Talking Chop

And what about the Uggla extension?

How was giving Uggla a huge extension before he ever played a game in a Braves uniform any different that a free agent signing?

That extension seems particulalry stupid considering that the Braves already had an all-star 2B under contract through 2013. From the Braves point of view all of the value of the contract will come during the time period in which Prado is still under control. Plus there was no reason to sign him to an extension when he still had a year left on his contract. (Why not wait a few months to see if everything clicked in a new city?) And frankly, if you’re going to take a gamble on a big money free agent into his mid-30’s a defensively challenged 2B with limited athleticism seems to make little sense for a National League team. At least he could DH in the American League.

Bobby Hill#1 - January 26, 2012 reply

This article upsets me a great deal

1. It shows me that Time Warner screwed us SO bad with that TV contract. If any team could take advantage of more nation spread deals, its the Braves with all their wide spread fans and basically owning the southeast. Thats how alot of teams get so much money to spend on free agents is through lucrative TV deals.
2. I agree with a poster earlier that said that to me when I hear them say “competitive” I hear that striving to make the play-offs every year is good enough. You HAVE to spend some money on free agents and resigning your own guys to take it to the next level. We can talk about the young guy approach all you want, but were going to be pissed in a few years when guys like Heyward and Freeman are leaving for the big contract because we cant keep them. This organization can build a pitching staff well enough through the draft, but they have sucked for years at building the offense.
3. I dont hate Liberty Media, they are basically out of the way, but I want a new owner cause I want the owner to run this as a baseball team for the fans and the city. Striving to make more money, to get that next great player, and to take that next step. With Liberty and the Braves FO now…the status quo seems to be enough.

SUCKS.

MikeJolly - January 26, 2012 reply

decoy move?

dank7 - January 26, 2012 reply

decoy move?

dank7 - January 26, 2012 reply

Great article!!

“why isn’t the team spending more in the draft and in the international market?”

I have been wondering the same thing. The Braves farm system is in the middle of a rapid decline right now because they refuse to spend money on the draft or on the young IFAs. The Tampa Bay Rays have the right idea. They pump a great deal of money into their farm system each and every year. The Braves would be wise to do the same thing, as much as the new CBA allows.

FourScore199 - January 26, 2012 reply

Taken from the same article:

"I think this team is on a glide path where it has the ability with all our youth to be good for a long period of time, continue to raise enthusiasm in Atlanta and drive revenue and allow us to spend more on the team," he said.

Sounds like the braves front office is really depending on fans coming to games and/or buying merch to have cash for future acquisitions rather than holding out for liberty to up the budget.

mebravesfan - January 26, 2012 reply

Draft versus Free Agents

It seems like clubs that want to win have to either spend money on the draft and then let players go when they get too expensive like Tampa, or they have to be willing to overpay on the free agent market.

The Braves seem to be stuck somewhere in the middle.

If you’re the Yankees you can waste money on free agents, and if they suck, you just sign new ones. The Yankees can stay competitive every years despite a myriad of bad contract by simply outspending everyone else. But if you’re the Braves, and you’re on a tight budget, you really shouldn’t be spending money on big money free agents. Signing free agent role players like David Ross or Eric Hinkse makes sense. The free agent market for that type of guy is pretty efficient. But handing out big Lowe sized contracts, or Uggla sized extensions should be an obvious no-no. And yet every time in recent years the the team has had enough salary room to offer a big contract to somebody they have done so. (Lowe, KK, Uggla, Chipper, trading for McLouth, etc.)

If a team like the Braves spends $15 million a year on Uggla it means that the team has cut corners elsewhere. (i.e. SS, LF, 4th outfielder). When you consider how monetarily inefficient it is to sign a premium player like Uggla, it is absurd to do so if it forces you cut corners elsewhere. Its like selling your Mustang so that you can buy a Ferrari, and then having to move into a trailer because you can’t afford your house payment. And on top of that you have to ride the bus because you can’t afford to pay the insurance on the Ferrari.

Small market teams have spent a lot of money on the draft and international signings in recent years. This makes all the sense in the world for teams on a tight budget. And yet the Braves have spent about as little as anybody on the draft in recent years. The farm system gets lots of kudos for Freeman, Hayward, and the recent mlb-ready pitching prospects. But if you look past that incredible crop of players the farm is pretty empty of mlb caliber players, particularly position players. A year from now when all those guys are no longer prospects, we’ll all be scratching our heads and saying “But I thought we had a really good farm system. What happened?”

If you’re not going to spend money in the draft, and can’t compete with the big boys in the FA market, you’re sort of doomed to life similar to the Oakland A’s.

Bobby Hill#1 - January 26, 2012 reply

Here’s what I gathered from the article:

1. I guess it’s fair to say that we’ll be hovering around 94-95 million in 2013 as well.
2. The Braves, at least for the next 2 decades, will not be bidders on the 80+ million contract guys. I can live with that.
3. The Braves will continue to try and trade players, when they get expensive, for prospects or to fill a hole.
4. The Braves will continue to pursue 1 year cheap contracts on veterans.

Using this logic, the Braves probably won’t try to lock up McCann until after 2013 (hoping that his value drops a bit), will probably exercise Hudson’s ’13 option of 9 million, and will likely want to do the same with Chipper (assuming Chipper still wants to play). Chipper’s contract would range in between 7-14.5 million depending on games played.

So, there’s been speculation that the Braves will have serious money to spend in 2013. Let’s assume that Chipper’s healthy this year, maxes out his games played and decides to return in 2013…
Uggla: 13.2
Chipper: 14.5
Hudson: 9
McCann: 12

Arb-eligibles: Jurrjens, Prado, O’Flaherty, Heyward, Hanson, Medlen, Venters, the Lisp- together, they’d make approx. 35 million.

We’re already up to 80.7 for 11 players. Assuming that the Braves will pay 12 guys pre-arb numbers, that puts the total to 87 million for 23 players.

*If Chipper decides to retire then that puts $ in the bank for 2013 only because 2014 will be the year where our cheap, young players are no longer cheap.

*If Chipper doesn’t meet all of his incentives, the club will pay him 9 milion, which will put some money back into spending, but only for 2013 (see above comment)

*If Prado and Jurrjens are traded to rebuild the farm then that gives an extra 10 million for 2013 only (see above)

I think the Braves, for the foreseeable future, are done with big named free agents. We can all kiss ourJosh Hamilton dreams goodbye. Big players will have to come via trade.

ryan c - January 26, 2012 reply

interesting article

Terry probably should have waited to do this interview for a day before the Braves put something positive into he news cycle. If they ever do. After the way last season ended, this has got to be more bad news for ticket sales, in a winter when little positive news has been made.

Glad people now see that TW, not Liberty, is the cause of the team’s modest TV revenue. We have to realize that it was WTBS’ strong position as basic cable’s first national entertainment network which made the Braves so flush in the Turner years. Once MLB stopped the Braves from pushing into everyone else’s market on basic, we were destined for middle revenue status. Fortunately, management (including McGuirk, as well as Schuerholz, Cox etc) planned for this eventuality by leaving us with a team built to last, 14 years of playoffs worth.

Let’s not forget that included a free agent investment named Maddux. Terry’s critique of free agent investments is mostly a fair assessment, but it is also self-criticism. We learned from the Lowe and Kawakami mistakes. Also tied up with free agency were our worst mistakes, the Drew and Teixeira trades, which liquidated low cost, high value prospects for predictablly short term opportunities.

The return to player development emphasis should also push us to (1) more investment in Latin scouting — just check the surnames on the Braves’ prospects on the new top 100 list; and (2) a wider and deeper range of closely updated prospect assessments both internally and externally, and thus more trading for other teams’ minor leaguers. The John Smoltz acquisition is the model. There was a lot of talk about trading Martin Prado this winter. Once he rebuilds his value to the competition, perhaps we need to make him our next Doyle Alexander.

As for Liberty’s tenure, I’m proud to have my team owned by free market supporter John Malone. The Braves must compete with their other properties to give him and the shareholders maximum returns. The sabermetrics guys say that a team in the Braves’s position, just on the fringe of postseason quality, has the most likely financial benefit from capital investment in player personnel. Ideally this investment will include scouting to find the next undervalued prospect. But it also means that when a quality (non-Boras) slugger at the right position becomes available, Liberty has cause to invest.

Another World Series-worthy, dynasty-built team (i.e. not a mere wildcard luck-in) may be the best and only way left to build the value of their capital investment. Then Liberty can take its profit by selling out to Arthur Blank. Or they can sell to whichever gazzilionaire loses the auction for the Dodgers, but remains determined to own and win with a high profile club with a championship tradition.

JimK - January 27, 2012 reply

Contracts

The topic of large contracts intrigued me… Here is a list of $100 million contracts from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_sports_contracts

I think the best way to look at a contract is to see if the team got the total value of the contract back, not if the player was producing his salary’s worth in any particular year. Based on that metric, let’s evaluate each

1) A-Rod, $275 mm over 10 years – unlikely this will be viewed as a success
2) Pujols – $254 mm over 10 years – TBD
3) Fielder – $214 mm over 9 years – TBD
4) Jeter – $189 mm over 10 years – success
5) Mauer – $184 mm over 10 years – TBD, but leaning towards a loss
6 ) Tiexera – $180 mm over 8 years – TBD, wash
7) Sabathia – $161 mm over 7 years – success
8) Manny Ramirez – $160 mm over 8 years- huge success
9) Tulowitzki – $158 mm over 10 years – TBD, but this could be OK
10) Adrian Gonzoles – $154 mm over 7 years – TBD
11) Miguel Cabrera – $152 mm over 8 years – probably a success
12) Todd Helton – $151 mm over 11 years – could be OK (Rockies love long contracts)
13) Carl Crawford – $142 mm over 7 years – will be a failure ff he has more seasons like last year
14) Johan Santana – $137.5 mm over 6 years – wash
15) Soriano – $136 mm over 8 years – fail
16) Barry Zito – $126 mm over 7 years – meh
17) Werth – $126 mm over 7 years – TBD, but regarded as fail
18) Howard – $125 mm over 5 years – TBD, but risky given injury
19) Hampton – $121 mm over 8 years, fail
20) Cliff Lee – $120 mm over 5 years – success
21) Jason Giami – $120 mm over 7 years – fail
22) Matt Holliday – $120 mm over 7 years – success
23) Beltran – $119 mm over 7 years – wash
24) Griffey – $117 mm over 9 years – wash
25) Kevin Brown – $105 mm over 7 years – fail
26) Carlos Lee – $100 mm over 6 years – regarded as fail
27) Pujols – $100 mm over 7 years – massive success

While generally these contracts seem to be washes at best (with a lot of flameouts), there are quite a few of them (Jeter, Sabathia, the first Pujols contract, Cabrera) that will turn out fine.

Adelphos - January 30, 2012 reply