re: ATL Thread | 2023 offseason hot takes + discussion

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Fwiw, I hadn’t seen this when I made my post either…interesting to see others are questioning it. I also noticed he says $31 million. I guess that’s going back to the first WS trade.

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I feel like I need a forensic accountant to keep up with where the money went on all of those trades. Obviously I agree with what the guy said though. We got a worse utility player and a questionable hitting left fielder when we could have used what we had, for less money and hassle. Grissom can hit and Lopez can field really well, plus pinch run.

It is what it is though. I don’t get it.

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It's obviously a philosophy of AA's not to hand out long-term deals to SP's. It is what it is.

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Which would be a reason not to trust someone, no?

And they’re getting Buehler back. Both teams got bounced by inferior teams in the DS. Meanwhile the Braves may have improved in left field.

I'll bet they're still in play for Corbin Burnes too.

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It's obviously a philosophy of AA's not to hand out long-term deals to SP's. It is what it is.

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And if so it's a dumb as hell philosophy that's completely unsustainable unless you completely blow the doors off drafting pitchers. And we haven't done that since AA has been running our drafts.

If we spent most our off-season budget on middle relievers while ignoring starting pitching, it's just straight up dumb. Particularly since AA not fixing starting pitching at the deadline blew up in our faces in the playoffs this past year. Having to start Elder in a pivotal playoff series is a failure of management. There is no trust in AA at that point when he's already shown weaknesses.

While it would be nice for us to get an upgrade at SP...what are the odds that Beuhler and Glasgow combine for 20 starts next year? Both dudes made of glass.

Also, I recognize that is a sour grapes take.

Not loser talk at all. The reality is if you believe you can pencil in your players for the post season then you simply live in lalaland. Look at us. A 104 win team with 2 of our 3 stud SP’s not doing a thing in the playoffs. And with Acuna playing 159 games do you really believe that’s gonna happen again? His track record says heck no.

And the Dodgers know full well that they need to baby those pitchers all season.

I think the Braves have done a fine job this off season. In case you haven’t noticed SP’s are quickly losing importance. I love AA bolstering the bullpen because we all know we don’t have 1 SP, outside of Fried once every 5 starts, who will go more than 5 innings.

My long view is that SP’s are pricing themselves of out of jobs and more teams will replace them with deeper pens. But go ahead and crown the Dodgers and bad mouth the Braves. Both will win their Divisions and then it comes to a best 3 out of 5 with whatever players are available at that time.

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I think the Braves have done a fine job this off season. In case you haven’t noticed SP’s are quickly losing importance. I love AA bolstering the bullpen because we all know we don’t have 1 SP, outside of Fried once every 5 starts, who will go more than 5 innings. My long view is that SP’s are pricing themselves of out of jobs and more teams will replace them with deeper pens. But go ahead and crown the Dodgers and bad mouth the Braves. Both will win their Divisions and then it comes to a best 3 out of 5 with whatever players are available at that time.

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I’ve got no problem with what the Braves have done in the bullpen. It an area that needed improvement. But so does starting pitching. I disagree strongly that they are “quickly losing importance” and think the money being spent on mid-to-back of the rotation arms proves that. If you don’t have a deep and quality rotation, you wear your bullpen out.

What I question is that, starting with the Seattle trade, the team has taken on quite a bit of money to get what is hoped to be a modest upgrade in LF…albeit with a lot of upside. If that represents shooting their wad, it’s a disappointment.

There is still a lot of offseason left for the Braves to make a move and address bringing in a guy who can be a top 3 starter in a playoff series. Hopefully those moves are on the way.

I would like to see a TOR guy added in a trade for sure, especially for 2025. But the reality is you are not getting someone who is starting G1 or G2 in all likelihood barring injury. Adding another starter this past season probably doesn’t change anything. When we lose 2/3 Strider/Fried starts in a short series we’re fricked. The offense has been a no show. We won the WS with Tucker Davidson, Dylan Lee, Ian Anderson, Drew Smyly and Huascar Ynoa starting playoff games because we were scoring. We should score a shite of runs next year but all you can do is hope we don’t go cold in October.

Strider/Fried is already the best 1/2 punch in the sport outside of Nola/Wheeler by any projection model you want to use. We need to win most of their playoff starts. Annoying that we keep running into the Phillies in the NLDS for sure but there’s nothing you can do about it and it’s very likely we will see them again. We have the advantage of them only being able to use Wheeler twice and Nola once but we have been wretched against Ranger Suarez who was horrendous last year in the regular season.

Whether we add Cease or Montgomery or whoever to start game 3 at Citizens Bank against Nola or not we have to win the Strider/Fried starts in game 1 and 2. Our team is more than good enough on paper to win the division pretty easily. The ZiPS projection for this team is insane even without 4 top 30 starters which is what everyone seems to demand. We project to have easily the best 9 every day players by cumulative WAR, the best bullpen, the best starting pitcher and second best 1-2 punch, the second best #2 starter, the best 1-2-3 punch and the 4th best #3 starter. If we add another elite arm I think we are quite a bit clear of the field on paper with Ohtani not being able to pitch.

People are overrating Glasnow now that he has Dodgers across his chest.

He's made of glass.

ETA: LOL at the downvotes for stating a truth. Glasnow has never pitched more than 120 innings in a season ever.