As I type this up, our beloved Atlanta Braves are in 1st place… …and in the debate upcoming, that cannot be watered down. Yes, they’re in first place despite the fact that Peter Moylan and Sam Freeman have logged nearly 70 innings of poorly-pitched baseball. Or, that Ryan Flaherty has carried a .372 OPS in 98 plate appearances since April 23rd. Or, that Lucas Sims (10.1 IP, 7.84 ERA), Brandon McCarthy (78.2 IP, 4.92 ERA),…
Transaction of Today…August 5, 2017 – The Atlanta Braves traded Sean Rodriguez to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Connor Joe. I was just going to tweet about this, but all of the details of this small-time deal require a bit more investigation. I covered this deal in some depth exactly one year ago, but here’s the Cliff’s notes version. Rodriguez was signed by the Braves on Thanksgiving in 2016 for $11.5 million. At the time, the…
When the opening day rosters for the Braves’ minor league clubs were announced, a bit of a narrative was born. While it would be easy to suggest that the narrative was related to the demotion of Ronald Acuna Jr. to Gwinnett to open the year, that was really just a small part of a bigger picture. The previous spring, fans who follow the Braves’ minor leagues were excited about the hyper-aggressive promotions of Mike Soroka…
Yesterday, I talked about the players that changed teams in a supersized Transaction Tuesday, but today I want to look at payroll and specifically what the recent moves will do to payroll moving forward beyond 2018. Ask five people who follow payroll and you’re going to get five different answers on what the 2019 current payroll will be. That’s because none of us actually know. We deal in a world where unless the information is…
So…there have been a few moves this last week. Some of them, we’ve previously discussed and others are smaller in scope, but still have a large impact on both the present and future of the organization. It’s your Special Transaction Tuesday: Deadline Edition. Let’s dive right in. Period covered: 7/24-7/31. If a number is included after a player’s name, it coincides with his placement in our Midseason Top 50. For more information on options, click here. Spotlight…
For the second time during a four-game series against the Dodgers, the Atlanta Braves announced shortly after the game that they had acquired a reliever from the AL East. In the second deal of international money for a potential rental – Jonny Venters does have another year of arbitration – the Braves acquire Brad Brach from the Baltimore Orioles for $250K of slot money. Of course, with the sanctions this year barring any signing over…
The Braves haven’t made a big deal yet – and I’m still in the feels about the Jonny Venters one, which Stephen went over a couple of days ago. But to this point, Atlanta hasn’t wowed anyone with a big pick-up. They’re certainly has been rumors. Zack Wheeler, Adrian Beltre, Chris Archer, Nick Castellanos, and Marcus Stroman have all been thrown around as possible players the Braves have interest in. I looked deeper into Stroman…