Atlanta Braves Jaime Garcia and Coppy’s 3 Top Winter Meeting Priorities

The Atlanta Braves added a veteran left-handed starter yesterday in the form of Jaime Garcia. It’s a sound move and with the Winter Meetings set to begin Sunday, the early Christmas gifts may keep rolling in.

As you all probably already know, the Atlanta Braves added a veteran left-handed pitcher. Jaime Garcia makes the third veteran starter the Braves have added in the last month.

Along with Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey, the Atlanta Braves now have the veteran presence they hope will provide not only valuable mentor-ship and wisdom to the younger arms, but also valuable innings.

Fred wrote a great article on the Garcia acquisition and detailed a lot of the parameters surrounding the move.

What Does the Garcia Trade Really Mean?

John Coppollela is sending a strong message to Braves Country, and it’s pretty clear on what they are trying to do here.

Former GM Jim Bowden made some interesting points this morning appearing on the Power Alley on MLB Radio. So I listened and took some notes. The following is a summary (in a lot more words than he used).

The Braves, for starters, are making a sincere effort to start hot out of the gates.

Last seasons dismal beginning cost them at the ticket booths. A repeat of this, especially going into a stadium that has yet to remove the plastic wrap, would be disastrous.

Atlanta wants to compete early and often. They need to be in games past the 5th or 6th innings. Inning eaters like Colon and Dickey helped bring certainty to an unstable, young rotation.

Adding Jaime Garcia only solidifies that certainty. The Braves have to believe that Garcia’s issues from last season were more fatigue rather than injury related.

At least, you would think, that if they were willing to trade for their only Southpaw starter, they would do their due diligence in scouting Garcia.

It’s apparent the Braves obviously want to win more games in 2017 than they did in 2016. Garcia enhances this possibility.

There’s also the July trade deadline. If Garcia does well, or at least better than last season, his value becomes attractive in a potential deadline deal.

With Colon, Dickey, potentially Garcia, and one Julio Teheran, you now have four guys that could all possibly reach 200+ innings in 2017. Garcia reaching 200 is a stretch given only his 172 innings last season. However, that’s a kind of stability Atlanta hasn’t seen in a long time.

All this said, the Braves are still interested in Chris Sale and Chris Archer according to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick:

My reaction to this is why? Based on what is being speculated as to what it would cost to get Chris Sale, why would the Braves make such a push for this year ?

After all that work in turning one of the worst farm systems in all of baseball, to a top three system in a little less than a year, it would seem so counterproductive.

I would even argue that the addition of Garcia would take the Braves somewhat out of the mix for Sale. Unless you’re getting Jose Quintana and Adam Eaton in the deal, I just don’t see the sense in it.

Winter Meetings and Coppy’s Top 3 Priorities

Bowden also talked about the Winter Meetings. He spoke with each GM about their teams’ top three priorities heading into the Winter Meetings.

If you have an ESPN Insider subscription, you can read Bowden’s piece and what he says about all the teams. He covers who he thinks each team needs to target in free agency and via trades.

While he didn’t go in to so much detail on air, he did say what Coppy’s top three priorities were heading in to this coming week. Coppy told him that they wanted to add a left-handed starter. Welcome Jaime Garcia.

The key word in that answer, well key letter really, is “a”. He wanted to add A left-handed starter. While this far from limits Coppy to specifically just one lefty, it does check it off the list, minimizing the priority of adding a lefty.

Coppy’s other priorities? It may sound cryptic and vague, but honestly, it’s what we’ve come to expect from the Braves GM. Coppy responded with “patience and time”.

This, I believe, is geared toward the young pitchers in the system that aren’t quite there yet. Having Colon, Dickey, and now Garcia for this year allows the Braves to let those young starters to develop the right way.

They will have the time to work on mechanics, delivery, arm slots, etc. The organization is going to remain patient in that development and that’s all we can ask.

If the organization is building a long-term contender, then patience and time are paramount in that goal.

The Pay Off

So, as the 2016 Winter Meetings get underway in Washington, DC’s National Harbor, the Braves go in with a rotation pretty much set.

The addition of Sean Rodriguez sort of checks off the 3B/2B need, kind of. All that is really left to do is find a catcher.

Or is it?

Next: The 4-1-1 on Alex Jackson

After Anthony Recker was not non-tendered, perhaps the Braves are content with spending another year with him spelling Tyler Flowers every 4th or 5th day.

Then again, this is John Coppollela we’re talking about. Who knows what the man has planned.