In part 1 of our deep dive into the Rebuild here, we looked at the trades from the 2014-15 offseason and gauged the Lost Value vs. Gained Value comparative to actual dollars that came and went in the deals. Today, we’ll do the same, but our focus turns to 2015 In-Season Trades.
2014-15 Braves Offseason: In-season Moves
- May 27, 2015: Traded Alberto Callaspo, Juan Jaime, Eric Stults Ian Thomas to Los Angeles Dodgers. Received Juan Uribe , Chris Withrow.
- June 20, 2015: Traded Phil Gosselin to Arizona Diamondbacks. Received Bronson Arroyo, Touki Toussaint.
- July 24, 2015: Traded Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe to New York Mets. Received John Gant and Rob Whalen.
- July 30, 2015: Traded Bronson Arroyo, Luis Avilan, Jim Johnson, Jose Peraza and Alex Wood to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Received Zachary Bird, Héctor Olivera, Paco Rodriguez from the Los Angeles Dodgers and 2016 competitive balance round A pick (turned into Joey Wentz) from the Miami Marlins.
- August 7, 2015: Traded Chris Johnson to the Cleveland Indians. Received Michael Bourn, Nick Swisher and cash.
- August 31, 2015: Traded Jonny Gomes and cash to the Kansas City Royals. Received Luis Valenzuela.
2015 Braves In-Season Trades: Value Outgoing
- Alberto Callaspo, Juan Jaime, Eric Stults and Ian Thomas: 0.6 fWAR, 4.15 MM cost, 4.8MM value.
- Phil Gosselin: 0.8 fWAR, .4 MM cost, 6.4 MM value
- Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe: 0.6 fWAR, 3.6 MM cost, 4.8MM value
- Bronson Arroyo, Luis Avilan, Jim Johnson, Jose Peraza, Alex Wood: 9.6 fWAR, 21.4 MM cost, 76.8 MM value
- Chris Johnson: -0.1 fWAR, cost 34MM (19MM +15MM from CLE), -0.8 MM value.
- Jonny Gomes: -0.2 fWAR, cost 1.6MM, -1.6MM value
Outgoing Production: 11.3 fWAR, 90.4MM
Total Cost: 64.16 MM
26.24 MM of lost production
2015 Braves In-Season Trades: Value Incoming
- Juan Uribe and Chris Withrow: 1.2 fWAR, cost 3.1 MM, 9.6 MM value
- Bronson Arroyo and Touki Toussaint: 0.2 fWAR, cost 6.8 MM, 1.6 MM value
- John Gant and Rob Whalen: 0.3 fWAR, cost 0.6 MM, 2.4 MM value
- Zachary Bird , Héctor Olivera, Paco Rodriguez and 2016 competitive balance round A pick (turned into Joey Wentz): -0.3 fWAR, cost 28.5 MM, -2.4 MM value
- Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher: -0.3 fWAR, cost 23 MM, -2.6 MM value
- Luis Valenzuela: No MLB cost or value
Total Value Incoming: 1.1 fWAR, 8.8 MM
Total Cost Incoming: 62 MM
-53.2 MM of gained production
Damn you, Hector Olivera!
Recap
Combining the data in the first 2 pieces, the 2014-15 Offseason Trades and In-season Trades the Olivera deal completely wiped out all positive value:
- +59.03 MM of gained production in Part 1
- -79.5 MM of gained production in Part 2
Total: -20.47 MM in gained production
However, we’ve also added Touki Toussaint to the mix of undetermined future value which already consisted of Max Fried, Austin Riley, Mike Foltynewicz, and A.J. Minter.
Thanks for reading “The Rebuild: Lost Value vs. Gained Value, Part 2: 2015 In-Season Trades”. If you’re enjoying this series, check out our Braves History category here.
Lots to digest from last night. Here are the reactions to Braves pick from 1st round:
Tfloyd:
@22–damming with faint praise? Have the Braves ever had a #1 pick with less potential than Gilmartin?
Ryan Cothran:
Jason Hursh?
Hate King:
Does Brett DeVall count?
Braves14says:
Braxton Davidson?
I remember people being upset with Mike Minor at 7. He worked out fine.
Chief Nocahoma:
Claudell is one of the first Braves I can remember hearing my dad dog cussing watching on Channel 17 for some reason or another.
He was a pretty damn good player and was built like a bodybuilder.
Alex Remington (Another Alex R.):
Cody Johnson?
snowshine:
While it was faint praise, the reason is that I don’t live and die by any one pick in the draft but try to see the holistic return on the entire process. Given that mid-20’s picks don’t average even a MLB regular as their eventual return, a leftie who touches 97 and has a killer change is actually a good return. Paired with the fact that his bonus demands are rumored to be under slot and we have the makings of a solid draft strategy in a year where we only have 4 picks. I felt Beau Phillip was a bad reach at the time; this guy is a decent bet.
Alex Remington (Another Alex R.):
That seems right. Keith Law’s take was that it was “a fairly safe pick,” which sounds okay. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some amount of upside in the next rounds, and it would also be nice if the Braves could pick up some good undrafted free agents.
Whether one likes the strategy or not, AA likes spreading it out and many guys that know more than me were a little upset right after the draft last year, then had changed their tune by the end of 2019’s season as the kids were putting up numbers. Time will tell!
Here’s the thing: I largely trust the Braves scouting department and the team has also developed an excellent data analytics department over the last 5 years. In other words, if a pick passes the traditional scout test AND gets a nod of support from the numbers guys then it is likely to turn out well (given that only ~60% of picks in this range ever reach the show). Shuster is not a “safe” pick ala Gilmartin as he actually has upside. Of course, he is a pitcher; there is a lot of risk.
I recall being vaguely uneasy after day 2 of the draft last year, largely because of Phillip, but I must admit that after day 3 and doing a little research I became a big believer in the process. As the same people are running this year’s draft, I am confident they will deliver.
As to today’s article, the problem seems to be that Touki and the pick were the only upside plays we made. This is not normal for a club in the beginning of a rebuild! I understand flipping Kelly and Uribe and even get the argument for the Gant/Whalen deal but cannot for the life of me see the value of the Olivera deal even if he was successful.
Still very surprising we are ahead value wise after the trade losses in 2015. What I fear is that we may break even at best when all of the dust settles after analyzing all of the rebuild moves
@4&5
Yeah, the in-season trades that occurred here were bleak and bleaker. While I realize the need to get out from under the finances attached to players that have little value to a non-contending team, the sheer fact that Withrow, Whalen, Paco, and Valenzuela provided 0 MLB value was a big swing and miss on 4 lottery tickets with upside.
Meanwhile, it looks like they traded John Gant too early and the jury is still out on Touki.
The one thing I’ll continue to emphasize is that there’ll be a conclusion to this study with an * as there has already been 5 players collected in this study whose future value is, for now, in the org and is yet to be determined.
The upside of Olivera was supposed to be that he was a cost-controlled lineup mainstay, the kind of guy who could hit .280/.350/.450 somewhere near the middle of the lineup and not cost very much money. The Braves seemed to have lost faith in Peraza and they regarded Wood as expendable (maybe because his mechanics made him look so injury-prone).
I think the easiest way to describe what happened is that they saw Olivera as having a higher floor than he did. They seem to have figured that his hitting in Cuba meant that he was a finished product and essentially safe, and I’m just inferring this from the public statements and the various coverage of Olivera’s upside, from people like Ben Badler at BA, who knows as much about Cuban prospects as anyone outside of the late Peter Bjarkman.
Of course, “safe” feels like a dirty word now. But that’s just because it really means “high floor,” but too often, teams will simply conflate “high floor” with “low ceiling” when they try to explain why they made an unexciting pick like Sean Gilmartin. Olivera didn’t have a high floor; neither did Gilmartin. They both just had a really low ceiling. (Olivera’s ceiling was low because he didn’t have tons of power and he had a fair number of known health issues. But he was always supposed to be able to hit for average.)
I think Shuster’s probably a “safe” pick in the sense that he’s a pretty good bet to reach his potential as a major league starter, given his handedness, velocity, and three-pitch mix. If you’re trying to figure out how to spend a mid-20s draft pick, going for a college lefty who can throw in the mid-90s is about as safe a way to use that pick as possible, which is pretty much exactly what snowshine said in the last thread @29. So this is just a longwinded way of saying that I think Law and snowshine are reacting to the pick very similarly.
I actually like the Shuster pick. Based on below slot mentions it seems like this is their strategy and we’ll see some HS kids get $ later.
With Shuster, my first thought was Gilmartin, but that’s not really fair. Shuster throws 97, so while they talked about how good his change-up is, it’s not like they’re drafting another “soft-tossing college lefty” like the end of the Wren years.
I’m now editing finishing up part 5 of this study and now I’m not sure what to think.
A really good piece on Simba.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/06/baseballs-most-interesting-upcoming-free-agent.html
He is the best of all time. That is my firm belief.
What Alex said.
I think our draft is eh
I don’t know much about the draft but all my pals that do are extremely perplexed.
So reading the Talking Chop comments, it looks like the Braves’ 3rd and 4th round picks were both guys whose stock was clearly hurt by not playing this year — so I guess the Braves thought maybe they would be undervalued. Would be nice to think that they’ll actually put the extra dough into going very overslot for the best player left on the board, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
New thread as snowshine breaks down Jared Shuster.
https://bravesjournal.mystagingwebsite.com/2020/06/12/2020-braves-draft-part-1-first-round-25th-selection-jared-shuster/