And it's just... You have to just go with the upside if you are in Atlanta's financial position. You can't give money to Chris Johnson and trade for Miller, those guys combined don't have the upside of Heyward.

Apologies to Chris Johnson, I guess. My lawnmower is just in orbit. It's just too believable that the front office never even approached Heyward to see what kind of extension he'd be interested in.

Also I don't think it's been mentioned that the trade was completed without physicals of any kind being done on the players involved. Like, really?

The more I think about it the more incredulous I get. The whole thing went down in about 5 hours, apparently, and Hart justifies this by saying 'they had exactly what we were looking for'. Are you telling me none of the other 30 possible teams 'had what you were looking for'? I mean, don't get me wrong, STL is a perfect fit with their surplus in SP and hole in RF, but unless there was an impending deal about to go down with STL and some other right fielder there was just no reason to rush.

So Justin is going to be traded - it's just a matter of time. And at the same time we're one of the leaders for Tomas, which is interesting. Here's a good little article about it -

http://www.talkingchop.com/2014/11/2...astros-rangers

Sounds ludicrous... I completely agree.

Here's hoping for a nice haul for Justin. I'm not sure what to think about Tomas yet. Hmm...

Trading JUP now is a must.

Very good.

We signed 26-year old 2B prospect Corban Joseph to a minor-league deal.

He profiles similarly to what La Stella was, fair average, so-so but passable defense. Joseph has a little more power but a little less walk rate.

I guess they wanted a backup plan to just handing the job to Peraza out of the gate.

It would be so awesome if Arthur Blank would buy the Braves

Yep as long as he doesn't hold onto a stupid coach/manager. Oh wait.

Braves sign Markakis 4 years 44 mil or thereabouts. Bleh.

Also non tendered Medlen and Beachy yesterday :/

I'm still not sure wtf this organization is doing right now.

Yeah this seems awful. Would love to eat crow but I just don't get it either.

We also signed that abortion of a relief pitcher, Jim Johnson.

At least it's only for 1 year, 1.6M gtd with 900k in incentives.

"Buying very low" I guess.

Oh yea, that's right.

Wonderful.

One bit of good news about Markakis: He has almost no platoon split. .291 career vs RHP, .288 vs LHP. As much as I loved Jason, he really struggled vs lefties. I guess the thinking is that he'll be able to grind out at-bats and won't be prone to long slumps.

Advanced metrics give him average range on defense, but SortByErrors and he's been very good. In 9 years and almost 12k defensive innings, he has 18 errors. He's also made 99.7% of plays classified as "routine."

The bad news is his avg fly ball distance has been trending down for 5 straight years.

Basically, he's maybe half as good but as consistent as Hunter Pence, just older and clearly past his prime.

Wonderful, indeed.

Trying my best not to be melodramatic.


...


Trying my best not to be melodramatic.

We traded Anthony Varvarro to Boston for a 24 year old minor-league right-handed reliever named Aaron Kurcz.

I liked Varvarro, but he apparently lost 4 mph off his fastball last year so that's why they moved him.

Guess we're sticking to the organizational mantra of staying cheap and young in middle relief and letting McDowell figure it out

Bye Justin.

haha we're gonna suck so bad

How to dump bj upton now

Neither!

Kiley McDaniel breaks down the prospects we got in the Justin Upton trade

Well, 2015 is definitely going to be a rebuilding year.

Simmons SS
Markakis RF
Freeman 1B
Gattis LF
Johnson 3B
Upton CF
Bethancourt C
Callaspo 2B

Jesus. Also would be shocked if Gattis wasn't traded over the next 2 seasons.

By 2017, however, I think we'll be in good position to challenge for the division again. Simmons/Freeman/Bethancourt/Teheran/Wood/Minor/Miller/Kimbrel will all be in their primes and joined by Peraza/Sims/Fried etc as well as some big signings heading into the new stadium.

The next 2 years are going to be tough, though. Our pitching might keep us within shouting distance, but goodness the offense might be historically bad.

May be rough for the next year or two, but I think the long run looks good for Atlanta.

I'm past anger and rationalizing, and am now slowly accepting that we might lose 95 games in 2015

We'll need 3 singles in the same inning to score every run!

3rd order record last season was 76-86...95 losses isn't out of the question, for sure.

Gattis to Houston for 3 prospects, huh? So how many 2014 starters are gone now?

http://m.espn.go.com/mlb/story?storyId=12167911