Sports Guy

You mean a guy with his high end talent that has like 5 more years of control? A lot. Not sure what exactly but a lot more than I would trade for Cease. Kind of like asking, what would I give for Kirby.

Being an ace on a staff that doesn’t have many good pitchers doesn’t make him an ace. In 2022, he was an ace. The rest of his career he has been a 2/3 type starter.

You aren’t getting Bradfield as the third piece. I doubt the Os trade him as the second piece.

Cease’s durability is one of the reasons he’s at the top of my personal wish list.

I would love to add him but I wouldn’t trade Holliday or Basallo for him. Hes an amazing talent signed to an incredible deal but the best ability is availability and he simply hasn’t been available for most of his career. Thats not something I would be willing to overlook (I don’t think Elias would either) but I think other teams would…Seattle and the Giants immediately jump to mind.

Absolutely.

1) This is part of the issue. Cease isn’t a frontline starter. He has the ceiling of one but it’s not set in stone that he is one. 2) How many games are you going to win with Robert the next 2-3 years? Im thinking 130ish at most. Why keep him?

Teams can absolutely afford him.

Huh? He played in 68 games in 2021 and 98 in 2022. Last year he was very durable but he clearly wasn’t heading into 2023.

I mean it’s possible but I wouldn’t speak of it as a fact. I think it’s very possible that his value is the highest right now that it will ever be. When you have zero to play for and have no prospects of contention in the next several years, I think you have to trade your assets when you can…they should have moved Cease after 2022 and they should move Robert now. They would have a huge haul of prospects had they done that and maybe contention for the playoffs would only be a year or 2 away.

For your guys sake, I hope he stays healthy and you get a haul for him but he’s a big durability risk.

No offense but this is absurd. You are greatly overrating Cease and underrating the read of those guys. To think you should get 8 prospects, some of which are or will be top 100 level guys, is crazy. I tend to doubt they accept a quantity type trade but I think the thing fans get caught up in are these all over the place top 100 rankings. Just because you aren’t a top 100 guy doesn’t mean you aren’t a good prospect. Most top 100 lists are filled with guys that all those publications overrated from the beginning and they don’t jump off of the names quick enough because they don’t want to look that wrong that quickly.

Yep..Grayson, after he came back from the minors after the AS break, was one of the best pitchers in the AL. And I agree with your first paragraph. That’s my mindset too.

No, they don’t have to trade Cease but they would be pretty foolish to hold onto him too. Hell, they are foolish for hanging onto Robert imo.

If they could get a top 20 prospect for Cease, the deal would be done. No chance of that. A guy at the level of Kjerstad or Cowser is possible…MLb has Cowser as the 14th best prospect, most are more in the 25-40 range. Kjerstad is in a similar range. They may get a prospect in that range but if you look at all the prospects in the top 40, most of them are either not being dealt at all or teams that have them aren’t in that market. The options dwindle quickly.

Yea, it’s not ideal. OTOH, they did just win 101 games without doing that and I would argue that they have 2 TOR starters right now and Means has been good to very good in the past, when healthy. That said, they need another starter. Actually, if it were me, I would be trading Kremer and adding 2 starters, with one of them being a high end young arm that maybe isn’t experienced or proven but has the high ceiling. We have the ML and MiL assets to pull both things off.

There is plenty of reason for it…because they aren’t getting a player close to Mayo and maybe they get something close to Kjerstad. They need to trade Cease for the best deal possible. Thinking one of them has to be in it is foolish and really limits your options for any trade.

Volpe was just worth 2.1 fWAR with no bat and a glove not as good as Ortiz. I think you are undervaluing just how much WAR a great glove can bring you plus Ortiz should hit at a league average or better rate for a MIer.

I’m not saying I agree with the mentality but if you think Cowser is a 3.5+ WAR, AS level type guy who is going to make no money for the next 6-7 years, you can understand not trading that for a medium risk/high reward starter that only has 2 years left. I think if the Os could do a quantity type deal..like Ortiz, Norby, Beavers and a lottery ticket type guy, that the Os would be all over it. Im just not convinced they will deal a guy in their top 5.

I won’t be shocked but I doubt it happens because I question if Elias will move Cowser or Kjerstad for just 2 years of a player.

FTR, I do not think he should be the centerpiece for this deal because of his age. My argument is more just about him as a player. He is an elite defensive guy with high end exit velo numbers that is putting up big stats in a pitchers park in AAA and he did the same thing in AA too. He lost time because of the COVID year and he has a shoulder injury that took him about a year to overcome. Since he got back from that, which is around June of 2022, he has lit it up with the bat and the glove. We have guys over on OH that say if he is the second player in the deal, we are overpaying. I think that an absurd opinion. I don’t think you let Ortiz stop you from making a deal, especially with our high end talent in the IF but just because we have 2 guys that are MVP level talents at SS doesn’t diminish Ortiz’s value.

You are completely wrong about Ortiz but I don’t disagree about trying to hit on upside. The flip side to that is that you guys also need to hit on this trade. If this trade blows up in your face, you are likely looking at 4-6 years of being completely irrelevant. That may be a happening anyway but you need ML contributors from this trade to make you better. AJsS is a high risk/high reward type guy. And btw, the Braves don’t usually trade guys they really like. I would be wary of a deal where they are happily sending you their best prospect (if they are willing to do it).

I don’t disagree with you and as an Os fan, I wish they would pay 200+M for Bellinger.

AJSS is rated in the same area as Ortiz. He walked a ton of guys in the minors and didn’t throw many innings. You like the age and he definitely has good upside but honestly, he has more of a reliever profile than a starter as of right now and the WS aren’t likely to develop him to be something special. If you want a pitcher to head up the deal, I think you need to get a more refined and harder to screw up guy.

I don’t get the hope for an Atlanta trade. They just don’t offer an overly enticing package imo.