AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2006 > December > 20
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Braves brass in bunker as rumors percolate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Be thankful you’re in Atlanta and not here in Kansas City, where it’s 40-something degrees and raining. In other words, World Series weather.
Anyway, I’ll skip the rehashing, reshaping and regurgitating of the Adam LaRoche rumor-du-jour, since I’m not even sure what the rumor-du-jour is, or whether it can be narrowed down to one. Probably not.
Suffice to say, all along I’ve felt there was no way the Braves would do the supposed three-way trade with the Yanks and Pirates in the form that it was most frequently cited, with the Braves getting 22-yr-old OF Melky Cabrera, the Yankees getting lefty closer Mike Gonzalez, the Pirates getting LaRoche.
Made no sense, and I’ll stick with that assessment until the Braves prove otherwise. They wer once asking for Cabrera and Yankees setup stud Scott Proctor, and they’re going to settle for Cabrera all of a sudden. No way. Never was a way they’d do that without getting something more, especially since they’ve said all along that pitching is the priority.
Braves officials have been in serious bunker mode since returning from the winter meetings, probably because they wanted to get a deal done before the new year. I do know they’ve been on-again, off-again, but never kaput in talks with the Pirates, Devil Rays and Angels, and with Yankees as part of the Pirates thing (the Yankees really, really want Gonzalez).
But where they are right now, today, in any of those deals, I’m not certain. Not going to lie and say I am. They’d love to have Baldelli from Tampa Bay, but aren’t going to give up Chuck James. They’d love to have Figgins and Kotchman from Angels, but Braves want more, and they’re not going to get reliever Scot Sheld in addition to Figgins.
They’d love to have Cabrera from Yankees, but not JUST Cabrera. At the minimum, I’d guess they’d also have to get 2B Jose Castillo, but I don’t know if that’d be enough or even if the Pirates, who drive a very hard bargain, would be willing to part with Gonzalez and Castillo.
They’d love to have Brian Roberts from Baltimore, but I don’t think the Braves OR the Orioles wants to give up their guy in a straight one-to-one, Roberts for LaRoche. I still say a three-way with Tampa Bay, sending closer Chris Ray from Baltimore to the Devil Rays, Baldelli to the Braves, and LaRoche to the Orioles, makes the most sense, long as the Braves also get a pitcher, at least a top pitching prospect like Hayden Penn, in the deal.
I wouldn’t do it, still, but I think the Braves probably would, because Roberts fills the 2B/leaodoff role for couple years before he’s a free agent. Repeating, I wouldn’t do the deal. Also repeating, the Braves don’t care what I’d do. Or what you’d do, perhaps unfortunately.
(I say that because getting rid of both Giles and LaRoche … well, they’d better hope if they do that, it works out as a whole next season, or be prepared for the storm of second-guessing).
The past couple of years the Braves tried to get everything done by the start of the new year, be it for internal accounting reasons or just to make sure they weren’t left with holes to fill and few players left available in January.
But if they get a trade done by then this year, it’s either going to have to be in the next few days. That, or Braves officials will have take the highly unusual step _ unusual for most clubs and particularly for them _ of working in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when most teams shut ‘er down.
Rather than accept what they view to be a bad deal, I think the Braves would probably prefer to stand pat and try to pick up a veteran lefty reliever off scrap heap when the free-agent dust has settled or via trade this winter.
And if they had to, I think they’d be comfortable enough with their 2B options at least to go to spring training and see if any of them stand out and appear ready to handle the job. If not, again, the Braves have been known to make trades late in spring to fill needs. They could have an extra starter to trade, plus they have a couple of prospects, and the prize trade chip that many teams are after _ LaRoche.
If they don’t trade LaRoche now, the Braves could do it in January or even wait until the spring, after they see how Scott Thorman looks at 1B in Grapefruit League games (though they’ve already seen him quite a bit, just not on a every-day basis), or after they see how Kelly Johnson looks at second and decide whether they can expect to get good production from that spot.
So many things can happen that if a trade doesn’t go down now, it doesn’t necessarily mean this is the team the Braves will have opening day.
And if it is pretty much their opening day team, I don’t think the Braves would be uncomfortable with it, given the expected improvements in the pitching staff with Bob Wickman in the fold already, and with the addition of setup man Rafael Soriano (most fans in the NL don’t realize just how dominant he has been).
OK, enough with potential trades in this post. Besides, the whole situation seems so fluid, with speculation rampant and the rumor mill grinding right up to Christmas, it appears. So we’ll just keep addressing them below, I’m sure.
Hey, on an unrelated matter, I think the career projection I got out of the Bill James Handbook probably got overlooked buried down in yesterday’s blog, so I’ll put ‘em here again. If you read them already, just skip, don’t complain. Tired of complainers.
Here’s what the stats guru James predicts for career numbers for some guys you might be interested in these days:
Adam LaRoche _ projected 1,992 career games, .262 average, 509 doubles, 351 HRs, 1,138 RBIs, .337 OBP, .449 slugging, .836 OPS.
Derrek Lee _ 2,312 games, .276 avg, 506 doubles, 421 HRs, 1.260 RBIs, .364 OBP, .499 slugging, .864 OPS.
Carlos Lee _ 2,323 games, .283 avg, 520 doubles, 433 HRs, 1,504 RBIs, .339, .494 slugging, .832 OPS.
Alfonso Soriano _ 2,024 games, .272 avg, 485 doubles, 428 HRs, 1,129 RBIs, .324 OBP, .502 slugging, .826 OPS.
Andruw Jones (hand on to your seats) _ 3,051 games, .259 avg, 571 doubles, 677 HRs, 2,009 RBIs, .344 OBP, .500 slugging, .844 OPS.
Chipper Jones _ 2,629 games, .296 avg, 567 doubles, 516 HRs, 1,753 RBIs, 1,606 walks w/ 1,609 K, .395 OBP, .525 slugging, .920 OPS.
Brian Roberts _ 2,066 games, .276 avg, 510 doubles, 123 HRs, 750 RBIs, 343 SBs, .344 OBP, .395 slugging, .740 OPS.
Marcus Giles _ 2,158 games, .276 avg, 551 doubles, 207 HRs, 917 RBIs, 148 SBs, .354 OBP, .427 slugging, .781 OPS.
Couple other quick things:
Unless I’m missing someone, only Houston’s Craig Biggio and the Braves’ John Smoltz and Chipper Jones have spent at least 13 seasons their original major-league team and are still with that team (and don’t say Detroit was Smoltz original major-league team, because he didn’t reach the majors until he was traded to the Braves)….
I’ve been among those harping on the Braves’ dysfunctional payroll, point out that nearly 80 percent of their $80 million was tied up in seven guys, including more than $36 million for just the Joneses and John Smoltz (including prorated portion of signing bonuses for Chipper and Smoltz).
Rare is the team that wins championships with such a large percentage of its payroll sucked up by so few guys. But guess who just did it? St. Louis. That’s right, the Cards had an approximate $88 mill payroll, of which $38 mill went to three players and $53 mill to five, topped by Albert Pujols’ $14 mill. So it can be done. But it ain’t easy….
I’m suddenly possessed of the Christmas spirit, so I offer more reasons _ more Cardinals-based reasons _ for Braves fans to believe: The Cardinals won only 83 games last season, and they won the World Series with a starting rotation that included ace Chris Carpenter and the likes of Jeff Suppan, Jeff Weaver and Anthony Reyes.
Oh, and a closer (former Braves prospect Adam Wainwright) who’d never been a closer until late September….
The Braves went 4-2 vs. the Cardinals last season, batting .351 and racking up 16 homers and 55 runs in those games. The losses went to John Thomson and Jason Shiell….
Just two more stats (I promise): Since the wild-card era began in 1995, only three teams have advanced to more than three LCS: Yankees (7), Cardinals (6) and Braves (6), though the Braves haven’t gone since 2001.
Those are also the only three teams who’ve had their current managers more than seven seasons _ Cox (17 years in current stint, 21 overall in two tours with Braves), LaRussa (11) and Torre (11).
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