Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: blister bluster and prospect rationing

The Braves continue to defy critics, logic, and determined foes and have put together a road run to maintain their advantage in the East.  There are some issues looming, though.

As we will continue to say, the Atlanta Braves aren’t perfect and there are always things that can be done to improve.

At the same time, it’s great to have team depth to cover up problems when they arise… and that’s going to be necessary for a few issues that have arisen.

Blister Bluster

It appears that Atlanta Braves starter Max Fried exited his start against Milwaukee after 5 innings thanks to a blister.  That’s unconfirmed at the time of this writing, but from a dugout observation during the broadcast Monday night, it’s a reasonable guess.

That would be unfortunate if true, for Fried has had a history of fighting finger issues – including blisters.

Ironically, the last time this problem cropped up, the Braves were also in Milwaukee – just over a year ago, in fact.

12 days after that happened in 2018, he started a rehab assignment and was finally reactivated to the majors on July 28… 22 days after he was put on the Injured List.

So the Braves may now be down 2 slots in their preferred rotation, and could be for at least a couple of weeks if history repeats itself.  In this case – particularly with the need to have Fried back – the rehab schedule might be accelerated

The Ender of the Rehab

We noted previously that the Braves would be forced to make a decision on the status of Ender Inciarte by July 21st, and it appears that the call is soon to be made.

What that roster move will be is an interesting call.  Inciarte isn’t exactly going to be coming back up on a hot streak, either.

In 11 games (thus far), he’s hit a combined .189 (.439 OPS) at 3 different minor league levels, including a 4 for 19 result at AAA Gwinnett.

He is putting the ball in play:  3 walks, 4 K among 40 plate appearances, but if anything, it may be that Inciarte’s timing is still not really ‘there’ yet.

As it is, he was only hitting .218 at the major league level when his back acted up in May… and despite the recent struggles of rookie Austin Riley (.152 in July before Monday night’s game), Inciarte may still have to re-earn a starting role.

Stay tuned.

Trade Dilemmas

The Atlanta Braves just went through an odd Rule 4 Draft season, and the reason for this almost has to be related to the on-going fallout from the penalties that were imposed on the Braves on John Coppolella’s watch.

In simple terms, while the Braves lost over a dozen ill-gotten prospects right away, they will effectively continue to lose an average of about two dozen more quality players (primarily in the form of Latin American teens) each year until these penalties are fully removed after the 2020-21 signing period.

The penalties still allow the Braves to sign players, but after rocking their International scouting system and severely crippling their spending power, Atlanta is reduced to offering mere trinkets to whoever might be left over once every other MLB club has passed.

Even once the sanctions are lifted, Atlanta will be playing catch-up in trying to reconstitute their organization in the Caribbean basin.

Still, Atlanta has to fill out their minor league clubs, and thus the plan:  draft a bunch of signable players, primarily college kids… and a vast majority of them have signed, indeed.

They won’t all be premium prospects, by and large, but they already know how to play, and that will certainly help.  And sure – some may surprise.

But all of this continues to add up.  With a couple more years of penalties, the Braves will be left with a void of blue chip prospects as their future draft position lowers (thanks to an improved major league club), existing prospects graduate to the majors, and few players are promotable from the bottom.

Thus the rub for this season:  who can you afford to trade away when you actually need to hold back some of your farm system to keep it viable for as long as possible?

Atlanta has already spent some cash this Summer – they ‘bought’ Dallas Keuchel.  The opportunity to spend money and improve the club has mostly passed now, but don’t be surprised if Alex Anthopoulos tries to ‘take on a contract’ to preserve a prospect or two via trades.