The Braves are currently licking their wounds after collapsing in the first game of their National League Division Series matchup against the Cardinals on Thursday. Before the series began, Atlanta made the decision to leave right-hander Julio Teheran off its roster in order to deepen its bench. It wasn’t long ago that keeping Teheran out of a playoff series would have been unthinkable for the Braves, as he was once among the crown jewels of the franchise. In fact, during his first two full seasons (2013-14), Teheran notched 63 starts and 406 2/3 innings of 3.03 ERA/3.58 FIP ball with 7.88 K/9 and 2.12 BB/9. Prior to the second of those seasons, the Braves locked up Teheran to an extension worth a guaranteed $32.4MM over six years. At the time, it was the second-largest pact given to a pitcher with just two years’ service time.
Now 28, Teheran has hung with the Braves through the entirety of his deal, though he hasn’t been able to deliver the results he did during his early career coming-out party. Now, it’s possible he’s just about at the end of the line as a Brave. After the season concludes, the Braves will have a call to make on whether to exercise the $12MM club option for 2020 that they included in Teheran’s contract. They could pick it up with the goal of retaining Teheran, exercise it and try to trade him or decline it in favor of a $1MM buyout.
A one-year, $12MM gamble on Teheran wouldn’t look wholly unappealing for the Braves or anyone else. In Atlanta’s case, the club will head into the offseason with only Mike Soroka, Max Fried and Mike Foltynewicz looking sure to return from this year’s staff (Game 1 NLDS starter Dallas Keuchel is a pending free agent). The team could also explore free agency and trades for other possible solutions and-or turn to young arms like Ian Anderson, Kyle Wright, Bryse Wilson and Kyle Muller sometime in 2020. That foursome has little to no major league experience under its belt, though. Wright and Wilson have struggled over a small sample of MLB innings, while Anderson and Muller have not debuted yet.
If nothing else, Teheran has shown a consistent ability to eat innings. He’s fresh off his seventh consecutive regular season of 30-plus starts. Moreover, in 2019, Teheran continued an annual trend of yielding a low batting average on balls in play (.266), recording a solid home run-to-fly ball rate (11.2 percent) and outproducing his fielding-independent numbers. Across a team-high 174 2/3 innings, he managed a 3.81 ERA despite a far less appealing 4.66 FIP, 5.26 xFIP and 5.11 SIERA. While Teheran added a career-high 8.35 strikeouts per nine innings, he also turned in his second-largest walk rate (4.28 BB/9), once again induced few ground balls (39 percent), logged an all-time low swinging-strike percentage (9.2) and averaged a personal-worst 89.7 mph on his four-seam fastball – the pitch he relies on most.
Teheran clearly has his flaws, but that doesn’t mean the Braves will move on from him. It also doesn’t mean he’ll wind up making zero contributions this postseason (he could get back on their roster immediately as a result of Chris Martin’s oblique injury). Atlanta obviously has greater priorities right now than worrying about Teheran’s future, but once the Braves’ season ends, what do you think they’ll do with him?
(Poll link for app users)
C
This team will not win if they don’t spend and trade their overrated prospects.
Bringing back Teheran or letting him go will not change anything. He is a bad pitcher. Letting him go will not make a difference either because they will not utilize their money on real talent anyway.
Everyone wants to compare the Braves to the 2016 Cubs and 2017 Astros. Guess what, these two teams would not have won without getting Chapman and Verlander respectively. If the Braves continue to be reluctant to trade their overrated prospects or spend money without trading prospect capital, nothing will change in terms of their failures in the postseason. They lose because they don’t spend. They get away with average teams in the regular season, and then show zero fight in the postseason.
To answer the question, PLEASE GET RID OF TEHERAN. Also, let Luke Jackson, “Mr. I have mental weakness so I shake my head after every outing” go with him.
I totally agree with you on Luke. He HAS to be traded this winter if for no other reason then stopping Snitker from using him. I wish Liberty Media spent more $ on the Braves too but neither you or I can convince them to do that with online posts. The reality is that Wren already guaranteed $1 million of that $12 mill contract so it is basically a one year $11 mill deal. You won’t find any pitcher of his proven stature on a $11 mill contract in the off season and he will get more on the FA market. My hope is that the Braves pick it up and try to trade him to enhance the team. If that doesn’t happen I hope the fall back is that he is the #5 starter. I don’t think a 3 something ERA for a pitcher that leads a division championship team in innings pitched is shabby for a #5 starter. That goes for any team. If he ends up being higher then a #5 starter that means the Braves need him even more. If the Braves don’t pick up Teherans option they better make sure that their worst starting pitcher puts up better stats than he did this year. I don’t see that happening. I say pick it up at 11 mill and see what’s out there. If nothing’s out there the Braves have the best #5 starter in MLB at a discount.
They have to move on. Teheran has value but clearly he is not good enough to propel this team further. The Braves will not be a worse team if Teheran is not wearing the Braves uniform next year. $12 mil is still a lot of money to save. Use that money to give a little more if that is what it takes to get Cole or Rendon. Stop depending on rookies and prospects to save your season. The fact that the Braves rely so heavily on a rookie/semi-rookie like Soroka/Acuna proves how flawed the team is.
Those rookies now, will be battle proven players in a few years. I would rather not win this or next year, but have players that will contend and win for the next 10 years, than gamble everything to be relevant for only 1 or 2 years.
I hate to say it but I agree with you about Luke Jackson. I hate to trade a Bullpen Pitcher with cheap contract Control & good potential. I know a lot of ppl are gonna take shots of me saying he has Potential…but I’m not saying I think he will ever reach that Potential. But it is possible for him to be very good in some role in future seasons.
BUT As long as Snitker is the Manager we cant keep Luke Jackson around. He turns to Jackson b4 he goes to much better players such as Newcomb & Tomlin. It costs us over & over again. The option has to be taken out of his hands.
I’ve defended Tehran a lot this year. He didnt disappoint very often. It’s tough to even weigh in on this subject without knowing what the Braves budget will be next year.
The Braves really need to sign Gerrit Cole. Giving 11m to A guy that might be our #5 Pitcher would likely be tough to do if we sign Cole.
Especially if we want to do Some/any of the following:
•Resign Donaldson
•Resign Dallas Keuchel (probably not happening if we sign Cole or Jin Ryu)
• Sign or Re-sign a Catcher
• address Our Bullpen
That’s tough to do even if you arent going to make a Move for a top Pitcher like Cole or Hyun Jin Ryu (I mention him cuz since we wont lose a pick to sign him I think the Braves Front office would actually prefer him. I dont tho).
Tight finances can make it hard to give 11m to a Pitcher that wins just about half the games. Considers it a good year when his ERA is a 3.84 & has an Average FB Velocity of 89.7 mph (on Statcast).
89 is fine when u use it right. Ask Hyun Jin Ryu. Unfortunately Tehran always feels as if he is either struggling or on the verge of doing so.
Braves missed big time when they didn’t go after Greinke.
The Braves will fall back to a perennial 3rd place team with #3 and 4s like Wright, Wilson, Touki, Anderson in their rotation in the next 5 years. The excuse, “we were not ready to spend in 2018-2020 and unfortunately, these guys didn’t pan out. It is baseball. We have to lucky next time.”
I get your sentiment. I really do. I want the Braves to go out there and sign Cole, Rendon, and Grandal. You have to live in reality to at least some extent though, bud. It’s not happening. It is flat out just not happening. The Braves ate owned by a corporation that is based in Colorado. They have share holders and almost none of them care about how the Braves perform on field. They are already selling 2.6 million tickets a year without adding any payroll. Why would the shareholders in Colorado want to commit that kind of money when they are already maximizing their profits? This cunundrum we the Braves are in is the exact reason that MLB will never allow a personal owner to sell to a corporation again. There is actually a rule against it. Braves ticket sales are literally nothing more than an asset to Liberty Media and as long as that is the case there is a hard budget. Garret Cole is expected to be the highest paid free agent on the market. Rendon just turned down $215 million. The $11 million the Braves would save by not picking up Teheran’s option wouldn’t even cover 5% of what we would have to pay to get either one of those guys. The Braves wouldn’t sign them regardless. I know us as fans like to look at every player as a $x per year player but that is not how team ownership does. They look at it like Teheran is $11 million flat and Cole or Rendon is $200+ million flat. You can get rid of Julio Teheran all you want but that money will never add to any pool that will be spent on someone like Cole or Rendon. I don’t want you to think that the Braves believe their entire starting rotation will be made up of the guys you mentioned above. They know they won’t and they will spend what money they can to add to the most necessary positions. I think the Braves already consider Touki a waste of time. I don’t think he is considered a major foundation piece in the future plans. The Braves will never spend like the Yankees though. You have to know that teams like Oakland and Tampa Bay wish they could sign those players as well. The most attentive fans realize is will never happen and don’t dwell on it. You know what I mean? Be glad you don’t root for a team of a bunch of mercenaries wearing similar laundry. You root for a real team of guys that have fun with each other and play for more than the money. It is way more fun that way. Just ask some of my Red Sox and Yankees fans. Those teams had championships on different years and all the fans will tell you it was way more fun when it happened with homegrown talent. Not that its bad with the mercenaries or anything but they had a comparison. My buddy once told me, “Who cares what this guys does while he’s only wearing MY jersey because he gets paid $200 million to wear it?”
Acquiring a bonafide MVP caliber player like Rendon is realistic if they want him. You don’t have to be a large market to invest in one MVP caliber player. With all the money coming off the books, a clear hole at third, and locking up your two young talents for pennies on a dollar, the Braves have the money that it will take to get Rendon. Whether they want to commit to a player like Rendon, is a different question.
Regardless, you mentioned the A’s and Rays. Two perfect examples of teams who don’t spend, and therefore, don’t win championships. The Yanks and Sox have won because they spend alongside with homegrown talent. The Brewers were eliminated because they did not spend on pitching..likewise for the A’s. The Braves will be next. Why? Because they don’t spend.
This is just talking about spending free agent money. The Braves have prospect capital that they are also reluctant to spend. They continue to pile them up and watch each top prospect slowly fail 1 by 1. Soroka is the only prospect who is a legit starter (albeit #2 at best). Every other pitching prospect is failing right now. Riley is failing and the Braves know they will have a large question mark at third AGAIN in the off season. JD is not the answer and not worth it.
Hey, man. To some degree you are preaching to the choir. I want the Braves to get those guys. The only question is: If you were CEO of Liberty Media and the Braves are already maximizing their profits, how do you explain to shareholders that you just spent hundreds of millions of their dollars investing in something that is already bringing you the most money it probably ever will? Like I said. The people that own the Braves don’t care nearly as much about how they perform as they do about how much profit they pull off the ownership of them. You are right about Oakland and Tampa. What you have to realize is that the Braves are only a hair above them payroll wise. The Braves are actually in the bottom payroll bracket. Just like Oakland and Tampa, the Braves receive revenue sharing $ from teams that break luxury tax thresholds. If they spend a little more Liberty Media will lose that. If they spend a little more than that Liberty will actually have to start paying other teams via luxury tax. Liberty will never let that happen as long as they believe the attendance won’t go up enough to more than make up for it. I agree they have the money. They own the entire F-1 racing circuit for God’s sake. Like you, I also wish they would spend it. It is however foolish to think that is going to happen. You have to look at the Braves as a sub-$150 million payroll team every single year until Liberty sells or something proves otherwise. No shareholders want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars when it is not likely to increase the current profits by more than that.
What makes y’all think that the Braves a) need a $200m pitcher with so much top stuff waiting, and b) that Liberty won’t spend?
I’ve got news for y’all- the Braves are held in trust. If you knew what that meant, it means that profits OR investments by the parent company are prohibited by the Trade commission. So, think of it like this- Terry McGuirk owns the Braves with his dad (company’s) money.
So the answer is simple: Get rid of all your mediocre players and replace them with all-stars like all the other teams do.
Oh, wait…
Teheran is not a bad pitcher, he’s just not a great pitcher. But for what he does, pitch every 5th day and give you 5 or 6 innings while allowing you a chance to win, he is worth the 12M. He is not a TOR pitcher, but he is a solid #4, #5 type that is consistent and doesn’t get hurt.
Your version of bad pitcher is a bit vague. If the Braves chose to pick up his option they would have plenty of good reasons to do so. He brings a lot to the team as a 5th starter. If they retain him it would be to be the 5th starter. He has had a great year for the team and I hope the Braves pick him up and let him finish this contract as one of the best Braves pitchers in Atlanta history–top 10ish to 15. Which is huge.
We’ll exercise the option and at least shop him. I think that the price tag won’t be that difficult to trade. He’s kinda done enough to earn that…. not like our rotation is so good we can do without him and not like the Braves will make a good enough move in the offseason to replace him. The bullpen was screaming for major upgrades since last year and we couldn’t even accomplish that. Braves mgmt is like the federal government, lot of money, greedy with it and can’t make responsible decision once spent
Braves should certainly exercise their option on Teheran. Yes, his FIP and advanced metrics aren’t great. But Teheran continues to have good ERA, he’s young, he’s entering his prime years, and was a 2.4 WAR pitcher in 2019. He’s worth the $12MM.
Once again, analytics
undervalues a soft
tosser…..
He’s definitely worth 1 year at $12M on the open market (if he becomes a FA) I assume he’d get more than that. Despite his peripherals lagging he has consistently put up pretty solid ERAs and IPs over his career. Just taking this season alone 170+ IP with a 3.80 ERA is a VERY solid ML SP. I know his fb velocity is down and his walks were up and everything but he’s still relatively young and just finished off another season with a sub-4.00 ERA. There’s no question he’s worth 1/$12M whether it’s on the Braves next season or exercised with the sole intention of trading him — to me it seems like a relatively easy decision.
100% you pick up the option and keep him. He’s a good, MLB quality arm. You’ve got guys like Wright, Touki, and Wilson who should be ready to take hold of a rotation spot next year along with Anderson surely getting a shot next season.
Teherán is more BOR than TOR, but he’s never hurt and has made 30+ starts every year he’s been a regular (since 2013). At best, you get what you got this year. At worst, he kills innings for the first 2-3 months of the year before a prospect hopefully establishes themselves.
Unless you’re extremely confident you can find an arm who can fill that role for half the price.
they should trade him, but i imagine it doesn’t happen given it has yet to already.
I’m actively rooting against the Braves for leaving him off of the NLDS roster. We have a rotation spot open in Boston, Julio. Come on down (up).
leaving him off the roster was the right decision to make. We don’t need 5 starters and since Freid is a lefty and can be used out of the bullpen, it makes more sense to carry him. If this was a 7 game series, you bet he would have been on the roster.
Espn FINALLY talking about the Braves…and it’s all negative about Acuna…sounds about right smh
There’s only 4 reasons I would watch that Crap channel anymore, if the Braves, vikings, Fishing or cornhole is on there.
Even
Sports are
Political
Now
Should have been traded three or four years ago. Let the turkey go.