The Atlanta Braves

#25,503
#25,503
zjcvols said:
McGuirk and AA did an interview with The Athletic and ugh McGuirk makes me want to puke.

View attachment 194197
Click to expand...

This is absolutely unacceptable.

I have been watching this damn team for almost four f***ing decades, and I do not say this lightly: I might be out. Gotta think about it.

I don't mind supporting a team that sucks. I don't see the point of wasting time supporting one that's not even trying to win. Even the godforsaken Hawks are trying.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Bassmaster_Vol, GreatWhiteNorth, AV_12 and 1 other person
#25,504
#25,504
They are managing the baseball team like a hedge fund manages a factory or newspaper. Some nimrod has no doubt been modeling a curve which predicts how little payroll they think they can get away with without risking an acceptable gate revenue
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bassmaster_Vol
#25,506
#25,506
GAVol said:
Lol... We gotta relax a little.
Click to expand...

After telling us for years that the team would spend money once they got in the new stadium and rebuilt the foundation of the team, the Braves have decided to spend all that shiny new revenue stream by paying down their portion of the stadium debt early and reinvesting it in new real estate opportunities. Instead of increasing the payroll of the baseball team. They're planning to increase the payroll once they've strengthened their other business units first.

If you're cool with that, I really don't know what you get out of following sports. Because rooting for the Braves now is like rooting for one column in a spreadsheet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LotteryPick and Bassmaster_Vol
#25,507
#25,507
Didn't say I'm cool with it. I just think the collective freakout is a bit much until we truly see how everything shakes out in the next 6 weeks
 
  • Like
Reactions: Regulator
#25,508
#25,508
It's not even that they haven't signed anybody meaningful yet this year. I mean hell, I didn't expect them to because this is the Braves. It's just flabbergasting that McGuirk would talk so openly about how the priority is to increase the overall longterm financial health of the company (including all their real estate holdings) and that eventually that will allow the on-field payroll to increase. I mean, McGuirk is talking excitedly about what the financial picture will look like five years from now. Meanwhile Ronald Acuna's clock started nine months ago.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LotteryPick and Bassmaster_Vol
#25,509
#25,509
Vercingetorix said:
It's not even that they haven't signed anybody meaningful yet this year. I mean hell, I didn't expect them to because this is the Braves. It's just flabbergasting that McGuirk would talk so openly about how the priority is to increase the overall longterm financial health of the company (including all their real estate holdings) and that eventually that will allow the on-field payroll to increase. I mean, McGuirk is talking excitedly about what the financial picture will look like five years from now. Meanwhile Ronald Acuna's clock started nine months ago.
Click to expand...
They barely talk about it, but you just know that the TV deal being so awful drives a lot of this.

Life was so much simpler when Ted owned the team and could put them on TBS nationally 130 times a year.
 
#25,510
#25,510
I personally don't mind them not overspending for Harper or Manny but not getting a guy like Pollock, or Brantley, or even Marwin... Pollock and Brantley would have been great additions
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bassmaster_Vol
#25,511
#25,511
I would give them a lot more leeway for the TV deal if they weren't bragging about plowing all that Battery money into paying off stadium and construction debt early. This is like a company doing a stock buyback at the same time as they've instituted a wage freeze.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LotteryPick and TBrown
#25,512
#25,512
underscore said:
I personally don't mind them not overspending for Harper or Manny but not getting a guy like Pollock, or Brantley, or even Marwin... Pollock and Brantley would have been great additions
Click to expand...

Yes. I'm not angry at them for not signing a $300m deal with somebody. I'm angry at them for apparently prioritizing more investment in the Battery over finding any outfielder at all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LotteryPick, Bassmaster_Vol and TBrown
#25,514
#25,514
underscore said:
I personally don't mind them not overspending for Harper or Manny but not getting a guy like Pollock, or Brantley, or even Marwin... Pollock and Brantley would have been great additions
Click to expand...

Bargain shopping. Instead of getting Grandal/Marwin at $30M, they saw Mac/Nick at $6M and said that’s fine.

Here’s the other thing. If the Braves have $20M to spend as alluded to the article. Why not offer Marwin 1/18M then?

Also, you know what else this tells me? We could afford Harper if we got creative. Let’s say we attached Teheran/O’Day to one of our top pitching prospects (let’s say Anderson). I guarantee you that someone would bite (especially if we offer to pay Teheran’s buyout). We just cleared an additional $20M and now have $40M to spend.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bassmaster_Vol
#25,516
#25,516
zjcvols said:
Bargain shopping. Instead of getting Grandal/Marwin at $30M, they saw Mac/Nick at $6M and said that’s fine.

Here’s the other thing. If the Braves have $20M to spend as alluded to the article. Why not offer Marwin 1/18M then?

Also, you know what else this tells me? We could afford Harper if we got creative. Let’s say we attached Teheran/O’Day to one of our top pitching prospects (let’s say Anderson). I guarantee you that someone would bite (especially if we offer to pay Teheran’s buyout). We just cleared an additional $20M and now have $40M to spend.
Click to expand...

I think McGuirk made it pretty clear that it's more depressing than that. I don't pretend to be any sort of a finance expert but it seems pretty clear that they're looking suspiciously at every single dollar spent on payroll, even short-term, and weighing it against the opportunity cost of not having invested that dollar in non-baseball "growth opportunity" s***. The idea seems to be that they're going to prioritize the commercial/financial stuff until the overall Braves Industrial Complex is so profitable that payroll can rise naturally and painlessly.

If the Braves were an investment fund and I were an investor instead of a fan I'd be thrilled. As someone who thinks they should look at it as "We've got six chances to win a championship before Acuña hits free agency; what can we do to maximize our chances to hit one on of those shots?", I'm disgusted. Having a five year plan to get rich first when your window is open right now is inexcusable.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: tbwhhs and BigOrange15
#25,518
#25,518
Sometimes the advanced stats are hard to explain...

PECOTA projects Braves to tie for third in NL East
PECOTA sees Donaldson being the Braves’ third-best position player in 2019, behind Freddie Freeman and – pause for effect – Tyler Flowers. So that’s not nothing. What’s noteworthy is that PECOTA has Ronald Acuna being the team’s fifth-best position player, Ozzie Albies its sixth-best and Johan Camargo its 10th-best. Going by Baseball-Reference’s WAR, those three were Nos. 2, 3 and 4 last year.
Click to expand...
 
#25,519
#25,519
GAVol said:
Sometimes the advanced stats are hard to explain...

PECOTA projects Braves to tie for third in NL East
Click to expand...

Flowers is one of the three best framers in baseball (allegedly). So his WARP (which is Baseball Prospectus version of War and what PECOTA USES) is always super high because they factor framing into a player’s overall value that bWAR and fWAR don’t. I don’t buy Flowers’ value as a framer though.
 
#25,523
#25,523
Vercingetorix said:
I am no joke angrier about this than I was the Len Barker trade a million years ago. Mere stupidity is excusable.
Click to expand...
I didn't like the Markakis move in light of what we thought the budget was. At the same time, can't you explain some of this as a byproduct of having so many young, cheap players?
 
New Posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

Advertisement



Back
Top