📅 Published on: 2024-12-03 17:00:05

⏱ Duration: 00:28:53 (1733 seconds)

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📝 Video Description:

Join host Lindsay Crosby on Braves Today as he dives into the latest offseason news and updates for the Atlanta Braves. In this December 3rd episode, Lindsay discusses the surprising suggestion of trading All-Star second baseman Ozzie Albies and whether it’s a good or bad idea. Explore the potential trade candidates, including major leaguers and top prospects, and get insights into the Braves’ offseason strategy. Stay tuned as Lindsay examines possible trades and what they could mean for the future of the team.

Hot Trade Rumors: There’s No Way The Braves Would Move Ozzie Albies, Right? | Atlanta Braves Podcast
00:45 Offseason Moves and Decisions
02:27 MLB Trade Candidates and Braves’ Options
04:35 Debating a Trade of Ozzie Albies
05:36 Ozzie Albies’ Performance and Value
15:32 Potential Trade Candidates among Prospects
28:09 Conclusion and Viewer Engagement

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🎙 Channel: Braves Today Podcast

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🕵️‍♂️ Transcript:

hang on a second did somebody genuinely suggest trading Aussie alz this [Music] winter yes welcome on in to Braves today for Tuesday December 3rd your source of news and updates on your Atlanta Braves I’m your host lindsy Crosby you can follow me on Twitter and blue sky at Crosby baseball you can follow the show on Twitter Braves toay we have a Facebook page and Instagram as well and you can find all of my written work bravest today.com as this is both a podcast and a newsletter and I understand that this is the quiet part of the off season right now or the quiet part of December for the Atlanta Braves right you’ve already made all of your Club option decisions right you kept Marcel Ozuna you declined the options on Travis Arno and Luke Jackson you had to make your non-tender decisions right you non-tender Ramone laurano you non-tendered wascar yoa Griffin kaning but you kept Dylan Lee you kept Jared kelet guys like that you’ve given out some extensions right whether it was Aaron bummer Ronaldo Lopez you gave them you gave them New Deals neither one of them actually went out that many more years but just new deals in general and you’ve even brought in some guys on minor league contracts or non-g guaranteed Major League deals right Conor Gillespie uh Carlos Rodriguez right bunch of different guys that could be in the minors could be in the majors we’ll see what happens on opening day but Atlanta hasn’t really gotten involved with all of the offseason free agent signings right they had haven’t ink normal standard Major Leaguers to to free agent contracts to join the team and so because of that there’s a little bit of a gap in what to talk about right now and you can see that some teams have started the Dodgers have signed Blake Snell they gave an extension to Tommy Edmond we saw the Cubs add a piter we saw the Mets add a pitcher but mlb.com obviously needs some more content so they went to all 30 beat writers for all 30 teams and they said they want an article about the top trade candidates and mlb.com had the here’s one trade candidate from every team kind of listing but Mark Bowman of mlb.com wrote the article about the Braves top trade candidates and real quick let me just clarify um I have talked numerous times to Mark Bowman I’ve sat in a press box with him at truest I’ve stood outside the Braves Clubhouse with him in Northport he’s a good guy I bought his book It’s a Wonderful book by the way the franchise a curated history of the Braves if you’re looking for a Christmas gift for a Braves fan I’d recommend buying the book he didn’t pay me to say that but in his newest article talking about the trade candidates for the Braves there was a paragraph that stood out to me right he’s talking about trying to figure out who the Braves have available to trade to make additions to the roster and we forget this sometimes but trades can be Major Leaguers as well as prospects it’s not just trading prospects for Major Leaguers sometimes you trade Major Leaguers for prospects or you trade Major Leaguers for other major leers and in the article he talks about is Jared Kellick an option and we’ll break that down a little bit later in the show but there’s a paragraph that stood out to me I went ahead and clipped it for those of you who were on YouTube I’ll read it for the folks on audio there would also be reason to debate moving Aussie alz the three-time All-Star second baseman whose contract includes a $7 million salary for 2025 and $7 million options for 2026 and 2027 that’s a good value if he remains healthy enough to bid for another 30 Homer season he’s also a strong Clubhouse presence but his arm strength has weakened his defensive value and to get a strong return turn you sometimes must part ways with something significant okay my initial thoughts no we’re not trading Azie obies I hate the idea it’s a terrible idea we’re not doing it and to Mark Credit the very next sentence in the fir like the first sentence of the next paragraph if I had to guess alz and Kellick will be back with the Braves next year so he agrees that Aussie’s probably not going to get traded but you know what he said on there would also be reason to debate moving aie alz so you know what we’re going to talk about it we’re going to talk about the Major Leaguers that could potentially get moved discuss is moving Aussie Al a good idea or a bad idea and why would you consider doing it and then in the second segment we’ll look at some of the prospects both what he report here from sources about who has been asked about who Atlanta is not inclined to trade and who may potentially be on the Block but we’ve got to start with Azie and taking out the person azy alz who we all have watched for years now he I believe he is the longest tenur Brave now with with Dansby being gone with Freddy with with Freddy being gone with Max freed being gone Aussie debuted in 2017 he has 871 career games in Atlanta um across eight seasons I don’t think that’s the high I don’t know if that’s the highest game count but I do know that from the DAT the debuted he is the he is the longest tenur Brave taking out Aussie the person and just looking at Aussie the baseball player the reasons why another team would want to acquire him is because when he’s healthy and that was a thing that he put in there if he remains healthy enough when he’s in there offensively Aussie is one of the best second basemen in the league from an offensive perspective okay he’s had four seasons of the eight where he played at least 148 games 2018 his first full season in The Bigs he played 158 he was an Allstar after batting 261 with 24 homers and 14 stolen bases he followed that up in 2019 was not an All-Star but was a Silver Slugger which is always hilarious to me batted 295 with 24 homers and 15 stolen bases led the national league in hits with 189 2021 he played 156 games batted 259 with 30 home runs 20 stolen bases was an All-Star was a Silver Slugger and was a 13th Place finisher for MVP and then in 2023 he batted 280 with 33 home runs 13 stolen bases was an Allstar and was a 16th Place finisher for MVP and if you remember there were quite a few Braves in that MVP award voting last season obviously Ronald Cuda Jun won it Matt Olen came in fourth place Austin Riley came in seventh place Aussie came in 16th Marcel o Zuna came in 19th you had five guys in the top 20 of MVP voting from 2023 that’s how good the season was we all forget that Marcel Ozuna because he started so awful he finished with 40 homers and 100 RBI and was a top 20 MVP finisher there so back to Aussie when Aussie is healthy he is one of the best offensive second basemen in all of baseball it’s a position that is just for the most part a dumpster fire of production second base especially in fantasy it feels like second base is one of the weaker positions out there that you’re really struggling to find guys outside of the top few and Aussie when he’s healthy is one of the top few but that caveat is important because and we’ve talked about this on the show before he has this odd trend of even number years not playing a lot in 2020 the shortened season he only got in 29 games of the 60 because of injury right 2022 he only played in 64 games and then in 2024 he only got 99 and the batting averages in some of those years weren’t necessarily great 2020 he B at 271 but again it’s 29 games it’s 124 plate appearances it’s really hard to draw any conclusion out of that in 2022 he batted 247 and in 2024 he batted 251 it’s you can see that he either is healthy plays the whole season and is one of the best second basem in baseball a four four and a half five War guy or he gets hurt before he’s hurt he’s not playing great or it’s when he comes back he’s not playing great and he finishes around 250 or so the potential for Aussie alz and the value he’s making $7 million this is actually the final guaranteed year of that extension that he signed with Atlanta now there’s two Club options both 2026 and 2027 so Aussie is under team control for three seasons but this is the final year guaranteed year on the deal if for some reason Atlanta didn’t pick up the club option after 2025 they would owe him a $4 million buyout and he’d be a free agent for 2026 but if you trade for him you have him through the 2027 season at a total of $21 million and when he’s healthy that is an amazing value the flip side of this and yes Mark Bowman talks about this in the article is his arm strength has weakened his defensive value and I don’t necessarily know if we’re talking enough about where ay’s arm strength has gone to or I guess it the fact that it has gone right he’s never had an incredibly strong arm he suffered I believe it was a shoulder injury as an amateur sa some of that part of the reason he moved off a short and Dansby stayed it short was the arm strength but in 2024 Aussie’s arm strength 72.5 mph was fourth percentile in all of baseball so he was one of the softest throwing players in all of baseball not just at his position in all of baseball when I flip around and I do the stat cast profile or I guess this the stat cast leaderboard and I sort by weakest arms he is 16th and most of these guys are first basemen right Paul gold Schmid Michael Bush John Singleton Vinnie pastino Pete Alonzo all guys that are first baseman and then you have Wilmer Flores who plays mostly second base for the Giants and Aussie alz who obviously plays only second base for Atlanta and actually no Wilmer Flores played almost entirely first last year I’m thinking of Tyro Estrada that’s who I’m thinking of that played mostly second and short wmer Flores played almost entirely first base and when you look at Aussie’s defensive numbers as a whole in 2023 his last full season his Fielding run value was -7 which was ninth percentile in all of baseball it’s not just the arm strength the arm strength was bad third percentile the range minus 10 outs above average was second percentile and that’s despite his Sprint speed being just right there above average last season in 2024 shorten year his Sprint speed dropped from above average to below average from 55th percentile to 46 percentile his arm strength maintained right there fourth percentile 72.5 miles hour and the way they calculate that by the way is the I think it’s the hardest 10% of your throws they don’t want to count when you’re just lobbing the ball over cuz the dude stumbled out of the box or something it’s the 10 the hardest 10% of your throws from that position or what they count so it’s when he’s actually trying it’s still not very hard and the range was only -2 outs above average but OAA is a stat that the more you play the more you can accumulate so the fact that it was a shortened season for allby for Aussie and he only had 99 games obviously he was better defensively in 24 and 23 but some of that was also he didn’t play he played 50 games less and so he didn’t have as much time to accumulate negative as he did in 2023 the end of the day I don’t expect the Atlanta Braves to trade oie alz right yes the defense is an issue I would go as far as to say if Aussie gets resigned after the 2027 season which we’re going to eventually have to have that conversation does Atlanta bring him back cuz he’ll be I think he’ll be 30 at that point but if they bring him back for 2028 and on I honestly think there is a very good chance that Aussie alz is a designated hitter in the back half of his career I think if Aussie alz stays in Atlanta now if he moves somewhere else maybe they play him at second base but I think if aie alz is playing in his 30s in Atlanta he’s not playing second base he’s designated hitter because his defense is practically unplay will be will be practically unplayable just about anywhere he doesn’t have the frame to play first you don’t see many five eight guys at first Pace you need the ability to to stretch and to go pick balls and all of that so if Aussie gets resigned after 2027 he’s probably a designated hitter for the Braves going forward and yeah he’ll have a glove if you need him you can throw him out there but I think the odds are they would not be planning on him to play second base on any sort of regular basis uh in just a minute let’s talk about the guys that actually could potentially get traded mostly prospects we’ll do that next right here on Braves today welcome back to Braves today lindsy Crosby talking about the trade candidates for the Atlanta Braves in 2025 right through this winter as AA starts making the deals and this is around the time when he would start making deals I was in bed at the winter meetings on Sunday night with them supp to start on Monday morning when we traded for Jared Kellick my roommate woke me up to go right about it so this is around the time when if they’re going to make a blockbuster trade this is the earliest that you would see that trade probably happen is right here at the winter meetings um which again are next Monday through Wednesday next week I was supposed to be there some family stuff came up I’m not able to make it unfortunately this year we won’t be be there this year but we’ll still be here doing shows every day to cover what’s going on at the winter meetings every single morning we’ll be recording shows we’ll do extra shows if we need to if if news breaks and things like that looking at guys that might legitimately get traded he does mention Jared Kellick in here as well and I agree with him I think Kellick is going to end up uh on the Braves roster for 2025 that’s something where I think the two questions you would have and both questions that Mark Bowman touches on in the mlb.com piece is one would you get a good enough return to consider moving him you did take on about $17 million in bad contracts last offseason to get Jared Kellick he has four years of Team control he’s arbitration eligible this year he’s a super two so he’ll be in arbitration you’ve got he’s on a free agent till 20129 right you have plenty of time on this um but would you get a good enough return to just consider saying hey we ate all that money it’s fine we’ll get something back for him and is there a team out there that still believes that Jared Kellick can become what we all thought he was going to be when he was taken in the first round um I don’t know the answer to that I don’t necessarily think that there is a team looking at Jared Kellick and saying we think he can be amazing and we have to go get him I are there teams that would take him yes is there a team out there that necessarily thinks he is primed for a breakout I don’t know I do know there are teams that believe they’re better at developing hitters than the Braves are I probably wouldn’t argue with you on a lot of those Atlanta has their share success stories out of the minors obviously Michael Harris going back Ronald nazy and all those guys Austin Riley but I would not argue if you said that the average organization had a better track record of developing hitters than the Atlanta Braves that’s fine I also think just like Mark Bowman does Jared Kellick ends up here he does touch on some prospects as well he reports a source in the organization told him that the most asked for player in trade negotiations this off season has been hen waldrip the first round pick from 2023 out of the University of Florida now I’ve been a little critical of him both on on the podcast and in the newsletter because I’ve talked to people both inside and outside the organization that don’t think he’s going to be able to make it as a starter uh he really struggled last year the control has just not gotten better like they expected right his final year at Florida he walked five batters per nine innings 57 walks and 101 and 2/3 Innings right in 2024 he got that down to a whopping 4.3 walks per nine innings which obviously is a lot higher than I I want to say almost any other pitcher on Atlanta’s roster as far as everyday regular pitchers Pierce Johnson was the regular with the worst walks per nine innings and it was 4.0 right of your starters Charlie Morton was the worst starter at 3.5 Max freed was at 2.9 Ronaldo Lopez was at 2.8 Chris Sale was at 2.0 swelling Bach was at 1.7 so twice as bad as anybody else one of those situations where it really feels like that is going to be the limiting factor that’s going to keep H and walri from being able to reach his potential in the rotation I think he’d be a killer closer I think that’s still an like not only just does he have to move to relief but he could be an amazing closer if he had to do it I don’t want to trade her wandr either so I agree with that cam Nitti the first round pick this year you almost never see first round picks moved this quickly I think one of the few exceptions is Danby Swanson when we got him but for the most part you almost never see prospects moved that quickly after the draft especially your first rounder especially when they had an argument to be considered the best prep pitcher in the draft when you got them I think imb.com has him as the team’s number one Prospect now maybe number two behind Drake Baldwin but either way Bowman said both those guys are probably off limits I agree with that I think they’re probably both off limits he also argued that Drake Baldwin should be kept and I am changing my tune everybody who has given me Flack this off season for discussing trading Drake ball win when you non-tender Travis darno and face with the fact that Marcel Ozuna is more than likely gone after 2025 he had fatigue issues he reported fatigue issues last year all he’s doing is dhing that doesn’t get better as you get older in all likelihood Marcel Ozuna is gone after 2025 Drake Baldwin and Shawn Murphy I think will take the bulk of your DH at bats in 2020 six whichever one’s not starting their bat’s going to be in the lineup and both those guys could play in over a 100 games I legitimately think that’s a possibility so I don’t think Drake Baldwin should go either and he does argue that nacho Alvarez is in limbo because he’s at a weird Point both offensively and defensively offensively he didn’t show he could hang at the major league level defensively there’s a lot of questions both inside and outside the organization of whether or not nacho Alvarez can stick at shortstop and the problem is if he doesn’t stick at shortstop then he’s a really weird profile for third base because he doesn’t hit for a lot of power and third base is traditionally a power hitting position yes he could play second there’s some value obviously there maybe he’s the eventual second base replacement for Aussie alz who knows but I would agree that there’s probably a lot of teams right now who are waiting to see what nacho Alvarez does before they would ask for him in a trade and the conclusion that Bowman comes to in this piece is that the most likely trade candidate for the Atlanta Braves is probably AJ Smith Sher and I’m not GNA say that I like it because I don’t I hate the idea of trading AJ Smith Sher but I understand because there’s a few things we have to think about and understand when it comes to AJ Smith shaver the upside here the plus and I actually believe that piece that 30 team aggregation piece on mlb.com named Smith Sher as the one most likely to get traded he’s 22 years old he’s only 22 years old if he had gone to college instead of coming I think was I think it was Texas Tech if he had gone to Texas Tech rather than being drafted by Atlanta and signing in 2021 he would have just been drafted this summer it was the first time he would have been eligible to be drafted was this summer and he’s already pitched in two postseasons he’s already spent two stints up on the major league roster and technically put up a zero erra in the regular season in 2024 because he made one start before that oblique injury took him down um the ceiling for AJ Smith Scher is is probably one of the highest in the organization uh not everybody’s updated their Prospect lists yet Baseball America in the new one has him as the number two Prospect he was the number one Prospect in 23 and 24 and they just finally bumped him behind Drake Baldwin but he legitimately has the potential of being a Frontline starter okay one of your top three guys who’s starting a postseason game for you he’s play he started a postseason game for us already it wasn’t the ideal scenario but he has um the fast ball can touch a 100 miles an hour he’s got the slider that looks really good I like the slider uh kind of looks like a cutter but you know slider he’s got a change up he really worked on that change up a lot early in the year last year told us in Spring he was thrown it all the freaking time just to try to get comfortable with it in every possible situation the control is not 100% dialed in yet and the minor league numbers last year down the stretch didn’t look great because Atlanta was screwing around with his slider shapes and stuff like that right but the potential just the ceiling for AJ Smith Sher is legitimately one of the highest in the organization the issue though and the reason why if Atlanta trades ajith Scher why I think they would do it is this going into 2025 he’s already on his last minor league option you called him up in 23 he pitched in six games 25 and the third Innings you called him up in 2024 he pitched in one game four and a third Innings before he went on the I 2025 if he doesn’t make the opening day roster for the major leagues you have to burn an option to send him to Gwynette and if you do that means that 2025 is the final season that you are able to send AJ Smith schaver to the miners now if he stays up all year it doesn’t matter right he saves the option and you’re good to go spender swelling Bach got called up he never got sent down he has all of his options left right if you have to send AJ Smith or SMI swach down for some reason you can do that he still has his options Michael Harris never used an option he has all three options still but AJ Smith Scher is on his final option and so if he makes the opening day roster you better hope he sticks because if you have to send him to Triple A for the third season that means 2026 you can’t send him back down without potentially losing him to another team again I don’t want the Braves to trade AJ Smith Sher I’m an AJ Smith Sher Stan I like AJ Smith shauer a lot I think he can be one of the better pitchers in this rotation potentially as soon as this season but if the Braves do trade AJ Smith Sher that is why it’s because they think he’s just far enough from sticking at the major league level where he’s not going to be able to do it before he’s used all of his minor league options this has been Braves to day for Tuesday December 3rd I want to hear from you if you have questions comments anything like that you can send them to us I’m on Twitter in Blue Sky Crosby baseball send them to the show you can email us contact bravest today.com if you’re listening on audio do us a favor leave us a festar review if you’re on YouTube subscribe to the channel hit the notification Bell so you know when we drop the next episode also leave us a festar review we’d love to hear we’ love to hear your comments on the show until next time this has been Braves today [Music]

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