The Braves Thread

#184,227
#184,227
GAVol said:
Crazy how “must have” Ozuna was before the 21 season.
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I know there are many, many different things he will be remembered for. But for me it was how he absolutely destroyed us in that playoff series when he was with the Cards. I was living in the Midwest at the time and made the trip down to watch. Dude was on fire.
 
#184,230
#184,230
05_never_again said:
I don’t disagree really but it’s much easier to see in hindsight. Making the playoffs that year felt way ahead of schedule; I don’t think anybody expected to keep rattling off NL East titles after that, and it was “only” and 90-win season that wouldn’t have gotten it done in any other division. The money didn’t start to really pour in from The Battery until 2021-22; if memory serves not even all of it was open in 2018.
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The impending lockout probably weighed into AA’s decision making as well.
 
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#184,231
#184,231
zjcvols said:
AA has won five straight division titles, won a World Series and is a consensus top 4-5 GM in the sport. But I’ll never understand why he was so conservative after 2018. No bad contracts, plethora of prospects to trade from, money pouring in from The Battery. He could have grabbed a superstar. Instead he just sat on his hands, gave Donaldson/Kuechel one year deals and gave out $49M to Ozuna/Hamels/Will Smith the next offseason.
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To be fair…Donaldson hit 37 bombs in ‘19 so that wasn’t a bad contract.

Ozuna almost won the triple crown in ‘20 and literally everyone wanted him back. No one could have predicted he would’ve fallen off a cliff so quick/so bad.

Will Smith turned into Mariano Rivera during that WS run so to me that contract is worth it solely because of the chip. Bullpen arms are hard to predict
 
#184,232
#184,232
rockytop25 said:
To be fair…Donaldson hit 37 bombs in ‘19 so that wasn’t a bad contract.

Ozuna almost won the triple crown in ‘20 and literally everyone wanted him back. No one could have predicted he would’ve fallen off a cliff so quick/so bad.

Will Smith turned into Mariano Rivera during that WS run so to me that contract is worth it solely because of the chip. Bullpen arms are hard to predict
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It says right there in the post you quoted - no bad contracts. The issue that Z is calling out is that we have locked in cost control over various tiers of good to very good to star to mega star players at market (or WAY BELOW) value and instead of supplementing that by being aggressive, we are nibbling around the edges or signing risk averse 1 yr deals like we’re the Pittsburgh pirates.

Bryce is a very easy call out. There were lockout concerns. 13 years is a bunch. $330m was semi steep at the time. But sports salaries don’t really go down. We had been looking for a LH slugging corner OFer for years. Here we are, years later, still searching for a LH bat and a corner outfielder. His age fit the teams timeline. His makeup is off the charts. He’s a generational talent/player.

It’s not like we didn’t spend the money, we just divided it up for guys who could have been replaced at much lower costs.

I like Morton. Paying him $20m right now is WILD. Same for Cole Hamels. Dallas Keuchel was pretty unnecessary. In general I like AA. I’m sure he’s trying to do the best he can with the constraints he faces. At the end of the day the Braves are corporately owned. They’re always going to be run by a business executive, not a fan. In some ways that’s good. In “sign Bryce Harper and win some WS!!!” ways, it’s very bad.

We fell backwards into the WS title in 2021. Deservedly so after the 1990s but pretty lucky and pretty streaky driven. Without that, the tune around both AA and corporate ownership would be a LOT different imo.
 
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#184,247
#184,247
30-14 .. likely headed for the top 10 based on remaining schedule and hosting a regional. Tough crowd!
 
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