Lathund

I'm not a religious man, but I believe in Stephen Vogt.

I'm not sure what we saw today was exceptional base running. He is out 95% of the time there in that rundown. Whatever ones view of the play today, he's been a very good baserunner (But not basestealer) this year from what I've seen. Looking to see if the stats agree with that I see that Fangraphs UBR rating has him 3rd best in the majors, behind Goldschmidt and Bogaerts. His stealing has been poor, but by their BsR stat (Which combines UBR, stealing, and GDPs) he's still ranked 13th in the majors. Now one can argue about how exact these stats are, but it would at least indicate he's a comparatively good baserunner.

I've always liked watching him play. The pace, as well as his general demeanor. I think he's earned a chance at a second start in Andersons spot.

I'd stay away from trades for the likes of Quintana. Not because I don't think he'd improve our team, but because there'll be a lot of other teams interested, sparking a bidding war. The top few arms (starters and relievers) available at the trade deadline will always be very expensive, creating a situation where price separates from value. I don't think we are at the point yet where we make these trades, to me they're worth it when your team is just 1-2 pieces away from being a legit WS contender. If the contracts/age of our remaining players would dictate that we only had a 2-3 year window, then absolutely I'd go for a trade like Quintana, and paying a premium then would not be a problem. But we're in a situation where we've over the last two years been in the acquisition phase of a rebuild. We've got plenty of young controllable talent, and a very low payroll. Now we're in the spot where we unexpectedly have a chance at reaching the playoffs, but we're we'd also realistically be tone of the worst team there. So the goal is to improve the team at the deadline, without impacting the rebuilding plan. Someone like Quintana would become a free agent just as we'd be right at our most competitive and would have cost us a lot; it's not really a move that suits us right now IMO. No I think the way to improve right now is through taking on salary for the remainder of 2017, or through 2018. We have room to do so, and as we take on more salary we don't have to give up as much in the way of prospects. Now I don't know the rest of the league well enough to know who would realistically be available, but it's the type of deal we should be looking for. Another option is to do sideways moves. Basically trade away an established player at a position we're strong for prospects, and use prospects to trade for established help at a position we're weak. If I had to guess, I think the way Stearns & Co will go with this is not to look for star players, but to rather improve the bottom of our roster. We don't need an improvement over Nelson/Anderson/Knebel, what we need is to improve the #4-5 spots in the rotation and the middle inning relief.

We didn't just sign a catcher, we signed a NBA referee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbRnCn-oU3M&spfreload=10

Haders's gonna hade.

I love Eric Thames. His story, his beard, those forearms. Everything. But with that being said I would rather trade Thames than Aguilar. Aguilar is younger, he's a more well-rounded hitter, and despite both those things I think we'd get more from Thames in a trade. That being said, I'm not necessarily advocating trading either of them. Unless the offer is too good to refuse, but that really goes without saying.

Go with an in house option to see what we've got. Since it's likely to be at least 1-2 months and not just a game or two, it should be someone we hope can be a future starter for the long term. If it was 1-2 games then I'd go with Espino or Suter. But now I'd be more inclined to try Hader or maybe Jungmann (Has been doing really well in AAA) in that role. That is, of course, all dependent on how soon Woodruff will be back. I'd use Espino or Suter for a spot start if Woodruff is back after that.

Jungmann is a possibility, has been doing well in CS and is on the 40-man already. Woodruff would be the #1 candidate if he wasn't on the DL. If they don't want to call up a starter, there's Espino, Suter and Hader already in the bullpen who have all started this season.

Montero makes signficantly more money (His contract was $66m/6 years), will turn 34 during the season, is a free agent after this season, and he apparently likes to throw his teammates under the bus in public. Both have similar career hitting stats (98 wRC+ for Vogt, 101 for Montero), so I see no compelling reason at all to do that.

....aaand he gets DFA'd.

11-14.

The BABIP gods are on the Braves' side today.

One serious area of weakness for this team. We've been hurt by having Franklin and Thames out there quite a bit. But even with everyone fit and available, we'd still be sending Santana and Braun out there, who are both poor defenders. It's OK to have one relatively poor corner outfielder, but it's painful to have two. Which is one reason why I was hoping for a Braun trade to happen. Now that it looks likely he'll see out his contract here, we'll just have to hope that Santana either improves enough offensively to make up for it, or that he somehow improves defensively. The latter of which seems unlikely.

That was some poor baserunning by Santana.

The frustrating thing about Davies is that he's mostly fine. But he seems to have one inning every game that gets away from him, giving up 3-4 runs (In this case 6...) and running up the pitch count. Before and after that though he looks like 2016 Zach Davies again.

I know that it could simply be due to which pitcher is pitching, but I'm glad to see Piña is starting two days in a row, and I'm hoping it's a trend of him taking over as the starter. Not necessarily every single day, but moving from the 50/50 split so far (They actually both have 149 PAs) to Pina playing perhaps 2/3 games or something along those lines. Both the defensive and offensive metrics quite clearly rate Piña higher. The sample size isn't huge yet, but with them playing on the same team and in the same ballparks, I think one can start drawing conclusions. Or am I simply reading too much into it, and it's just a matter of Bandy carrying some minor injury?

Love the Drake.

I don't totally agree with this but if somewhat true than I feel like WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is being treated like the 2nd coming of Jesus. Current baseball statheads put WAY too much faith in that stat, IMHO. What do you think is wrong with WAR? How is it being overvalued? And what do you suggest we use instead?

I'm not going to speak for Brew4U, but I'm 99,99% sure that's sarcasm.

I don't think anyone in this thread has even come close to suggesting that.

Was hoping Suter would stay up a while longer. He's a player I really like, more than perhaps what the numbers (Albeit in a very limited sample size at the MLB level) says I should. I'd love it for him to be given an extended stay to see what he can contribute. Another lefty in there wouldn't hurt.

Somehow forgot about Peralta; agreed, he should be one of the first to go. $5m (Or more) salary, limited remaining team control. And to even get to where that's an issue, he needs to be a decent option out of the pen. As for Drake, I'm very much in the minority here but I'd keep him over Feliz, Torres and Peralta. I wouldn't say the limited track record is a strike agianst him tbh. The sample size is still small enough for Drake to both outperform or underperform his past record, and it could be worth taking some time to see which way it goes. Drake has a 3.50 FIP and 3.48 DRA; both better predictors of future ERA than current/past ERA. And better than anyone on the team except Barnes and Knebel. Left-handers have a .662 OPS against him; and that's with a .348 BABIP so it's not about getting lucky either. I'm not trying to claim he's some kind of star, or that we can't improve on him. But to me, there are 2-3 players in the bullpen who are a higher priority to improve on. Use Drake mainly against lefties and he'll be fine.

I don't have an issue how he put it together. Often times bullpens are built by just throwing things at the wall and hoping for the best. What I do have a major issue with however, is not making changes when the guys you have are terrible. The leash has been WAY too long with these guys. We took some guys off the scrap heap, it didn't work. Cut your losses and try something else. We have at least 4-5 guys in the minors that can be called up. They'd have to be really really bad to do much worse than what we have. I mostly agree, but it does look pretty bad right now that Blazek and Cravy didn't make the team out of spring. I'm not too bothered with that tbh. Especially in the case of Blazek; 1.9 WHIP, 5.9 BB/9 in 2016. Having him rediscover his form in the minors is fine. Cravy on the other hand (like Suter) has certainly performed better, well enough to get more opportunities. He was a victim of having minor league options. But look at it another way; Cravy and Blazek are still here. We had the option to have them start the season in the minors and get called up if need be. Who would they have replaced? Barnes and Knebel have options, but they should obviously be on the 25-man. The rest didn't have options, so getting rid would have meant not being able to call on them again. Now with the way some of them have pitched, we would not have wanted to anyway, but that's only apparent in hindsight. Torres had a good 2016. Feliz was an elite reliever at one point, worth a flier to see if he could come anywhere close to that again. Hughes has a 2.9 ERA over 7 seasons inside this division. Milone served as the long reliever/backup SP option, decent track record at a reasonable cost. By having a look at some of these guys without options first, we have the ability to evaluate both sets of players. So yeah, I'd say that while some decisions there hasn't turned out well and look bad in hindsight, they weren't bad decisions with the information available at the time. More crucially, these overlooked players are till just a phonecall and a plane ticket away. So I don't dwell on the past decisions, I just want to see some progress being made from now on. As for what I'd like to see done. Quite a lot, but I also don't think changing half the bullpen at once is the best idea. 1-2 changes at a time, let the remaining underperformers see less time as a result, hope that maybe some improvement can be had. If not, make changes there too. Feliz: If anyone is offering anything at all in a trade, even if we have to eat some salary, take it. Otherwise DFA. We're not resigning him anyway, not part of the future. Great heat on his FB, but he can't command it and batters have no trouble hitting it. Beyond that, he's got nothing. Torres: DFA. Did really well for us last season, and I like the idea of a workhorse in there. But if the horse can't pull the cart anymore.... Suter and Cravy to replace them. Makes sense evaluating the guys on the 40-man already first. I haven't seen enough of Barbosa, Wang, Archer, Blazek and the likes to know who deserves the first shot among them, but I'd say one of them is next in line after the first two.

Cravy and Suter are both on the 40-man roster, they've both done well in their (albeit limited) time in the majors. They can also both go multiple innings if needed, which helps when your bullpen is this overworked. Having options remaining also means you can send them down to AAA if needed. Can't be any worse than Feliz and Torres, can they?