Atlanta Braves GM on the Trade One More Time
By Fred Owens
Aug 3, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons (19) shown in the dugout against the San Francisco Giants during the eleventh inning at Turner Field. The Braves defeated the Giants 9-8 in 12 innings. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Yesterday David O’Brien of the AJC published a larger part of the transcript of Atlanta Braves GM John Coppolella’s news conference after the trade of Andrelton Simmons. In short they felt it was a trade now or lose Sean Newcomb deal.
Q and A and Comments
Everyone knows what I think about the Simmons deal and I’ve yet to hear anyone outside of the Braves front office come forward and say this was a great deal fro the Braves. We all know that the GM is “so tired of this” discussion and the AJC story probably won’t assuage his feelings of angst. But it was Thanksgiving and O’Brien wasn’t a fan of the trade so he posted a complete transcript of Mr. Coppolella’s post trade excuse session news conference.
After reading the comments twice I ran them through the spin machine to see what he appears to have said. Obrien asked not necessarily in the order he printed them but in an order that groups related quote together.
Why this offer?
"“This was one that we had worked on for about three solid weeks. . . some teams that felt like . . .the fact that Andrelton wasn’t hitting .300 . . (etc.) that they could get him . . .lesser value, we just wanted to show that we really value this player. . . and we wouldn’t have sold low on him. . . or just tried to trade him. . . We probably talked to about 15 teams . . . (and) maybe three or four that really got serious. . . . we didn’t want to move Andrelton. Of the teams that really wanted to step forward. . . we felt that this was the best of those offers.”"
Spin: I want everyone to know that although we talked to half of MLB over a three week period we weren’t trying to trade him but they wouldn’t stop calling. In the end some had better offers and than the rest though I can’t remember how many – did I say I didn’t want to trade him? I did ? okay – and this was the best offer we could get.
Why Trade At That Time?
"“. . .(the Angels) have (a lot of ) needs . . . we felt these were their two best prospects. . .(if we waited) until the Winter Meetings. . .(they might trade them) and . . .(we lose the) opportunity again. . . “We had a shot to trade a player . . (in 2015) for a guy who’s now ranked as a top-50 prospect. . .(the player they wanted got injured) by the time we tried to make the trade. . .they wouldn’t even talk about the player. . . We made a strong run last year (for) Luis Severino, and we didn’t get the deal done. . .now he’s off-limits. . . I mean, if you feel like you have a chance to get special talent, you can’t shy away from it. You’ve got to really jump at it and take that plunge. We were not sure that we could get these sorts of players, this was such a good opportunity for us that we wanted to seize it once it was available to us.”"
Spin removed – The Angels had only two prospects worthy of the word. We wanted them and were afraid we’d lose them like we lost a deal last year. We wouldn’t match the Yankees ask for Severino and we suddenly realized that if you snooze you lose. We didn’t want to end up like Frank Wren, overpaying for the wrong player because we didn’t move decisively. We weren’t going to lose again so we made the trade.
I assume the trade was Jason Grilli for someone but a quick review of the current top 100 didn’t reveal an obvious former low level prospect that now a top 50 guy. I’m not saying there isn’t one just that an admittedly cursory search didn’t show an obvious player. That the Braves couldn’t get the Yankees to agree on a deal for Severino is interesting but he isn’t a top of the rotation guy so it’s only relevant in that they couldn’t get a deal done.