Here's the latest on the Braves from David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution…
- Brian McCann was set to earn $8.5MM next season but "maxed out" his contract incentives related to Silver Slugger awards and All-Star appearances, so the star catcher will earn a total of $11.5MM in 2012. O'Brien said the Braves haven't discussed a long-term extension with McCann but the team usually doesn't pursue such negotiations until later in the winter. McCann is under contract through next year and the Braves have a $12MM club option on McCann for 2013 that looks like a lock to be exercised.
- In regards to the Martin Prado trade talks between the Braves and Rockies, O'Brien thinks Atlanta would move Prado for Seth Smith and a center field prospect like Tim Wheeler or Charlie Blackmon. With Michael Bourn only contracted through 2012, the Braves are looking for center field depth in case Bourn's asking price is too high for their liking.
- Atlanta "made a run at" Jamey Carroll but balked at giving the 37-year-old infielder a multiyear contract.
- The Braves are known to desire a trade package for Jair Jurrjens similar to the one the Royals received last winter for Zack Greinke, but O'Brien says this asking price could be too high for most teams. "Word out of the GM meetings was that the Braves are demanding so much for Jurrjens that a deal might be unlikely unless they come down in their multi-player/prospect asking price or some teams get desperate for starting pitching later in the offseason," O'Brien writes.
- "It's unclear" if Atlanta is interested in bringing back Alex Gonzalez on a one-year deal. The Braves are looking for a short-term veteran to play shortstop until Tyler Pastornicky is ready.
- GM Frank Wren says his team isn't actively shopping Prado and Jurrjens but are willing to listen to offers. "I think that [Prado and Jurrjens trade possibility] was wrongly characterized from the very beginning,” Wren said. “What we said and what we stand by is that we’re looking to get better, and however we can get better we will. We’re open minded. We’ll listen if somebody calls."
I wonder if the Braves and Padres could match up on Jason Bartlett? I know he is not the sexiest player ever but stole 20 bases but also hit a meager .245. Plays solid defense….under contract for one more year at a reasonable price.
Would be a nice stop gap for the young SS in the Braves system to mature for one more year, and he will not kill you offensively or defensively.
Braves give up a solid AA prospect, and a bullpen arm?
No thanks.
According to my mom, Jason Bartlett IS the sexiest player ever.
mine always had a thing for Johnny Bench
Actually she likes Tom Glavine.
would rather sign gozo for 1 yr and 5 mill then trade for Bartlett and pay him 5.5 in 2012 and another 1.5 buyout for 2013.
I don’t think Gonzo is even worth 2.5 million
He isn’t but he Bartlett isn’t worth the 7 mill the braves would pay him in total for 1 year.
word. we don’t need a 5 million dollar shortstop we just need someone to bridge the gap for Pastorniky
If the Padres took Diaz and his $2mil off our books, then say Hoover (AA relief prospect) and maybe something low-level might be worth it.
I’d be fine just signing Jack Wilson to 1 yr/$2mil if we had to.
Did i miss the year when jurrjens won the cy young making him somewhere near the equal of greinke , good luck with that one braves
look at his career numbers and he is only 25 … 50-33 with a 3.4 ERA. and Zack Greinke has a 76-73 record with a career 3.82 ERA. So far Jurrjens has done nothing to even suggest that he isn’t all-start material, so until he has a bad season can we all stop saying Jurrjens is Overrated please.
nobody believes he’s overrated everybody has a pretty good idea just how good he is and it isnt as good as greinke , not bad , but not ace material , braves know that, why else would they want trade him so badly ?
Jurrjens career: 3.88 FIP, 4.22 xFIP, 4.43 SIERA
Grienke career: 3.51 FIP, 3.68 xFIP, 3.64 SIERA
Yeah I don’t know or care what that means… Jurrjens wins more and allows less runs. BOOM
lol, thank you!!!!! I hate sabermetrics!!!!
Jurrjens is a bigger injury risk than Greinke
The fact that you just used wins and losses to compare a pitcher on the Braves (a winning team) and the Royals (a losing team) nullifies your arguement.
I used ERA too, can you not read?
so basically your saying that baseball stats before sabermetrics were invented don’t mean anything? I guess we should clean out the hall of fame then…
No, but you have to take all stats into account. Not trusting sabermetrics, at least to a moderate degree, is like my parents not trusting email as a viable form of communication.
In the end, traditionalists need to learn that advanced statistics are a useful piece of information, and pseudo-sabermetricians need to understand that no one statistic is infallible. You have to look at everything.
-C
Where did he say that at all? Do you think that hitters have an outcome on whether their team wins the game? If you do, then using wins as a viable stat for pitcher is ridiculous when there are plenty of other stats that are more accurate at measuring a pitcher’s individual contribution.
Grienkie got no run support in KC, has a CY Young on his mantle, all while pitching against DHs for most of his career.
And just because the Braves are looking for a Greinke like package doesn’t mean Jurrjens is equal to or better than Greinke. Its the beginning of the postseason so why wouldn’t Frank Wren try and get some team to overpay, if you were selling a car would you ask for the lowest price you would accept first… no i didn’t think so. I’m confident Wren could get a great package for Jurrjens, i mean look at his last 3 or 4 trades.
JJ was on pace to have a great Cy Young like season but he is injury prone and I think the braves are just trying to get something good while his value is high.
Seth Smith can’t hit lefties…we want him why??!
I’m pretty sure him and Matt Diaz would platoon in LF.
I may lose it if that happens. I’d rather see Prado back out in LF next year than that. Prior to him, the Braves had used a platoon every year since Chipper was last there in 04, and I don’t know about anyone else but I’m absolutely sick of seeing a platoon in LF.
Orson Wel…I mean Mark Bowman shot that down in his recent inbox replies. But then again he shoots every rumor down
Am I the only one who DOESNT want to trade Prado in favor of moving him to 3rd AFTER Chipper FINALLY retires?
sounds like a good plan if you can get larry to retire within the next 3 years
If Chipper doesn’t play 126 games, you can always not re-sign him.
Dude I really don’t want the Braves to Trade Prado, I never really understood why his name was coming up in trade talks anyways, he is so valuable to our team
Why isn’t Jason Kubel’s name being thrown around as a Left Field option for Atlanta? any thoughts… I know he is injury prone but if he ever goes on the DL than we have Prado to back him up. And he is Left handed which is a negative
it makes more sense than trading a valuable piece for a comparable, if not inferior, hitter in Smith
The red sox should look into bring prado to fenway. i think he would be a great pick up for the red sox.
i can see the dodgers wanting to overpay for Jurrjens if kuroda goes back to japan
I hate Brian McCann because he steals Silver Slugger from Yadi every year. But other than that, I like him. Good player. Hope the Braves can lock him up. If not, go to the AL please.
as much as it pains me to say this being a philly fan …. the national league needs this guy during the allstar game and without him this year the redbirds open series in texas and who knows what happens then
This is the first year Yadier has posted an OPS over .750, not exactly a enviable statistic. He kept track with McCann pretty well this year but this was a very off year for Brian. Unless Yadier unleashes a little more power he’ll never garner offensive attention because home runs are sexy and not striking out isn’t.
I just meant that Yadi had the 2nd best offensive year for catchers and if wasn’t for him, Yadi would have won it. Didn’t mean to make it sound like Yadi had the better year. “Steal” wasn’t the right word.
Stealing? I wouldn’t call it stealing. It’s called performing better. Now with Posey and Ramos hanging around, Yadier Molina’s life just got a little more difficult.
Read reply to R.D. As long as Yadi wins the GG, I’m happy. Was just hoping this year he won a batting award. He has developed into one of the best hitting catchers in the game the last few years.
yeah, sorry about the stealing thing, your message about it being the wrong word posted after I hit enter and i was too lazy to edit it. My bad.
Yadier Molina is so not in McCann’s league as a hitter. He buries him as a catcher, but Brian’s severely ahead of him as a hitter.
Braves want to trade him 4 only 1 reason BORAS Braves havent done well with him .
i dont think anybody does well with him , he needs to go suck a lemon
ever heard of a guy named Maddux? He was a Boras client. So was Andruw Jones. But I do admit ol’ Scotty has gotten worse these past few years and God only knows what’s going to happen when it’s time to make a decision on Tommy Hanson.
You should probably trade Michael Bourn 2 then because his agent is also BORAS.
What would we do with Smith/Blackmon/Bourn/Heyward/Constanza/Hinske? Blackmon is pretty mlb ready and while I do like him, there are teams that match up better for us.
Just trade for Jhonny Peralta, that would solve nearly everything.
123
456?
I don’t even want to think about what the bill for Brian McCann’s extension will be. Whatever it is, I’m sure the Braves will figure it out.
Lets sign Nick Punto to a 1 year deal to play shortstop until Pastorniky is ready than move him to a utility role if the Braves feel Pastorniky can start
Sounds like another solid 2nd or 3rd place finish to me !
If this were last year I’d shoot back at you in a very rude and most likey unnecessary way but after hearing the nice things some of the Phillies players said about the Braves this year I won’t. Cliff Lee was unhappy that Tommy Hanson was left off of the all-star game and during the all-star game, Hunter Pence told the AL first baseman he feels sorry for whoever has to face Craig Kimbrel. So I think we’ll just leave it at “Just wait and see Brochacho, just wait and see…”
OK BROCHACHO !
Why does everyone think the Greinke trade was so great. Escobar is a decent SS but doesn’t hit well, Cain has put up good numbers at AAA but until he shows he can hit at the majors he’s still not shown anything, Odorizzi was good at A+ but struggled at AA, and Jeffress hasn’t really done much.
4 for 2 but none of the 4 that the Brewers gave up really have Greinke potential.
Braves asking price is unrealistic considering injuries. A 3 for 1 would be acceptable IMO. Or trading for a SS or corner power OF……Erick Aybar and Carlos Quentin come to mind
Aybar won’t be available unless they sign Reyes, which i doubt happens.
It’s not fair to say the trade was bad or good as of right now. They are prospects, Escobar has potential since he is a good fielder and has speed with some occasional pop. Cain is old for a prospect, we’ll see how he fares this season. And the other two have a lot of potential.
I’m not saying it was a good trade, but it’s too early to say it was bad. These deals of an mlb star for prospects are always like this. Prospects aren’t a sure thing, you could have a Mark Texeira deal in the making, or a Tim Hudson deal……Both involving the Braves
It’s not fair to say the trade was bad or good as of right now. They are prospects, Escobar has potential since he is a good fielder and has speed with some occasional pop. Cain is old for a prospect, we’ll see how he fares this season. And the other two have a lot of potential.
I’m not saying it was a good trade, but it’s too early to say it was bad. These deals of an mlb star for prospects are always like this. Prospects aren’t a sure thing, you could have a Mark Texeira deal in the making, or a Tim Hudson deal……Both involving the Braves
Man, I just hope Betencourt turns out good and we can use him when Mcann starts lagging.
Will McCann be a Brave when he starts ‘lagging’?? He has 2 years $23.5 mil left. Where does his next contract start?? $15 mil a year??
If the Rockies are offering Seth Smith and Tim Wheeler for Prado, I say take it and run. Smith has some pop and would make another good bat off the bench. Plus free this move would free up some 2 million (Prado makes 3 and Smith makes about 500k, Wheeler will most likely make league minimum if not very close). Which could allow us to pursuit a top bat….Michael Cuddyer anyone?
smith is projected to make around 2 million this year in his first year of arbitration
Two unproven left-handed bats.
Otherwise I feel like this would be a steal, but I really don’t know where we would be putting all these guys. If Bourn is the catalyst everyone hopes him to be, he will hopefully be extended and Heyward is in the same risk/reward category as Blackmon/Wheeler. Beyond that we would be completely out a competent backup to Chipper and still no heir to his throne. Now if Wheeler played third base, I’d say we were in business.
If the Braves end up trading Prado, I would love to see some interest shown in Cuddy.
Pray tell, how is Smith’s bat unproven??
Even in his down years, he’s been basically league-average. And he’s pretty good in his up years.
Now, if you’re talking his inability to hit LHP, that would make him incomplete, not unproven.
-C
Wren throws smokescreens left and right (aka “fibs”) to manipulate a situation the way he sees fit. He purposefully leaked Prado and Jurrjens’ names out to gauge interest in the players. He was hoping that some team would make a ridiculous offer he couldn’t refuse for one of the 2 players early on. Then, he would have time to measure the team’s needs and fill a hole via free agency before all of the players of interest were scooped up. If he traded one of the above mentioned, he’d likely be filling a hole at SS or LF, leaving one of the 2 positions to be filled via free agency. When a team didn’t bite, he “pulled back” his words through the mouthpiece of the organization (O’Brien). Forbidden fruit tastes sweeter…