re: 2022 MLB Predictions

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Can someone tell me what Jed Hoyer is doing? Glad he got rid of all the 2016 guys. Any thoughts from Cub fans

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I was down with the trades he made, Cubs were getting stale with the core - we could have kept them and won 80 maybe 85 games but there was too much swing and miss with that core and too much inconsistency.

I could go on with several other points to justify it - but suffice it to say the value they got from trading those guys and the young talent we got back IMHO is better than what we would have done had we kept them. And at various times we offered all 3 (Rizzo/Bryant/Baez) were offered as good or better deals than they ended up getting.

I do wish we had gotten maybe one more starter in free agency and maybe gotten a better free agent SS than Simmons, but we do have a glut of SS talent in the minors and probably one of that group is only about 2-3 years away.

Jed could have spent more this year but I'm overall happy with the direction - I was frustrated with the long offensive lapses of the core we had and was ready to move on. Plus Rizzo and Bryant had both started missing too many games for my liking. And I love those guys.

Wouldn’t shock me if the Braves miss the playoffs all together this season. Remind me of the 2019 Nationals.

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Remind me of the 2019 Nationals.

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In what way? I'm genuinely curious. Yeah - Freddie is gone, but you replace him with Matt Olson who is equally as good statistically. We also lost Joc Pederson and Jorge Soler, but replace them with Acuna and Ozuna. I'm not seeing the similarities here, but I could be mistaken

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Wouldn’t shock me if the Braves miss the playoffs all together this season. Remind me of the 2019 Nationals.

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Anymore hot takes there, spanky?

The Braves are nowhere near the '19 Nats. Not even close. That team was old and rode a hot starting staff that was also old. The Braves are young and actually got younger and the pen that won them the WS got even better. They have arguably the best roster in baseball and yes that includes the Dodgers.

AL
East Red Sox
Central White Sox
West Astros
WC Yankees, Rays, Twins

AL Champion Redsox
AL MVP Devers
AL CY Ohtani
AL ROY Witts jr

NL
East Braves
Central Brewers
West Dodgers
WC Cardinals, Padres, Mets

NL Champion Dodgers
NL MVP Freeman
NL CY Burnes
NL ROY Suzuki

World Series
Redsox over Dodgers in 6

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But I had the Braves winning and AA getting revenge on his old team.

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Why would he look to get revenge? Is because he wasn’t granted full responsibilities of a GM when Shapiro took over as team president in 2015 like he did under the previous? Baseball is a business. AA and Shapiro didn’t see eye to eye and didn’t share the same sense of direction. AA rejected a 5 year extension because of Shapiro. He loved Toronto and they loved him but Shapiro didn’t.

Reading more into it, I find it interesting how different AA was as the GM with the Blue Jays compared being the GM with the Braves. With the Jays, he traded away top prospects to get players like Price, Tulowitski, etc. Also, I didn’t realize included Noah Syndergaard in that trade to get RA Dickey.