Day one of MLB’s annual winter meetings was a snoozer for Atlanta Braves fans. Day two however saw the Tomahawk pop up in several interesting rumors.
Earlier today Alan passed along a rumor from Rays beat writer Marc Topkin that had the Atlanta Braves interested in Chris Archer; duh! Of course they are and so are 19 other teams.
The same can be said about the this tidbit from Marlins beat writer Joe Frisaro.
Not clear yet if #Marlins are actually open to moving Christian Yelich, but at least 10 clubs are inquiring. #Braves #Dbacks #STLCards among them.
— Joe Frisaro (@JoeFrisaro) December 12, 2017
Atlanta Braves ask about another outfielder
Let me start by declaring my appreciation of this player; Christian Yelich is a stud and in my view the pick of the Miami outfield crew. He hits for average, hits for power, runs well and plays solid defense
Taken by the Fish in the first round of the 2010 draft (25th overall). He signed an above slot $1.7M deal at the signing deadline and appeared in 12 games split evenly between rookie and low A ball. That look was enough to make him the Marlins #3 prospect going into 2011.
Atlanta Braves
Yelich had his way with pitchers in low A ball in 2011, finishing with a .312/.388/.414/.871 line, 15 homers, 32 doubles and a triple in 122 games. Fangraphs calculates his season as worth .393 wOBA with 140 wRC+.
Those numbers propelled him to #41 on Baseball America’s top 100 list, #35 on MLB’s list and #33 on Baseball Prospectus’ list. That made him number one on the Marlin’s list going into 2012.
The 2012 season was more of the same – .330/.404/.519/.922 final line – and 2013 started that way. He made his debut in July of 2013, and hasn’t looked back.
On the record
As a major leaguer Yelich compiled a .290/.369/.432/.800 line, 59 homers, 146 doubles, 14 triples. He’s also stolen 72 bases in 90 attempts (80%), all of that boils down to a .349 wOBA and 121 wRC+. Over the last four years he posted fWARs of 4.5, 2.4, 4.5 and 4.5
Yelich suffered a lower back strain in 2014, it recurred in 2015 and 2016 so some believe it limits his value.He also miss time with a badly bruised knee, hamstring strain and a strained right hip flexor. His total lost time comes to about 55 days in four and a half seasons.
Defensively DRS and UZR like him as a left fielder which works well for us. . . and a lot of others.
The Ask
Consider the players who fall into the same 4.5 fWAR area over that time; Freddie Freeman, George Springer, Anthony Rizzo, Mookie Betts and Kyle Seager among others. Yelich signed a seven-year $49.75M deal prior to 2015. The four remaining years only cost 42.5M and there’s an option year for $15M; that ‘s dirt cheap for a perennial 4.5 WAR player. ALl that adds up to a high price.
The only thing that might mitigate the cost would be the Braves taking a Martin Prado’s contract. Prado just turned 34 suffered injury riddled seasons over the last two years. He has two years and $28.5M left on the three-year 40M contract the Marlins gave him after 2015.
If the Braves take Prado’s contract a package of Sean Newcomb, Cristian Pache, Touki Toussaint and another body like Matt Wisler might work.
That’s A Wrap
Odds of this happening are slim. Anthopoulos told Mark Bowman yesterday that slow and steady was his mantra until he learns more about his assets.
"“I don’t know the evaluators. . .I don’t know all of the internal analysis. . .I would say my thought for Year 1 would be a more cautious approach. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to be active . . .But you’re not comfortable if you don’t have comfort with the information yet. That’s just going to take some time.”"
Bowman reinforced that idea in his post today.
"for now, Anthopoulos seems content to patiently progress through this Hot Stove Season and wait for the opportunity to see these young pitchers with his own eyes before defining their trade value."
On the other hand, Anthopoulos is a gunslinger, if he sees a chance to steal a talented controllable player he could well do the unexpected.
Right now the Cardinals are pretty desperate to improve their run production, are about to sign a huge TV contract and have a fan base that is already clamoring for change. They are far more likely to go overboard than AA. . . at least for now.