Comments on: Notes and thoughts on the Justin Upton trade

By: joegolfer

joegolfer — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 06:21:09 +0000

He’s simply alternating righty/ lefty, just as many managers do. He’s not necessarily saying that Maholm is better than Hudson.
I agree that Hudson is far superior to Maholm, but it won’t matter much once the season starts.
I once read an article on ESPN about #1 pitchers. Some readers wondered what percentage of the time that a #1 pitcher faces another #1 pitcher on the other team. They calculated it out. Yes it happens more right at the start of the year, but the percentage came out to just 19%.
So it really doesn’t matter once the season gets underway, except for the egos of the pitchers.

By: joejaws75

joejaws75 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:52:15 +0000

Sorry but as a phillies fan the braves lineup minus chipper and prado and Bourne don’t scare me one bit

By: mungman69

mungman69 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:30:37 +0000

Washington will win this division going away. Philadelphia? You ask. ALL of their good players are old cept for Hamels and they don’t even have one major league outfielder. Atlanta isn’t better, they will miss Jones big time. Washington is really stocked. The Mets & Marlins suck a lot.

By: djjackson81

djjackson81 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:22:44 +0000

Kevin Towers as his job has improve the organization as a whole. We only had one, Chris Owing’s was our only prospect in the organization now we have three highly regarded prospects in the organization.

By: djjackson81

djjackson81 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:20:15 +0000

Atlanta got a good outfield yes, however the five players in the deal with the 4 million in Prado’s salary sent to Arizona is a good trade for Arizona. Until players make the bigs and show me there projected projections there just that prospects.

By: djjackson81

djjackson81 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:16:24 +0000

Braves in a majority hate loosing Prado and AZ embarrasses him. Az just got a hell of a player at the top of there order with Eaton and Braves have lost that. Plus the prospects sent with Prado are pretty good pieces to add in the mix as well. Lets not forget Atlanta sent 4million with this trade for Upton.

By: djjackson81

djjackson81 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:13:30 +0000

When you look at Uptons home and away batting lines when in AZ clearly his home batting line at Chase field was his best away dips off big time away Chase field. Seattle s offer for Upton was better cause Seattle can’t get the big free agents to sign there. That’s why they had to over pay and were willing in order to get the big bat in Seattle. There is a reason why Upton had Seattle in his no trade clause. He knows his numbers would drop in Seattle. Atlanta fans knew what they were gonna get from Prado and hate loosing him he’s an all star period. Great average good defense and strikes out very little. When you have 600+ at bats and only strike out 69 times thats great contact hitting. Not to mention Prado’s HR will spike in AZ cause he is hitting at Chase field.

By: jl9830

jl9830 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:51:48 +0000

Yikes, Paul Maholm as your #2 starter? Not great. Hudson would 100% go ahead of Maholm in the rotation.

By: jl9830

jl9830 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 00:50:26 +0000

I wouldn’t really say a “steal.” The Braves got the best player in the long term, but it’s not the worst trade ever for both sides.

By: thebadguyswon

thebadguyswon — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:48:18 +0000

Kevin Towers is an idiot. He got hosed.

By: ncphilliesguy

ncphilliesguy — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:31:30 +0000

Matthew, I apologize, as a I made some assinine comment on your first post proposing this. I NEVER thought this would happen in a million years. That was for 2 reasons, one, I never thought the Braves would spend that much money, and two, I thought they would have to include Simmons to get Justin, and I never thought they would do that. Turns out I was wrong, because Towers (?!) did the deal without him included and the Braves overpaid for his brother. Kuddos to you, I should just keep my mouth shut.

P.S. Can’t keep my mouth shut, they have too many strikeouts in that lineup.

By: gpatrick15

gpatrick15 — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:07:37 +0000

When healthy, the starting rotation should be:
Medlen
Maholm
Hudson
Minor
Tehran

When Beachy comes back, they’ll have to move someone to the pen. Unless Tehran just doesn’t cut it in Spring Training or the first few weeks of the season, I don’t see them reaching out to any of the free agent starters looking for work.

By: gbrim

gbrim — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:06:03 +0000

Having watched Upton his entire major league career, I am not sorry he has been traded (although I am appalled by how the process was handled). A few years watching skillet hands in the outfield, an inability to hit on the road, his streakiness, and little things like how poor he is getting runners in from third with less than two outs, are enough. He undoubtedly is a fine athlete, and by all accounts a good teammate and hard worker, but the total is less than the sum of his parts. He may thrive in Atlanta, but it was time to leave Arizona.

By: ptfu

ptfu — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:00:19 +0000

What has happened to Kevin Towers? When he was the Padres GM, he used to be known as a sharp trader. The Jake Peavy trade to the White Sox–only recently have the ChiSox gotten anything from Peavy. Stealing Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Young (the tall pitcher) from the Rangers. Trading spare parts for Phil Nevin (~13 WAR in 1999-2001). Trading for Greg Vaughn, who hit 50 HRs (and was worth 6 WAR) to the 1998 NL Champs. Towers didn’t have any real stinkers, except for the Randy Myers waiver claim gone to hell. In San Diego, Towers’ major league roster management was a definite plus.

Towers’ weakness was bad drafts. The farm system didn’t produce much during his tenure.

Towers also didn’t tolerate whiners in San Diego. When Nevin and Klesko complained about Petco Park, they were eventually shipped out (though they were also getting old). But has Upton been complaining or a malcontent or whatever?

So what has Arizona done to Towers’ judgment? Now he’s trading for (and paying a lot for) ineffective Heath Bell? Signing Cody Ross (who’s older and maybe worse than outfielder Chris Young, who Towers just traded away) when he already had outfielders Upton, Kubel, Parra, and Eaton? And now this questionable Upton trade. Hmm…

By: paperlions

paperlions — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 20:43:22 +0000

I suppose I have a lot of thoughts about this trade, but all of them boil down to: damn, that is a steal for the Braves, WTF is Towers thinking?

By: greymares

greymares — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 20:40:13 +0000

of course you can’t help losing chipper but replacing Jones, Bourne and Prado with the Uptons does not make the Braves a better team.

By: icanspeel

icanspeel — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:52:01 +0000

It’s weird not seeing Chipper Jones name in their lineup. I pretty much grew up with him always playing 3b for the Braves (minus injuries)

By: 13arod

13arod — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:43:23 +0000

not prodo

By: jjschiller

jjschiller — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:35:14 +0000

Sure, Prado’s a really solid player. But he’s a year from free agency, and if the Dbacks extend him, he’ll be paid almost what Upton’s getting paid. And your ability to extend a player doesn’t make him more valuable in trade. You traded for 1 year of Martin Prado. Everything you get after that, you’re buying.

I’m of the opinion that Kevin Towers blew this one. They bad mouthed their commodity, they shopped him over and over again, caused him to be disgruntled, made it a virtual necessity that he be moved, then they backed themselves into a corner by signing his replacement before he was gone, all while holding out so hard for the absolute best deal that some suitors (Rangers, for one) just moved on. He further reduced his leverage by actually agreeing to a trade with Seattle that the player TOLD him he would veto. That package from Seattle could be used as leverage until the player nixed it. As long as it’s hypothetical, it has value at the table with other teams.

There have been comments in the past that Towers is difficult to work with, and it finally came back and got him. He ticked off his player, he ticked off teams that wanted to deal with him in good faith, and with his back up against a hard place, he accepted, maybe, 70 cents on the dollar for what his player was worth.