Atlanta Braves
Garcia Trade Favors Braves?
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Left-handed pitcher Jaime Garcia has spent his entire MLB career with the St. Louis Cardinals, but the Atlanta Braves announced they acquired the southpaw in exchange for prospects John Gant, Chris Ellis and Luke Dykstra. Gant and Ellis are each right-handed pitchers, while Dykstra is an infielder.
MLB.com ranked Ellis, Gant and Dykstra as Atlanta’s 17th-, 21st- and 29th-best prospects, respectively, in 2016.
Garcia is the headliner in the trade, though he had mixed results in 2016. On one hand, he appeared in 32 games, which tied for his career high and represented significant strides after an injury-marred stretch. He made 20 starts in 2012, nine in 2013, seven in 2014 and 20 in 2015.
He underwent season-ending surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome and suffered partial labrum and rotator cuff tears during that span. He also dealt with groin issues in 2015.
While Garcia proved he can handle the rigors of an entire season in 2016, he was nowhere near as effective as he was in 2010 and 2011, when he posted 2.70 and 3.56 ERAs, respectively.
He finished the 2016 campaign with a 4.67 ERA and 1.37 WHIP, which were his highest marks since he made 10 appearances as a rookie in 2008. Home runs were one of the biggest problems for the southpaw, who allowed 26 on a Cardinals team that finished 86-76 and missed out on the playoffs.
Garcia represents the latest veteran addition for the Braves pitching staff, which has also added 43-year-old Bartolo Colon and 42-year-old R.A. Dickey in the offseason.
At 30 years old, Garcia is younger than those two righties, but injuries have to be a concern as he racks up additional mileage on his arm.
Still, Atlanta needed to make changes to its starting rotation after finishing 28th in the big leagues with a 4.87 ERA. Atlanta has plenty of ground to make up in the National League East after finishing in last place at 68-93, but addressing the woeful starting rotation was an ideal place to start.
Garcia comes with risks, but he also has a track record that includes a handful of notable seasons.
For the Braves’ part, they’re starting to flip their recent trend: this time they trading prospects for a Major League player. After building up their farm system following the 2014 season, the Braves are starting to make these kinds of moves.
It remains to be seen whether or not they’ll offer up enough for Chris Sale, but if it took these three prospects to acquire an oft-injured lefty coming off his worst season, it will surely take a king’s ransom to bring Sale to Atlanta.
However, Braves fans shouldn’t cry out too much over what they had to give up for Garcia. Gant contributed to the 2016 squad and would likely have done the same in 2017 if he were on the roster, but weighing the best case scenarios against each other: Gant might have been a decent fifth starter at best, whereas if Garcia shows up he could be a great number two.
Ellis was unlikely to make much of a Dent in Atlanta, and after Sean Rodriguez joined the team this week Dykstra had too many people in his way.
Teams hate to trade prospects away, and fans certainly hate to see it, but given Garcia’s potential versus Gant’s, Ellis’ and Dykstra’s, it’s no great loss. More specifically, if the Braves miss these prospects, even if Garcia can’t stay on the field, something has gone very wrong with the many other even more highly-rated pitching prospects.
Rodriguez Bargain For Braves
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
After striking quickly on both R.A. Dickey and Bartolo Colon, the Braves continued their offseason feast on Thanksgiving morning by agreeing to a 2-year, $11. 5 million-dollar deal with super utility man Sean Rodriguez.
At first glance, this deal doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. Rodriguez is a part-time player, and part-time players usually don’t break the bank in free agency. What’s interesting is that Rodriguez isn’t your ordinary part time player, and that might quickly make this deal a real bargain for the Braves.
To understand what Rodriguez is, we must understand what he was. Prior to 2016, he posted no higher than a .716 OPS in parts of eight seasons for the Angels, Rays, and Pirates. In those eight seasons, Rodriguez only broke 400 plate appearances one time, and only reached double-digit home runs once with 12.
For players like Rodriguez to survive in the majors, they must adapt. If they become too one-dimensional, their days on big league rosters are numbered. Through his athleticism, Rodriguez was able to survive by producing value with his glove. As a result, the 2016 version of Sean Rodriguez was a multi-positional asset that could plug just about any hole in the Pirates lineup.
In 2016, he exploded offensively, putting up an .859 OPS in 342 plate appearances over 140 games. Because of the low number of plate appearances for that level of production, you would think that Rodriguez is a perfect example of a lefty-mashing platoon hitter, but that’s not entirely true.
Of his 342 plate appearances, only 94 came against left handed pitching. When given his opportunities against southpaws, he did his damage with a .286/.415/.519 to go along with four home runs, four doubles, and a triple. Still, only 94 plate appearances shows that the Pirates didn’t think was only deployable against lefties.
In his other 248 plate appearances, Rodriguez still put up nice numbers. With a .265/.324/.507 slash to go along with a healthy 14 home runs and 12 doubles.
Obviously, we don’t know how he would have performed with another 250 plate appearances in 2016. But, we can confidently believe that his lack of an everyday spot in the lineup was not his fault.
In a crowded Pittsburg infield that included Jung-Ho Kang, Josh Harrison, David Freese, Jordy Mercer, John Jaso, and then-top prospect Josh Bell all competing for playing time at just four positions, Rodriguez wasn’t given the plate appearances his performance warranted.
Looking forward for the Pirates, Rodriguez was a luxury that they ended up deeming not worth the $5-7 million per year offers he was looking at receiving on the open market.
For the Braves, however, veteran position players are hard to spot on their roster that’s been stripped down to the bone over the last two years. His value increases on that team with an opportunity to amass over 500 plate appearances while providing good defense at multiple positions.
With his high level of performance and positional flexibility, it’s hard to imagine that the $5.5 million in annual average value he received isn’t a bargain for the type of production he’s capable of at multiple positions.
Like pitch framing, there isn’t a perfect way to account for positional flexibility, how it affects a player’s total value to his team, and how it translates into dollars – just look at World Series MVP Ben Zobrist.
Moving forward to 2017, the Braves secured someone they could plug in at second base and immediately see top-level production. Through the adjustments he made in his swing, Rodriguez could be considered a 20 home run threat for at least 2017.
If he continues to provide the above-average defense he’s known for, Rodriguez could provide the type of value that will make him the free agent bargain of the offseason.
Atlanta Braves Sign Dickey and Colon
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
I get the Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey signings. Well, I guess I can say more specifically that I would have more than likely been happy to sign one of them, but I can understand the signing of both, even though it’s not a dream scenario.
Colon is 43 years old, and Dickey is 42. They’re both well past their primes, but adding them to a rotation that was rife with youth and trouble in 2016 takes the Braves a step closer to respectability, if not actual contention.
John Hart is no stranger to these kinds of signings, inking Orel Hershiser and Dennis Martinez in the twilight of their careers to pitch for his up and coming Indians team in the mid-90s, a team that reached the World Series in 1995 and 1997.
The Braves aren’t the Indians of the mid-’90s, but they led the major leagues in runs scored for the final month of the season. They have an established star in Freddie Freeman and a star on the rise in shortstop Dansby Swanson.
The rebuilding program begun by Hart and general manager John Coppolella looks promising, much more than it did a year ago at this time. The Braves move into their new ballpark in April, and even if it turns out they’re not ready to compete with the Mets and Washington Nationals at the top of the National League East, they should at least be fun to watch.
Colon, of course, became one of the game’s best characters during his three seasons with the Mets. He pitched, fielded and even hit, with a memorable home run last May in San Diego.
The Braves would settle for seeing him make the 33 starts and pitch the 191.2 innings he did for the Mets in 2016. They’d hope for close to the same from Dickey, who won a Cy Young Award with the Mets in 2012 and spent the last four seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Dickey’s 195 starts over the last six years are tied for the sixth-most in the major leagues, while Colon’s 175 starts over that span rank 19th.
That’s huge for the Braves, who spent most of the season struggling to find guys to make starts. There were plenty of warm bodies, just very few who were ready to make the leap to the big leagues and stay. The consistency that these two older gentlemen will likely bring to the rotation will be a huge feather in the cap of Brian Snitker.
The Braves hope to take a big step forward in 2017, and they figure to be significantly better in 2018 and beyond, with Swanson set to be joined by Ozzie Albies in the middle of the infield and with young pitching on the way.
Five of the six Braves who made 10 or more starts in 2016 are 25 or younger. Eight of the top 12 Braves minor league prospects, as ranked by MLB.com, are pitchers.
The issue Hart and Coppolella faced was too many of those guys who started games this past year weren’t ready, and too many of those top prospects aren’t yet ready to advance.
Short-term deals were important, because the Braves believe some of those prospects will be ready to contribute soon. Eating innings was important, because the Braves had 42 games in 2016 where their starter didn’t finish the fifth.
Realistically, Colon and Dickey are place-holders, two aging pitchers who make the Braves more presentable while a young team gets better around them.
But if one or both can pitch at least decently well, the Braves should expect to see a lot more checks in the win column next season.
New Braves’ Chiefs
By: Drayton Hogarth
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
With Major League Baseball in the middle of the playoff run, the Atlanta Braves have made news for the 2017 season by taking the interim tag off of Brian Snitker, and have now named him the new permanent manager.
