2025 ATL Thread - Burnes to have TJ surgery

[ReasonablySober]

If it weren't for other stuff I'd be so mad.

[Matches Malone]

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[ReasonablySober]

Vladdy Jr. stays in Toronto. 14-year, $500 million. Good for Toronto fans, but that is an insane deal.

[blazza18]

Baseball contract lengths a **** absurd. Bad for the sport.

[Turk Nowitzki]

That's a completely psychotic contact. 14 guaranteed years for him??

[MVP2110]

He's already a negative dwar 1st basemen. There are essentially paying that much for a guy to be their DH for a decade. Insane

[MikeIsGood]

Absolutely wild contract. But also, if no FA is going to sign in Toronto and you don't mind giving out the money, I guess do what you gotta do to keep your hitter?

[Turk Nowitzki]

Shane Smith is no hitting the Guardians through 5

[ReasonablySober]

I'm so **** mad.

[Thunder Muscle]

What is weird is he seems like a prototypical Brewers guy with great stuff that they will work to correct command. Did they think could sneak him through Rule 5 w/o being picked and bluff was called maybe?

[Kerb Hohl]

Trying to keep the vibes positive on the Shane Smith thing:

In 2016/2017 when Stearns took over, there was a huge ordeal among hardened fans of, "how could this nerd let Miguel Diaz available to Rule 5 Exposure? He has electric stuff." He was great for his first 4-5 appearances with the Padres, prompting more ire, and then it turned out he was just a journeyman reliever.

Shane Smith's BABIP against is currently .138. He may be a very nice/needed depth rotation piece that we passed on, but there's a very good chance that pitching against 2 dog doo doo offenses in sub-40 degree temps has something to do with his early season success.

He's currently not hitting the 7 K/9 mark, which is already a very low bar for a pitcher that supposedly has great stuff.

Basically, there is no peripheral other than him keeping his walks kind of down that would suggest this is anywhere near sustainable.

[ReasonablySober]

Trying to keep the vibes positive on the Shane Smith thing:

In 2016/2017 when Stearns took over, there was a huge ordeal among hardened fans of, "how could this nerd let Miguel Diaz available to Rule 5 Exposure? He has electric stuff." He was great for his first 4-5 appearances with the Padres, prompting more ire, and then it turned out he was just a journeyman reliever.

Shane Smith's BABIP against is currently .138. He may be a very nice/needed depth rotation piece that we passed on, but there's a very good chance that pitching against 2 dog doo doo offenses in sub-40 degree temps has something to do with his early season success.

He's currently not hitting the 7 K/9 mark, which is already a very low bar for a pitcher that supposedly has great stuff.

Basically, there is no peripheral other than him keeping his walks kind of down that would suggest this is anywhere near sustainable.

Smith is an eye test. What you have with him is a guy who sits upper 90s and has already shown one of the best change-ups in baseball. Combine that with a quality third pitch in his curve and he's someone with all the tools. Size, stuff, dominance in the minors, he's got it all. If he was a Brewer we would be giddy right now.

But what's the worst thing about the Shane Smith situation is it was totally avoidable. There was literally no reason not to give him a spot on the 40-Man. Not when they took another pitcher in Connor Thomas, not when they DFA'd Tyler Jay shortly after. Either they **** up in their evaluation of the player, or they **** up in how they believed he was perceived around the league. Going #1 overall in the Rule 5 is absolutely damning to Arnold and his staff. That they now have to trade a well regarded prospect AND $3 million in draft capital to bring back a guy who may not even be better than Smith is legitimately one of the worst sequences of events Arnold has ever been apart of.

[MVP2110]

Trying to keep the vibes positive on the Shane Smith thing:

In 2016/2017 when Stearns took over, there was a huge ordeal among hardened fans of, "how could this nerd let Miguel Diaz available to Rule 5 Exposure? He has electric stuff." He was great for his first 4-5 appearances with the Padres, prompting more ire, and then it turned out he was just a journeyman reliever.

Shane Smith's BABIP against is currently .138. He may be a very nice/needed depth rotation piece that we passed on, but there's a very good chance that pitching against 2 dog doo doo offenses in sub-40 degree temps has something to do with his early season success.

He's currently not hitting the 7 K/9 mark, which is already a very low bar for a pitcher that supposedly has great stuff.

Basically, there is no peripheral other than him keeping his walks kind of down that would suggest this is anywhere near sustainable.

Smith is an eye test. What you have with him is a guy who sits upper 90s and has already shown one of the best change-ups in baseball. Combine that with a quality third pitch in his curve and he's someone with all the tools. Size, stuff, dominance in the minors, he's got it all. If he was a Brewer we would be giddy right now.

But what's the worst thing about the Shane Smith situation is it was totally avoidable. There was literally no reason not to give him a spot on the 40-Man. Not when they took another pitcher in Connor Thomas, not when they DFA'd Tyler Jay shortly after. Either they **** up in their evaluation of the player, or they **** up in how they believed he was perceived around the league. Going #1 overall in the Rule 5 is absolutely damning to Arnold and his staff. That they now have to trade a well regarded prospect AND $3 million in draft capital to bring back a guy who may not even be better than Smith is legitimately one of the worst sequences of events Arnold has ever been apart of.

I agree that the Front office seemingly screwed up the Shane Smith stuff. I'm not sure the Priester thing relates much to it though. The Priester move is the most aggressive move the Brewers have made in several years. It feels like they specifically targeted Priester as a guy they valued and I think they make the deal with or without Shane Smith. If they needed a guy to just cover a few starts they could have made a deal similar to the Kuechel deal last year

[Kerb Hohl]

Trying to keep the vibes positive on the Shane Smith thing:

In 2016/2017 when Stearns took over, there was a huge ordeal among hardened fans of, "how could this nerd let Miguel Diaz available to Rule 5 Exposure? He has electric stuff." He was great for his first 4-5 appearances with the Padres, prompting more ire, and then it turned out he was just a journeyman reliever.

Shane Smith's BABIP against is currently .138. He may be a very nice/needed depth rotation piece that we passed on, but there's a very good chance that pitching against 2 dog doo doo offenses in sub-40 degree temps has something to do with his early season success.

He's currently not hitting the 7 K/9 mark, which is already a very low bar for a pitcher that supposedly has great stuff.

Basically, there is no peripheral other than him keeping his walks kind of down that would suggest this is anywhere near sustainable.

Smith is an eye test. What you have with him is a guy who sits upper 90s and has already shown one of the best change-ups in baseball. Combine that with a quality third pitch in his curve and he's someone with all the tools. Size, stuff, dominance in the minors, he's got it all. If he was a Brewer we would be giddy right now.

But what's the worst thing about the Shane Smith situation is it was totally avoidable. There was literally no reason not to give him a spot on the 40-Man. Not when they took another pitcher in Connor Thomas, not when they DFA'd Tyler Jay shortly after. Either they **** up in their evaluation of the player, or they **** up in how they believed he was perceived around the league. Going #1 overall in the Rule 5 is absolutely damning to Arnold and his staff. That they now have to trade a well regarded prospect AND $3 million in draft capital to bring back a guy who may not even be better than Smith is legitimately one of the worst sequences of events Arnold has ever been apart of.

What you described is also Miguel Diaz. Sometimes, I just defer to the smart organization that maybe they simply didn't care and if they were able to continue to stash him off of the 40, great, but he's not considered a long-term piece so they probably weren't too attached if they lost him.

It's a small sample, but if his stuff is that electric and we're using the first 2 games to decide that he's good, he'd be striking out more than 7 batters/game.

Instead, he's faced a lukewarm/injured lineup in the Twins, and an incredibly top-heavy lineup that also kinda sucks in the Guardians. It was sub-40 degrees in both games.

Unless he misses more bats or is elite at inducing weak contact, he's going to give up homers and roughly double the .138 BABIP and be JAG at best.

[ReasonablySober]

Trying to keep the vibes positive on the Shane Smith thing:

In 2016/2017 when Stearns took over, there was a huge ordeal among hardened fans of, "how could this nerd let Miguel Diaz available to Rule 5 Exposure? He has electric stuff." He was great for his first 4-5 appearances with the Padres, prompting more ire, and then it turned out he was just a journeyman reliever.

Shane Smith's BABIP against is currently .138. He may be a very nice/needed depth rotation piece that we passed on, but there's a very good chance that pitching against 2 dog doo doo offenses in sub-40 degree temps has something to do with his early season success.

He's currently not hitting the 7 K/9 mark, which is already a very low bar for a pitcher that supposedly has great stuff.

Basically, there is no peripheral other than him keeping his walks kind of down that would suggest this is anywhere near sustainable.

Smith is an eye test. What you have with him is a guy who sits upper 90s and has already shown one of the best change-ups in baseball. Combine that with a quality third pitch in his curve and he's someone with all the tools. Size, stuff, dominance in the minors, he's got it all. If he was a Brewer we would be giddy right now.

But what's the worst thing about the Shane Smith situation is it was totally avoidable. There was literally no reason not to give him a spot on the 40-Man. Not when they took another pitcher in Connor Thomas, not when they DFA'd Tyler Jay shortly after. Either they **** up in their evaluation of the player, or they **** up in how they believed he was perceived around the league. Going #1 overall in the Rule 5 is absolutely damning to Arnold and his staff. That they now have to trade a well regarded prospect AND $3 million in draft capital to bring back a guy who may not even be better than Smith is legitimately one of the worst sequences of events Arnold has ever been apart of.

What you described is also Miguel Diaz.

No I'm not. Miguel Diaz was a 21 year old who had never thrown a pitch above A ball. Giving a 40 man spot to a kid who wasn't even that good at the lowest level of the minors was never going to happen. Smith dominated AA and again did well in his cup of coffee in AAA as a reliever. He was as easy a choice to protect as there could be.

[ReasonablySober]

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[Kerb Hohl]

Smith is an eye test. What you have with him is a guy who sits upper 90s and has already shown one of the best change-ups in baseball. Combine that with a quality third pitch in his curve and he's someone with all the tools. Size, stuff, dominance in the minors, he's got it all. If he was a Brewer we would be giddy right now.

But what's the worst thing about the Shane Smith situation is it was totally avoidable. There was literally no reason not to give him a spot on the 40-Man. Not when they took another pitcher in Connor Thomas, not when they DFA'd Tyler Jay shortly after. Either they **** up in their evaluation of the player, or they **** up in how they believed he was perceived around the league. Going #1 overall in the Rule 5 is absolutely damning to Arnold and his staff. That they now have to trade a well regarded prospect AND $3 million in draft capital to bring back a guy who may not even be better than Smith is legitimately one of the worst sequences of events Arnold has ever been apart of.

What you described is also Miguel Diaz.

No I'm not. Miguel Diaz was a 21 year old who had never thrown a pitch above A ball. Giving a 40 man spot to a kid who wasn't even that good at the lowest level of the minors was never going to happen. Smith dominated AA and again did well in his cup of coffee in AAA as a reliever. He was as easy a choice to protect as there could be.

Again, I'm going to go back to the MLB team with a pristine pitching evaluation process not seeing the same "eye test." There are plenty of guys that never made it in the majors that could look great in AA/AAA at age 24.

They might very well have made a mistake and given up a solid back-end starter/relief guy because he may very well have enough to get by in the majors, but let's give it more than 2 "lucky" starts where the other teams don't even have the book out on him yet before we do victory laps.

[ReasonablySober]

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I wouldn't be opposed to a prolonged lockout and work stoppage starting in 2027 if it meant that we'd get the salary cap. But I have no idea how that would work with so many players and teams already locked into deals that push teams over any theoretical cap.

[Thunder Muscle]

Looks like Devin Williams really struggling with the Yanks. Kinda felt like that was a possibility with some question marks on pressure and coming off an excruciating playoff performance. Talks they may need to not have him close for a bit.

[MickeyDavis]

Willy has been scuffling too