Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Losing Assets

This off-season Hot Stove game cuts both ways:  sometimes you gain assets to your ballclub… but sometimes you lose them too.

The Atlanta Braves are actually starting to experience some growing pains – but this is not unusual for an organization known to be on the move upwards.  After all, most other baseball clubs around aren’t stupid – they are going to be on the watch for cast-offs from one of the deepest farm systems in all of pro baseball.

Such was the case last week as the Braves started the process of paring down their 40-man roster with these transactions this month:

– 10/7/16     Atlanta Braves sent Joel De La Cruz outright to Gwinnett Braves.
– 10/7/16     Atlanta Braves sent Brandon Snyder outright to Gwinnett Braves.
– 10/7/16     Atlanta Braves sent 1B Blake Lalli outright to Gwinnett Braves.
– 10/11/16     Atlanta Braves sent Daniel Castro outright to Gwinnett Braves.
– 10/12/16     Atlanta Braves sent Matt Marksberry outright to Mississippi Braves.
– 10/12/16     Atlanta Braves sent Andrew McKirahan outright to Mississippi Braves.

However, there was one such out-righting that went missing from this list.  Unfortunately, we know about it because of what followed:

– 10/7/16     Baltimore Orioles claimed Jed Bradley off waivers from Atlanta Braves.

We introduced you to Jed Bradley back in June after he was bought from the Brewers while still in AA.  At the time, we were kind of wondering if the scouts noticed something or if a little ‘home cooking’ might help – for he was a former tremendous prospect that seemed to be languishing with the Brewers.

That did indeed change with the Braves as Bradley immediately went from a 6.20 ERA out of the AA Biloxi bullpen to a 2.35 ERA with Mississippi – with 10 starts thrown in for good measure.

The Braves promoted him to AAA and he more than held his own:  a 1.50 ERA in 3 starts of 18 total innings.

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Then Bradley got a shot in the majors:  7 relief innings, with the first being a win against Philadelphia.  He made 5 more appearances of varying lengths and pitched to a 5.14 ERA overall.  Not a bad audition – particularly for someone seeing 3 different advanced levels in the same season.

Bradley will be 27 next Spring, but it won’t be in a Braves’ uniform as the Orioles apparently snagged the left-hander before the waiver wire email was halfway out of the printer.

Obviously, the Braves had to know that there was a chance he’d be claimed on waivers – a pretty good one, in fact. If nothing else, he’s a pitcher, he’s left-handed and he’s still breathing.

Had Bradley been 23 or 24 years old, then there’s no way that Braves let him go.  But even at 26-1/2, I would have thought that he’d have earned at least a bit of trade value, so to lose him in this manner is surprising, for sure.

It is interesting, though, that a Pitching Pipeline of sorts has been developing between the Orioles and Braves:

In May, Brian Matusz came to Atlanta from Baltimore for Brandon Barker and Trevor Belicek (Matusz was released in June).  Luis Ayala came to Braves from the Orioles as a result of a roster crunch they had in early 2013.  That doesn’t count a few others – including Jim Johnson who was with Baltimore, though came to Atlanta as a free agent via Oakland.

This time it was their turn to snag one of ours… and it will sting just a bit.

Managers-in-Waiting

Even as Brian Snitker is still taking a pen to strike out the word “Interim” on his business cards, there could still be residual fallout on the abbreviated Braves’ managerial search – as feared.

The Atlanta Braves’ strategy of using Snitker as a ‘caretaker’ of the manager position didn’t exactly go as expected – because the team started winning.   The expectation was that the alliterative coaching triumvirate of Pendleton, Perez, and Porter would have this epic interview battle for the top job and then the also-rans would be relegated to shuffling the seating arrangements in the dugout.

But happy players, a winning attitude, and a whole new clubhouse attitude turned that plan on its head, and suddenly the Braves had little choice except to stay the course.

So now Snitker could be faced with the task of looking for new staff members himself.

Witness these tweets from AJC.com Braves’ watcher Dave O’Brien:

…and he later opined…

There are multiple candidates for both job openings, of course.  The Red Sox are expecting (and will allow) inquiries about the availability of their bench coach Torey Lovullo, for instance.  But is does appear that both Perez and Pendleton see their growth chances now limited in Atlanta.

With windows for opportunities also being limited, it would not be surprising to see either man actively engaging in interviews as they are offered.

As with Bradley, we’d hate to lose either one – but we also cannot (nor should we) deny opportunities when they present themselves.

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