The Braves have designated left-hander Luiz Gohara for assignment.
This isn’t much of a birthday present for Gohara, a former high-end prospect who turned 23 today. But health issues, including shoulder problems this year, have dogged Gohara. He hasn’t pitched at all this season, nor will he, having undergone arthroscopic shoulder surgery earlier this month.
When Gohara did take the mound from 2017-18, he totaled 49 major league innings with an unsightly 5.33 ERA. He did, however, log a far superior 3.47 FIP and post terrific strikeout and walk rates (9.0 K/9, 2.94 BB/9) during that span. Gohara spent the majority of last season at the Triple-A level, where he recorded a 4.94 ERA/4.45 FIP with 9.05 K/9 and 2.47 BB/9 in 54 2/3 frames.
Although he’s unavailable this year, it’s conceivable someone will take a chance on Gohara now that he’s in DFA limbo. After all, he’s young, controllable, optionable, and isn’t far removed from a run as a coveted prospect.
Oof. On his birthday too, that’s rough.
So how does DFA work after the trade deadline? A team claims him and he’s there’s with no trade?
Minor league trades are still allowed I believe, and I guess with MLB players, it’s either get claimed or not claimed.
No trades.
Wrong. Minor league trades are allowed and Gohara is in the minors. I’m hoping he doesn’t get claimed though, but it’s probably likely
And what happens now that there are no more trades if an mlb player gets put on waivers?
Pretty sure waiver claims are still allowed
Seattle will take him back. Maybe you guys were letting him eat too much peach cobbler.
DFA is slightly different than regular waivers. In th past, with regular waivers, if a player is claimed, a trade can be worked out, or the player can be pulled from waivers. With DFA, if the player is claimed, he is immediately added to the claiming teams 40 man roster with no compensation going back. Similar to the rule 5 draft, but the claimed player doesn’t have to be on the 25 man roster.
What surprises me is that the Braves probably tried to trade him before the DFA but obviously couldn’t get anything for him.
What a great birthday present for him
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday Dear Luiz!!!
You get DFA’d too!!!!
Wasn’t he a high end prospect?
Most fail and the Braves are quickly watching it unfold, particularly all the pitching they have acquired throughout the rebuild.
Yeah, Soroka and Fried sure are busts.
Fried is negotiable! Not to call him a bust, but he is far from a sure thing.
Not really. Unless he continuously puts up 5+ ERA he isn’t a bust. Many “top prospects” turn into middle of the rotation arms, which is precisely his outlook and that’s okay. Shoot, Newcomb is turning into a potential bullpen star. Nothing wrong with that either. And Ian Anderson has the makings of a TOR arm.
…..and he plays a mean flute.
and that is precisely the problem with the team. They are holding on to all these mid tier pitching prospects instead of getting top talent available to try to beat the Dodgers….hell get out of the first round. I have zero confidence that Fried, Teheran, Gausman would get things done. Soroka is likely under inning limit and has no experience and DK is hard to predict given his lack of impact peripherals.
Keuchel would take Gausman’s spot in a postseason rotation.
Nice Jethro Tull reference.
Don’t be so negative…. they are in first place, and just hugely upgraded the pen. Find something positive instead of finding anything negative to say. I swear Braves fans on this website make me ashamed to be a Braves fan sometimes.
Jeez, took me a while, but I finally get it. Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull. Nice one.
You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. The Braves are continually selecting and grooming quality pitching prospects. Some will get injured, some will experience failure but others will succeed to varying degrees. There are other organizations that have very little or no success at producing pitchers – the Braves are not one of those organizations.
Love comments like this. Name me one pitcher the Braves “continually selected and groomed” since the Smoltz/Glavine era that has been an impactful success?
Soroka might be one but he is far from proven. That and the fact that its been over 2 decades.
Just so you know the Braves didn’t draft Smoltz actually the tigers did
Craig Kimbrel. But point taken, Atlanta does get overrated in the pitching category because of the 90s.
Umm, okay.
Kevin Milwood.
Adam wainwright.
Matt Harrison
Nefalti Feliz
Jair Jurjens
Tommy Hanson
Charlie Morton
Jeff Locke
Jonny Venters
Craig Kimbrel
Kris Medlen
Brandon Beechy
Mike Minor
Julio Teheran
If you’re asking what Hall of Fame careers have they produced, then yea, that may be hard to find…but they’ve been a mill of good to great pitchers for decades, save a dry spell in the ‘05-‘12 range.
Adam wainwright, Jason Schmidt, Kevin millwood. All drafted and “groomed” by the Braves. Only one to not make the bigs with Atlanta was wainwright and he was ready when dealt. It’s you that has no idea what you’re talking about
If your complain is longevity, that’s a game wide epidemic. Guys who surely looked to be hall of famers when they pitched fell off the map. Remember Kerry Wood, Ben Sheets, Brandon Webb, etc.?
Alex Wood, Julio Teherán, Mike Minor, Kris Medlen, Brandon Beachy just to name a few. They were all signed and developed by the braves. Wainwright and Neftali Feliz could also fall into this category but were traded before pitching in the majors. None are Tom Glavine, but all were quality major league pitchers.
Well, i was referring to starters but Kimbrel works.
Also as someone mentioned, i forgot about Wainwright but that was a long long time ago. No recent impact starters (other than possibly Soroka).
And no Teheran is not an impact starter! Some of them turned to late boomers (Minor and Morton). Others had short lived success (Medlen and Teheran).
Honestly, just a bunch of underwhelming names.
So73-69 3.62 ERA over a 7 year career is not an impactful pitcher? Lots of clubs would love to have a back of the rotation guy like Tehran!
key words “back of the rotation guy.”
No one here is arguing that the Braves have not developed a bunch of #3-5s in the last 2 decades.
So name me a team that had drafted and developed more TORs than the Braves in the last 2 decades. There are a few, but not many.
Jair came from Tigers and you forgot Jason Schmidt
That’s why the Braves doubled and then tripled down on acquiring pitchers in trades and through the draft. It’s no secret that a lot of top prospects never pan out. Wisler, Sims, Jenkins, and Gohara are already some of the guys who have lost their luster while guys like Soroka, Fried, Folty, and Newcomb have found success in the majors at some point over the past two years. Then you have enough in the well to send out guys like a Wentz and Beck in trades while retaining highly-touted guys like Anderson, Wright, etc.
Injury problems and dealing with health problems in his family (father died in his arms, mother needed heart surgery a few months later).
Yes, he was, and still technically is one of their top (in the top 30, but falling).
This is nothing more than a 40-man move. He will almost certainly get claimed, but the Braves really didn’t have any better alternatives on their 40 to remove. They added 3 today and traded 2, so something had to happen to open a spot.
He was seen as high risk/high reward when they traded for him. He apparently had fallen out of favor in Seattle.
Hopefully, Minter is next!
Wow thought they’d move him to the 60 day and give him a shot next year. Guess they just don’t see a future for him and don’t want to waste their time. Hope he finds success somewhere.
If they moved him to the 60 day IL, they would have had to put him
On the big league roster and this pay his big league salary & his service service time
Would have been accruing.
Service time vs. loosing service tho…
Post-deadline throw-in for Greene?
Rockies for Drew Butera?
100% going to the Orioles
Doesn’t he have to make it through the entire National league first?
He will, don’t worry.
I bet someone claims him.
Miami would probably take a snag at him.
NYY takes a flier and CC passes off his jersey and number to him. Fits like a glove.
What happened? Is he injured? Off the field trouble? Nothing on baseball reference about it.
His shoulder is done
Consistently fat and out of shape
Come on Pirates, pick him up.
Someome is gonna claim him so fast
This hurts to see… especially after trading Allard for a ok rental, Wentz, and Beck. That’s a haul of top prospect pitchers GONE, just like that. Tough to watch…
We still have wright, anderson, wilson, muller, ynoa, and then a handful of some pitching prospects
I disagree. I don’t feel Allard or Wentz is much of a loss, with the amount of pitchers in the pipeline, etc – considering the braves have a roster built to win this year – and final pieces were needed.
I get it. I mean, it just hurts to see. I’m not dead though.
But think about this, we lost 4 top prospects (3 of which were former top 100), 2 former top prospects, and absorbed a lot of salary ultimately for 3 very meh pitchers. I get Greene is killing it this year… but he’s never had a good season before this. Martin is a rental who is putting up meh numbers and mark is expensive for meh #’s. But that’s how bad our bullpen has been. We desperately need them and it’s sad what it’s ultimately costing us. Should have simply spent the money this offseason cause it honestly cost us a lot both in money and prospects to make our bullpen go from awful to ok enough to possibly get the job done
Yes, a bunch of malaise in our system of Allard, Wentz, Beck who took the ball in between great starts from Muller, Wilson, Ian Anderson and Tucker Davidson — how will we ever survive??
Well, it hurts more when you have this kind of talent, and when u boil down to it, we actually didn’t get that great of a return…
Some people will always find a reason to be unhappy.
If we’d kept those guys it would be, “Now is the time to win, what is AA doing!?” If we’d sent 5 prospects to the D-Backs for Greinke it’d be, “We just sold the farm for 1 guy, what is AA doing!?”
He just made our bullpen a lot better, picked up another speedy outfielder and defensive catcher for September for 3 prospects, a Dan Winkler, and some cash. Oh, and the farm is still strong enough for the Braves to be really competitive for the next decade+
**4 prospects
It depends which prospects he sent. If he sent our 4-5 best, then yes I’d be mad, cause our 4-5 best is much better than what the Astro gave up. Ur example is horrible. Not to mention, I’m unhappy because the return for the prospects could have been much greater based on what happened around the league. Our baseline was set at a much higher standard they others when it came to the quality of prospects we were willing to give up
So can Gohara be traded now? This is a gray area in the rules to me since he’s not technically on the 40-man roster anymore. If not, then Atlanta’s best hope is to pass him through waivers, which seems unlikely
Maybe for a person not on a 40 man Roster.
Good question… because it would be absolutely and tragedy to not be able to get something in return for him after trading away a bunch of other top prospects for a very mild return
Damn that’s crazy. Is he 300lbs now or something? That’s a lot of potential w options to just DFA.
Whoever has the #1 waiver claim priority is going to be so happy
Has to be Detroit right? If I remember correctly, it starts with the worst team in the opposite league, then goes through the entire AL before looping back around to the worst in NL
NL gets first dibs so Miami has first priority, I’m assuming
Cardinals…take a shot.
Go get him Brewers he is young and it cant hurt. I think if I looked right we will have like 13 to 14 possible 40 man roster spots coming available for this winter. It really cant hurt to try
I remember a few days ago someone seriously suggested gohara for Clint Frazier lol
I wish this guy luck though. He just needs to heal
If he has been hurt all year, why isn’t he on the 60 day DL? He wouldn’t even be taking up a roster spot…. Also, didn’t know you could DFA a player that is injured…
He’d accrue service time on the 60 and they’d have to pay him. Service time doesn’t really matter now that the Braves are dumping him anyway. I wonder if no team would touch him due to the medicals. If the Braves heard it enough that he had no trade value at all and teams wouldn’t take him on their 40, perhaps it left an impression
nasty as hell when healthy
The only excuse for the Pirates to not claim him is if the Marlins do.
Throw Gohara against the wall and see if he sticks. Nothing to lose.
Twins did get Diplan, perhaps they end up Gohara too.
im surprised they didn’t trade him for this exact reason
I assume they’ve been trying all week that they DFA him an hour after the deadline
Maybe his surgery didn’t go well. Maybe he picked up an infection, maybe he told the Braves he’s done w baseball or the Braves doctor’s said he won’t pitch for 2-3 years, who knows
Brewers should pick him up
Would love to see the Mets claim Gohara.
Texas may be all over this. He was a trade target of their just 2 years ago
He could comeback to Seattle if we could turn him around would be a great pick up for us. We need SPs.
Good riddance. Never impressed with him and he was always missing time,
Mets please!!!
Wouldn’t touch him – poor makeup . Won’t stay off DL – someone will think they can fix him
Why not just option him to the minors since he still has options? I know they would have had to pay him for his time on the 60 day IL but come on… It couldn’t have been that much $. He has no success yet at the Major League level. If you can afford to trade prospects in order for the right to pay Mark Melancon $14 million a year you can cover Gohara’s minimum salary. The only thing I can think is on top of his injury he is a jack hole that refuses to stay in shape in is happy enough making his minimum salary that he puts no effort in. Maybe some team will claim him but if not does that mean the Braves keep him on a minor league salary while he’s injured? I am trying to figure out the difference between DFA’ing a guy that makes minimum salary and still has options left vs. all out releasing him. Can anyone help me out with this?
You can’t option a player unless he remains on the 40 man roster….the Braves traded two today, picked up 3…so someone had to be removed. Your only options there are 60 day DL (which has to have a legit 60 day injury to be put on), Trade, or DFA him. Clearly nobody wanted to use a roster spot on him in a trade today, so DFA was the only choice since they chose not to stash him on the 60 day DL only have to add him back come december for the Rule 5 draft. He will almost likely get claimed by Baltimore, KC, Marlins, etc….someone will take a flier on him for free.
The kid wore out his welcome in Seattle, talent is there, but the kid eats everything he sees and according to coaches, did not put in the work like a top prospect should. Fans cried we let our top pitching prospect go for fringe prospects, but truth be told….he was only the top prospect because our farm was terrible.
Yeah. I could see that. I know his injury is 60 day IL eligible though. He just had shoulder surgery less than a week or two ago. Not sure what the logic is for DFAing him now vs. waiting is. I would love to find out. What prospects did Seattle get? I know the Brave traded Mallex Smith for him and the team that got Mallex won that trade (even if he only had one good season). I can’t remember if we made that trade with Seattle or Tampa Bay. I know Mallex played with Seattle recently and had a good season recently too. I also know he got traded recently. Did Seattle trade Gohara to Tampa and then Tampa traded Gohara to Atlanta for Mallex Smith just to turn around and trade Mallex to Seattle? If that was the case it would be funny because the Braves could have just traded Mallex straight to Seattle for Mallex Smith and everyone would have got what they wanted.
If I’m a GM I take a chance on him. He’s young, just needs to get his shoulder right and tighten up the physique. His stuff was definitely impressive and guys have made their way back from worse injuries. I mean I’m breaking my thumb dialing Atlanta’s GM
I kind of agree with you. Gohara was 60 day injured list eligible and still had options. They could have put him on the 60 day IL and then when he was healthy sent him down to the minors for a long time. At the same time, from what I read after my last comment on this post (further up ^) someone told me that even if he was on the 60 day IL he would be eligible for the December Rule 5 draft anyway. I don’t know enough about it to say that it’s true but I would have thought you could keep an injured player with options off the 40 man roster and no teams could claim him. I could have easily been wrong though. The other point is (the Seattle fan that paid attention too him before the Braves traded Mallex Smith for him confirmed my beliefs on this) Gohara is probably pretty lazy and “won’t stop eating everything in sight.” He is very obese and it’s definitely his choice to be that way. Some guys get away with that and most of them are pitchers. CC Sabathia and David Wells come to mind. They were good pitchers so fans could tolerate it. However it is an absolute given that some athletes, no matter how gifted they are, stop working hard once the pay checks come in. They lived their lives without a lot of money and now the several hundreds of thousands or even millions they make every year starts to make them feel very comfortable. Some people just don’t work as hard when they are very comfortable and have more money in the bank than the average person. It isn’t always specific to people that are overweight before they start making money. The NFL has had plenty of characters like this. Trent Richardson was hailed as the next great running back and was in great shape. Then he got his 1st pay check and stopped working hard all while gaining a bunch of weight. Jamarcus Russel was the #1 overall draft pick at quarterback with ridiculous talent. He got his $39 million guaranteed contract and gained a bunch of weight and stopped showing up to practices because he knew they legally had to pay him anyway. Then he gambled all his money away and tried to come back into the NFL afterwards. His trainer quit before he could because he still wouldn’t put any effort in. I don’t know if this is what is happening with Gohara but from what I see and from what other fans that followed him more closely I suspect it might be. I know he had “shoulder discomfort” and they gave him surgery and put him through rehab and gave him the season off. Then he comes back and complains about more shoulder discomfort. They looked at his shoulder and their was only very minor scar tissue. Scar tissue that even the worst and all of the best pitchers play through all the time. So they paid for his extremely minor arthroscopic (shoulder scar tissue removal surgery) and tried to trade him. The funny thing is that recently all this pain started to come up right before he had to start working to pitch again. His goal may have been to play out his rookie contract at the league minimum level while doing nothing. That would have made him well over $3 million. Some people don’t want to work or play a sport no matter how talented they are. I can’t lie if someone were to hand me a $3 million check I would stop working too. Maybe the Braves realize he is that kind of person.
normally, I’d glance at that much text and move on, but you bring up some highly salient points, detailed with examples. Definitely food for thought. Hopefully if my team is rolling the dice on him he proves to be free of that lazy mindset, or maybe he just needs a change of scenery. Either way, cheers my man
Break up the text into Paragraphs next time. It’s too much text coming at you at once.
Mariners?
If the Jays can get him, he will heal up pitch amazingly and get traded for a 28 year old former top 1b prospect
Smh
Tigers, take a shot in the dark