re: ATL Thread 5/20: Doubleheader Edition

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Of course they may end winning 120 games and sweeping the playoffs. But you have to wonder if AA's method of signing young guys to long term deals will end up being a bad move. Of course, hindsight will be 20/20 as we all lauded him at the time. But maybe there's something to be said for guys with a lot to lose vs those with nothing to lose.

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I agree with you on this, but we are on an island.

Human nature suggests that some of the motivation to go to work goes out the window if you know that no matter how well (or poorly) you perform at your job, you are guaranteed to have $100M in the bank.

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But you have to wonder if AA's method of signing young guys to long term deals will end up being a bad move

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I don't think there is anyway to consider that a bad move. I think his big issue is that he is just unwilling to playball when it comes to outgoing players being on the open market. Early on, it didn't really matter because we had a deep farm that was ready to step up for those outgoing players (Riley for Donaldson and sending top prospects to land Olson), but we saw it burn us with Arcia slotting in for Swanson and who knows what we're going to do to fill the void Fried will leave.

My biggest issue from the beginning is that he seems obsessed with making a more complicated move just to for the sake of making a move.

Beaten to death obviously, but instead of just re-signing Freddie, we gave up a majority of the trade chips on the farm for Olson, who is now just two years younger than Freddie was when we let him walk. Like, wouldn't it just have been easier to give Freddie the deal he wanted? We ended up paying just as much for a slightly younger but less productive 1B, but gave up a lot of prospects to do it.

Thinking we could let Arcia or Grissom step in for Dansby was just asinine.

And then the Murphy deal was pretty questionable at the time, considering we gave up the rest of our farm assets and an incredibly team-friendly contract in Contreras (who hasn't even entered his arb years yet) for an older catcher, when we were set at catcher with TDA starting. Now, it looks incredibly stupid in retrospect considering Contreras appears to be turning into the best hitting catcher in the league while improving his defense and Murphy has been a disaster at the plate when he is healthy.

Bad moves and bad luck have our window closing faster than it previously seemed.