This week's mailbag is a bit of a hybrid. MLBTR founder Tim Dierkes handles the first handful of questions, while Anthony Franco takes the final few to round it out. We'll get into the Braves' continually sinking playoff chances, trade possibilities for the Cubs, Roki Sasaki's disappointing debut season, deadline outlooks for a handful of bubble teams, and much more!
Kevin asks:
Should the Braves attempt a rebuild, move on from some of the core that is underperforming again and develop a new draft philosophy? Maybe draft some hitters?
Phillip asks:
I am a Braves Fan, win or lose and I watch them every night. This season and the season they won the World Series are 2 different entities. Why would the Braves not trade Raisel Iglesias and Marcell Ozuna? I mean we have so many weaknesses, we have 3 starting pitchers, bottom of our lineup is worst in baseball and our relievers are among the worst in baseball. What could we get for Ozuna and Iglesias?
It's worth considering that the 2021 Braves were 30-35 with 12% playoff odds on 6-16-21. On 7-2-21, that had risen to 40-41 with a 20.6% chance at the playoffs. The current team is worse at 38-46, but still holds a 17.2% chance at the playoffs. It's not that different from where the World Series-winning team once was.
Still, the Braves are 7.5 games out in the Wild Card. They've played like a 73-win team. To have a shot at the playoffs they'd need to play more like a 100-win team. I'm more on the side of Braves fans here than I am on the side of FanGraphs Playoff Odds. And these guys wrote in before news of Spencer Schwellenbach's injury.
Ozuna, 34, has experienced a power outage this year. However, his expected slugging percentage is .487 versus his actual .392 mark, and I assume he'll be fine. He's a DH-only rental making $16MM, so my guess is that he'd bring in 40-grade type prospects. Iglesias is 35 and making the same money. His velocity and strikeout rate are slipping, and somehow 18.4% of his flyballs have left the yard. I think he'd be a pure salary dump.
So while I don't think the Braves will make the playoffs, I also don't think they're re-stocking the farm system by trading Ozuna and Iglesias.
As for Kevin's question, let's do a mini-assessment of the Braves' core, with the player's 2026 age in parentheses. Money owed in 2025 is not included.
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Ozuna is playing with one leg essentially. Why the hell they won’t IL him, call up a third catcher, and alternate Murphy and Drake from catcher to DH is beyond me.
Also the rest of the teams in the division at the time weren’t playing that great.
I don’t think the Braves need to make any sweeping changes just because of one bad year. It would be smart to look into the market for guys on the last year of their deals but I doubt anyone is really going to overpay. It will just get guys in their system.
World Series isn’t everything. If you want them to sell I totally get that but I wouldn’t sell just because my team is seemingly not a WS team (if that’s the stance).
If Rob Refsnyder were a viable option at first base, he would be playing first base for the Red Sox.
After years of hearing Yankees fans boast about their golden child Volpe, it’s kind of funny to see the one guy suggest trading him because he’s such a dud
Sure there is plenty of time left but the difference is in ’21 they were only chasing the Phillies and this year they are behind 5 teams for the last Wild Card spot.
Aaron Boone is going to destroy Volpe. Volpe’s only 24 years old. He’s under 6* tall, plays a physically demanding position and runs the bases hard. Since coming up, he’s played in 418 out of 424 Yankee games (including post season). He’s not Lou Gehrig. Give the guy a break.
Also hard to trade Ozuna given that he has 10-and-5 rights.
It’s nice to see a sane take on volpe for a change. Well done!