So much kvetching about the state of the rotation, which is understandable given the injury news before Spring Training games have even begun.
But, let’s pivot slightly: we know the deals that have already happened. Which ones should the Braves have made?
For me, the big money deals were too big and inflated for the production they offered, but that shouldn’t be surprising at this point. The played-in-another-league-last-year deals (Tatsuya Imai, Cody Ponce) are a lot more modest, but still fairly risky — I would’ve preferred them be more like pillow deals.
That said, a lot of mid-tier deals, I think would’ve been good to make. Sure, the Braves may not want to add a mid-tier guy, but I don’t see those deals as substantially constraining flexibility. We’ve talked at length about Chris Bassitt at this point, and his salary is pretty reasonable. Steven Matz looks like he has a great chance to produce surplus on his contract. I’m not very excited about the Justin Verlander, Nick Martinez, and Dustin May deals, but they’re not terrible.
Foster Griffin was an interesting signing for the Nationals given the low, short commitment. Wouldn’t have minded that one.
There were a handful for quantity-for-quality-ish trades of starters. In particular, Shane Baz and Ryan Weathers come to mind. Those moves would’ve been the opposite of Chris Bassitt in a way since they wouldn’t necessarily add a reliable arm, but would just diversify a high degree of risk further. Even the MacKenzie Gore deal, while on the pricier side because Gore is a pricier pitcher production-wise, seemed okay.
I think that’s largely where I come out — either one of the Bassitt/Matz/Griffin deals, or one of the Baz/Weathers/Gore deals would’ve been nice. I don’t think the Braves have much interest in Zack Littell, but maybe if they give him a pretty cheap deal, that could be Bassitt-lite. They probably don’t have interest for the same reason they apparently had little inclination to engage on Bassitt, though.
