Blue Jays Acquire Yunel Escobar and Jo-Jo Reyes

[mdccclxix]

Originally Posted by 15fan

The thing about the Braves, though, is that Bobby Cox is a lot like Red Foreman from That 70s Show: Bust your butt without being a pain in my butt, and everything will be fine.

If you can do that, history tells us that you are most likely going to be on a team that wins a lot of games and goes to the post-season. It also tells us that if/when you slump as a player, Cox will stick with you and work with you longer than a lot of other managers.

When Warren Buffett sells a stock he's usually ahead of the curve. Same thing with Cox/Schuerholz and young players. The young guys they deal away generally bottom out and fade away on someone else's watch. Outside of Elvis Andrus, very rarely have they dealt away a young guy to watch him blossom elsewhere.

(The Rangers got it right when they put the Braves over a barrell & demanded Andrus for Teixiera a couple of years ago. That's the only deal I remember in 15 years in the ATL where there was unified consensus that giving up Andrus was a steep price to pay.)

Feliz, Harrison and Salty were in that deal too. Pretty steeply overpaid.

[medford]

well dang, there goes my buy low in the offseason SS idea. Although Yunell seems like the anti-Walt guy, and lord knows they're not going to move off of OCab during the season.

[blumj]

Originally Posted by RedsManRick

Collins meanwhile looks like the second coming of Billy Wagner on the stat sheet. I've not heard of him, but a 20 year old lefty reliever striking out 15.3 per 9 in AA? Yes please. And he wasn't even drafted -- I'd love to know that story.

You might want to listen to this then. JP Ricciardi just stumbled onto him at a local high school game. JP does radio up here regularly, and Collins came up when they were talking about Daniel Nava, around 5 minutes in.

http://audio.weei.com/m/32005740/jp-...pn-analyst.htm

[jojo]

Originally Posted by bucksfan2

Guys off the top of my head that were traded because of character issues: Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge, Jose Guillen, Milton Bradley, and Delmon Young.

Sure you can cherry pick times when a bad apple turns good, but more often than not character issue players are uber talented, but never realize their potential.

Most of those guys also had a history of being big jerk wads too... Escobar is having a career year slump in the power department and he's still tracking to be an average major leaguer. In other words, he's already provided $40M+ surplus value production-wise while Atlanta has waited for him to "put it together".

[edabbs44]

Originally Posted by jojo

Most of those guys also had a history of being big jerk wads too... Escobar is having a career year slump in the power department and he's still tracking to be an average major leaguer. In other words, he's already provided $40M+ surplus value production-wise while Atlanta has waited for him to "put it together".

And we really don't know the whole story of his jerkwadness, if that is an issue.

[jojo]

Originally Posted by edabbs44

And we really don't know the whole story of his jerkwadness, if that is an issue.

I'm not sure why such a trait would be kept a secret.

Here's a couple of other "character" guys traded: Rios, Hamilton.... Iin response to a previous comment about cherry picking Guillen)

[edabbs44]

Originally Posted by jojo

I'm not sure why such a trait would be kept a secret.

Here's a couple of other "character" guys traded: Rios, Hamilton.... Iin response to a previous comment about cherry picking Guillen)

Maybe they don't want to kill his value. Or maybe he is another Cris Carter.

[PuffyPig]

Originally Posted by 15fan

Outside of Elvis Andrus, very rarely have they dealt away a young guy to watch him blossom elsewhere.

Adam Wainwright might disagree.

He may well be in the top 3 pitchers in the NL.

[15fan]

Originally Posted by PuffyPig

Adam Wainwright might disagree.

He may well be in the top 3 pitchers in the NL.

Fair point. Wainright has blossomed.

(Wainright went in the deal for JD Drew, who then proceeded to finish 6th in the NL MVP voting during his one year in Atlanta before he walked as a FA.)

So that makes 2 guys whom the Braves reluctantly traded who then blossomed elsewhere.

The wash-outs still far outnumber the subsequent stars.

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by camisadelgolf

I find it hard to believe that the Reds couldn't have topped that deal if they didn't want to. It sounds to me like the Reds just weren't all that interested.

I think it's easy to believe because the Reds didn't have a replacement shortstop to offer Atlanta. The Braves wouldn't have pulled the trigger trading Escobar if they didn't get someone to replace him. It wasn't that they were looking for the best deal in return... it was they were looking for the best deal that involved someone to upgrade the position.

[RedsManRick]

Originally Posted by blumj

You might want to listen to this then. JP Ricciardi just stumbled onto him at a local high school game. JP does radio up here regularly, and Collins came up when they were talking about Daniel Nava, around 5 minutes in.

http://audio.weei.com/m/32005740/jp-...pn-analyst.htm

Thanks!

[RedsManRick]

Originally Posted by 15fan

Fair point. Wainright has blossomed.

(Wainright went in the deal for JD Drew, who then proceeded to finish 6th in the NL MVP voting during his one year in Atlanta before he walked as a FA.)

So that makes 2 guys whom the Braves reluctantly traded who then blossomed elsewhere.

The wash-outs still far outnumber the subsequent stars.

But what's the baseline. In deals of established players for prospects, I imagine the prospects fail to pan out more often than not.

[westofyou]

Buster Olney tweeting last night:

When Alex Gonzalez walked into the Atlanta clubhouse the Braves' players gave him a standing ovation.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/ok...el-escobar.php

First thought: wow.

Second thought: Buster only knows that because someone on the inside in Braves land made a special point to tell him about it. Which seems kind of sad to me, actually, because it means someone is really going out of their way to bury Yunel Escobar in the press.

Lots of someones actually, because it's not just Buster with this stuff. Talking casually to other writers over the past day or two and the most striking thing is that almost everyone has talked to someone with the Braves who has had something bad to say about the guy. There's always a bit of an analyst/reporter split in evaluating a trade, but the degree to which reporters with team sources all love the Gonzalez deal so much and analysts don't is (a) uncanny; (b) almost certainly a function of hearing negatives about him from Braves sources.

[bucksfan2]

Originally Posted by westofyou

Buster Olney tweeting last night:

I heard that mentioned on a couple different radio stations this morning.

I have always thought that winning solves everything. Its easy to have a free and loose clubhouse when you are playing good baseball and winning. While I think chemistry and clubhouse environment is important, I do think it can be over rated. It is very rarely that you will hear of a clubhouse environment that is awful when a team is playing good baseball.

That said this is a scathing indictment of when the Braves were happy to see him go. To me it really shows that the Braves players had tired of his antics and the Braves brass were ok with replacing him with Alex Gonzales.

[15fan]

In 15 years, I only remember 1 guy that everyone in Atlanta (fans, players, front office) was ready to move like Escobar and didn't really care what the return was: John Rocker.

I think the interesting thing is going to be what the Braves do when they find out that Gonzales's power doesn't translate well into the NL East parks. Turner Field is a pitchers park, as is Citi Field in NYC. Most years in FLA, Gonzales didn't put up big power numbers. (He hit 41 HRs in 2003-2004 during the tail end of the PED era.)

Right now, Glaus leads the team with 14 HRs, and Prado/Heyward are tied for 2nd with 11 each. McCann is the only other guy in double-digits with 10. Anything is an upgrade over Escobar (both on and off the field), but I'm not sold that Gonzales is the bat that makes the Braves a clear favorite in the NL. They still have horrifically anemic bats in the OF (McLouth and Melky Cabrera), and outside of Tim Hudson, the starters have all been fairly hittable. They've got a good bullpen though. The question will be whether or not Bobby Cox wears it out before the stretch run.