Extend Kim? Nope. $16m, take it or bye-bye. We have options. John Gil is in AA at 19, and his elders Lodise and Miller were picks #2 and 3 from our 2025 draft. That should cover us if and when there's baseball in 2027. The fewer contractual overhangs we have going into the MLBPA negotiations, the stronger the owners position will be. Escalating MLB salaries are not the Braves' friend, and the underlying sports network revenues are shaky as cable/satellite bundles decline.
Retaining Allen is popular enough with me (at a salary commensurate with his OPS) even if he shares the 9th spot in our batting order with pinch hitters. $16 million not spend on Kim would surely benefit us elsewhere if he opts out. Sure Kim hit 17 homers in 2023 -- who didn't?! Call me frugal, but the man has never slugged .400.
Imagine it's your own money. You don't pay $16 million for a glove first SS. Besides, Allen is the guy you want out there in the late innings and if the Braves aren't ahead by the 8th it's a bigger problem than shortstop.
That's probably what we'll get, excluding 2023, if he opts in, and that may be worth it for the one year. Once a SS reaches the $25m AAV level, that's not a good thing since homey don't do that. We want every year of a shortstop's pre-arb control years, as it was with Swanson, Andrelton and Furcal, and will be with Gil or whichever guy(s) is our man for the rest of the decade.
We should always have one or two positions set aside for young guys under control, right now Baldwin and a SS, and hope they're amenable to a team-friendly seven figure AAV extension.
Baseball America just gave the Braves farm system a "C" grade for the season.
They earlier rated the farm system 29th out of 30..
I think it s time to scrap the $22 million payroll cap if we expect to contend with Mets (great farm system, extra deep pockets) and Phillies ( better farm system, better ownership)
Amen about the Mets and Phillies. Even without Wheeler, the Phils have few weaknesses and now the best closer in the game. Great front office strategy over several years.
I agree with you 100. Only point of a farm system is not to be ranked highly but to supply the mlb team with help on the field to get them to the playoffs. The Braves have had that better than almost every other team. It might be the best team at this but it is close.
Great detailed analysis. Kim's agent, Boras, envisions dollar signs in his sleep and, regardless of Kim's current thoughts, will convince Kim that he'd be a fool to not try the FA market. With that happening, I would be happy to see Allen at SS and put some real money into a starting pitcher and beef up the backend of the bullpen.
This sucks. Obviously we knew this risk when we signed him and him performing is better then the alternative but man it would have been nice to have shortstop locked up.
Question is: do we pull the trigger on 2/40 or 3/56 cause I think that’s what it would take. It’s too much but you might have too. 🤷 once again I’m not jealous of AA.
Second thing, I would absolutely gut the farm for Neto. Not going to happen but I’m with you in the sense it’s fun to dream on.
I would love for you to be right. And I don’t disagree with any of your logic but his agent is Boris. My feeling is if it were 16/16 it would have already happened or would happen in the next day or two.
And frankly Bichette is also injured so there is a world he has a golden opportunity to cash in on a horrendous shortstop market.
Yeah, on the original question, I'd pay either of those figures. The real question is would Boras be satisfied with something that wasn't long-term?
To address Garrett's comment, I do think there's going to be one irrational actor in the market (there usually is) that's confident with overpaying to fix a problem area. Dansby wasn't worth 7/$177M, but the Cubs didn't have a plan to fill second base and so signing Dansby so they could move Nico Hoerner was the route they took. Detroit's gotten -1.1 WAR from their shortstops this year, although they do have McGonigle coming, while Cleveland is at -1.1 as well and Travis Bazzana is more of a 2B than a SS. Heck, the Yanks could get in on that here if they truly think Volpe is cooked
Extend Kim? Nope. $16m, take it or bye-bye. We have options. John Gil is in AA at 19, and his elders Lodise and Miller were picks #2 and 3 from our 2025 draft. That should cover us if and when there's baseball in 2027. The fewer contractual overhangs we have going into the MLBPA negotiations, the stronger the owners position will be. Escalating MLB salaries are not the Braves' friend, and the underlying sports network revenues are shaky as cable/satellite bundles decline.
Retaining Allen is popular enough with me (at a salary commensurate with his OPS) even if he shares the 9th spot in our batting order with pinch hitters. $16 million not spend on Kim would surely benefit us elsewhere if he opts out. Sure Kim hit 17 homers in 2023 -- who didn't?! Call me frugal, but the man has never slugged .400.
Imagine it's your own money. You don't pay $16 million for a glove first SS. Besides, Allen is the guy you want out there in the late innings and if the Braves aren't ahead by the 8th it's a bigger problem than shortstop.
That's probably what we'll get, excluding 2023, if he opts in, and that may be worth it for the one year. Once a SS reaches the $25m AAV level, that's not a good thing since homey don't do that. We want every year of a shortstop's pre-arb control years, as it was with Swanson, Andrelton and Furcal, and will be with Gil or whichever guy(s) is our man for the rest of the decade.
We should always have one or two positions set aside for young guys under control, right now Baldwin and a SS, and hope they're amenable to a team-friendly seven figure AAV extension.
Baseball America just gave the Braves farm system a "C" grade for the season.
They earlier rated the farm system 29th out of 30..
I think it s time to scrap the $22 million payroll cap if we expect to contend with Mets (great farm system, extra deep pockets) and Phillies ( better farm system, better ownership)
Amen about the Mets and Phillies. Even without Wheeler, the Phils have few weaknesses and now the best closer in the game. Great front office strategy over several years.
I agree with you 100. Only point of a farm system is not to be ranked highly but to supply the mlb team with help on the field to get them to the playoffs. The Braves have had that better than almost every other team. It might be the best team at this but it is close.
Great detailed analysis. Kim's agent, Boras, envisions dollar signs in his sleep and, regardless of Kim's current thoughts, will convince Kim that he'd be a fool to not try the FA market. With that happening, I would be happy to see Allen at SS and put some real money into a starting pitcher and beef up the backend of the bullpen.
This sucks. Obviously we knew this risk when we signed him and him performing is better then the alternative but man it would have been nice to have shortstop locked up.
Question is: do we pull the trigger on 2/40 or 3/56 cause I think that’s what it would take. It’s too much but you might have too. 🤷 once again I’m not jealous of AA.
Second thing, I would absolutely gut the farm for Neto. Not going to happen but I’m with you in the sense it’s fun to dream on.
I would love for you to be right. And I don’t disagree with any of your logic but his agent is Boris. My feeling is if it were 16/16 it would have already happened or would happen in the next day or two.
And frankly Bichette is also injured so there is a world he has a golden opportunity to cash in on a horrendous shortstop market.
Yeah, on the original question, I'd pay either of those figures. The real question is would Boras be satisfied with something that wasn't long-term?
To address Garrett's comment, I do think there's going to be one irrational actor in the market (there usually is) that's confident with overpaying to fix a problem area. Dansby wasn't worth 7/$177M, but the Cubs didn't have a plan to fill second base and so signing Dansby so they could move Nico Hoerner was the route they took. Detroit's gotten -1.1 WAR from their shortstops this year, although they do have McGonigle coming, while Cleveland is at -1.1 as well and Travis Bazzana is more of a 2B than a SS. Heck, the Yanks could get in on that here if they truly think Volpe is cooked