Atlanta Braves Spring Chop: News, notes from Thursday, Feb 22
The biggest news? There is a game tomorrow! We don’t even care if that game doesn’t really mean anything – it’s baseball for the first time in almost 5 months!
The Atlanta Braves Grapefruit League road trip is about to begin… 3 games deep on the Atlantic coast tomorrow. Time to release the Acuna. Here’s the news of the day…
Cabrera Assigned to Gwinnett
That assignment could change, but the real news is that no team chose to claim him after his DFA. That’s actually not terribly surprising, given that a roster slot would have to be dedicated to the wild reliever. But there will now be a chance for him to sort out his command issues without the Braves having to be concerned about the 40-man slot that he had been occupying.
Just That Close?
Since the AJC’s Mark Bradley quoted a baseball sabremetrics guy a couple of days ago, I thought it was probably time to go ahead and do likewise here:
"“Braves over 73.5 wins. I keep waiting for the Braves to commit their BAMTech dividend to Alex Cobb and Lance Lynn, immediately filling out a rotation that is the team’s weak spot and vaulting Atlanta into wild-card contention. The offense is high-variance with a ton of upside, given the potential of Ozzie Albies, Ronald Acuna and the forgotten Dansby Swanson. The defense could be excellent, anchored by Ender Inciarte in center.”"
This from Joe Sheehan, who has contributed to a number of baseball sites and is now offering commentary on Sirius/XM’s fantasy sports channel.
Now there’s a ton of stuff to unwrap in that comment, so let’s do so:
73.5 wins. This probably has as much to do with the team’s pitching as anything else. If Teheran is better (especially at home) this season, then that’s a net plus. If there’s no equivalent to Bartolo Colon in the rotation, then that’s a plus. If the rest can hold their own, then it’s a push.
As for the bullpen, almost anything would be an improvement, and between Vizzy and Minter, that’s not a bad combination.
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But Sheehan thinks that the Braves would be much better off with Alex Cobb and Lance Lynn. They’re probably right, but if you did that (for probably $30 million annually) you’d almost have to trade away a couple of others – like Teheran and Newcomb kind of others.
The next question to ask would be “are you truly going to be better off with either/both of those guys or with the youngsters?”… and that’s an ‘over the long haul’ question – not just for 2018-2020 or so.
I’m also not convinced that pitching is the weakest link – the offense is going to need more than just a bunch of singles and doubles. As Sheehan suggests, I do truly like the upside there, but whether it’s 2018 upside remains to be seen.
Still, it’s getting quite fashionable for pundits to jump onto the Braves’ bandwagon for this season… but I suspect that most of these people are jumping on, taking a selfie, then jumping right back off. Of note: this has happened before… and the same guy is there again this month.
I’m sure these guys will hang onto these (virtual) selfies to tweet out in September… if the miracle comes to fruition.
Rays Lose 2 Players in 1 Day
We had been talking about Corey Dickerson, the Rays’ outfielder who was designated last weekend. As expected, he has now been dealt… to the Pirates.
Meanwhile, karma, as they derisively say, is a cruel mistress. After what seemed to be calling out Chris Archer last week in the press, top pitching prospect Brent Honeywell is getting a nasty dose of reality thrown his way today…
That’s two Top15 Baseball America prospects in 2 days that are now sidelined… and this one could be gone for quite a while.
It’s a terrible reason for this to happen, but these twin happenstances would have to promote Mike Soroka and Kyle Wright into the MLB Pipeline Top 10 for right-handed pitchers:
Next: Just when you thought he'd retire on the golf course...
That’s all the notes for now… can’t wait for some afternoon baseball tomorrow!