Flowers | Grant Dayton |
| Kyle Seager | Adam McCreery |
| Dansby Swanson | Ricardo Sanchez |
| Kurt Suzuki | Josh Ravin |
| Lane Adams | Jack Mayfield |
| Cory Spangenberg | Rio Ruiz |
| Johan Camargo | Travis Demeritte |
| Andre Ethier | Adonis Garcia |
| Michael Fulmer | PTBNL |
| Luiz Gohara | PTBNL |
| Mike Foltynewicz | |
| Mike Fiers | |
| Max Fried | |
| Arodys Vizcaino | |
| Jose Ramirez | |
| A.J. Minter | |
| Akeel Morris | |
| Sam Freeman | |
| Dan Winkler | |
| Lucas Sims |
The payroll for the simulation as shown, including all 38 players, $3.5M for Johnson and $9M for Kemp comes to $103.8M. The three biggest paychecks got to Freeman ($21.36M), Seager ($19.5M) and Davis ($11.1M).
Then comes Ethier ($5M), Inciarte ($4.7), Flowers ($4M), Vizcaino ($3.7M), Suzuki ($3.5M), and Spangenberg ($2M). The rest are considered minimum pay players unless they came with a few extra thousand or I gave them a couple of thousand for Christmas.
That a Wrap
I set out to fill the holes in the lineup; send AAA players back to AAA and bench players back to the bench where they do their best work. I outrighted Jace Peterson off the 40 man with the intention of sending him to Gwinnett.
I have not yet designated Garcia for assignment. It costs nothing to have him there and it only takes a few seconds when I need the slot.
Next I wanted to reshape the rotation to create a team that would contend next season. I think that worked.
Finally I wanted to restructure the bullpen and add a big piece. I didn’t get the big piece I wanted but it didn’t turn out badly.
All of these things had to be done – in my view – without blowing up payroll while retaining as many good prospects as possible. I feel I succeeded as well as possible considering deals some of the other GMs agreed to . I met my goals pretty well and didn’t do anything I’ll regret next week or next year.