Must be nice. They are loaded. Braves and Nats race will be interesting to watch.

sporting sucks and soccer is for girls

If this gets done and Kubel goes to Baltimore, I wonder if Bourn ends up in AZ.....

Kevin Towers is a terrible gm.

The Braves lineup looks really freaking good with J. Upton.

Prado
Heyward
J Upton
Freeman
BJ Upton
McCann
Uggla
Simmons

RockChalkOmaHawk wrote: The Braves lineup looks really freaking good with J. Upton.

Prado
Heyward
J Upton
Freeman
BJ Upton
McCann
Uggla
Simmons

They traded Prado to get Upton

When Chris Johnson is your #8 hitter, that is a stacked lineup. Olney speculated that Simmons would now lead off. Kid might score 100 runs in his first full season.

Prado only has one year left, I don't get it. AZ does have a ton of young pitching now though.

So where does Prado play in Arizona?  They have Chris Johnson at 3B, Aaron Hill at 2B, and Jason Kubel at LF. 

Maybe we can trade for Prado or Kubel...

RoyalsReportRyan wrote: So where does Prado play in Arizona?  They have Chris Johnson at 3B, Aaron Hill at 2B, and Jason Kubel at LF. 

Maybe we can trade for Prado or Kubel...

Chris Johnson went to ATL in the deal


Keep up, damnit!

ElChupanibre wrote:

RoyalsReportRyan wrote: So where does Prado play in Arizona?  They have Chris Johnson at 3B, Aaron Hill at 2B, and Jason Kubel at LF. 

Maybe we can trade for Prado or Kubel...

Chris Johnson went to ATL in the deal


Keep up, damnit!

What's the verdict on what the Braves gave up? I've never heard of any of the guys they sent to AZ.

Agreed, again, I have no idea what he's thinking

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--- mpf8888 wrote:

Kevin Towers is a terrible gm.

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AZ got done of young talent in deal with Delgado, Ahmed and Spruill.  Spruill is 8th ranked prospect in system and Ahmed ranked best defensive infielder by BA.  They are acculumating tone of talent in farm system especially pitching which (as all Royals fans know) is the currency of baseball.  Delgado has been highly considered in past, too.

Prado will pay off immediately for the DBacks.  I believe he was getting too expensive for the Braves - probably 7 million in arbitration and FA in next year's class, looking at $11-12 million.  If things don't work out for DBacks in NL West - they could move him in midsummer and do well with trade. 

From what I have read and heard, Upton had worn out his welcome in AZ even with his considerable talent.  Towers did same thing with Bauer.  When they got Ross, someone was moving.  I think the DBacks sold high on Chris Johnson, too. 

Braves have one stacked OF with Uptons and Heyward.  Another note - when was last time an all African American (not DR either) OF was seen in baseball?  Atlanta is a great place for this to happen. They have 3 OF in their 20s who have MVP top 10 possibility.  Nice change after Chipper retiring, too to take some of the pressure off Heyward.

Lol, then why did they trade Bauer? He's a way better pitching prospect than anything they just got back.

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--- Revisroyalsfan wrote:

AZ got done of young talent in deal with Delgado, Ahmed and Spruill.  Spruill is 8th ranked prospect in system and Ahmed ranked best defensive infielder by BA.  They are acculumating tone of talent in farm system especially pitching which (as all Royals fans know) is the currency of baseball.  Delgado has been highly considered in past, too.

Prado will pay off immediately for the DBacks.  I believe he was getting too expensive for the Braves - probably 7 million in arbitration and FA in next year's class, looking at $11-12 million.  If things don't work out for DBacks in NL West - they could move him in midsummer and do well with trade. 

From what I have read and heard, Upton had worn out his welcome in AZ even with his considerable talent.  Towers did same thing with Bauer.  When they got Ross, someone was moving.  I think the DBacks sold high on Chris Johnson, too. 

Braves have one stacked OF with Uptons and Heyward.  Another note - when was last time an all African American (not DR either) OF was seen in baseball?  Atlanta is a great place for this to happen. They have 3 OF in their 20s who have MVP top 10 possibility.  Nice change after Chipper retiring, too to take some of the pressure off Heyward.

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Randall Delgado is an interesting pitching prospect with good minor league K numbers who put up about league average numbers in 17 starts for Atlanta this year.

Zeke Spruill is an interesting prospect, probably not a top 100 guy.  He seems to be a pitch to contact type guy judging from his minor league strikeout numbers.  Hasn't pitched above AA, and is still fairly young.

Don't know much about Ahmed other than he's a young SS prospect who hasn't played above High A ball.  Fangraphs has him as the #11 prospect in Atlanta's system, for what that's worth.

Same thing for Drury, young 1st baseman who hasn't played above A ball. 

Neither Drury or Ahmed seem to be very highly rated guys currently.

I didn't include Prado, as I'm assuming most are familiar with him.

wilson123 wrote: Lol, then why did they trade Bauer? He's a way better pitching prospect than anything they just got back.

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--- Revisroyalsfan wrote:

AZ got done of young talent in deal with Delgado, Ahmed and Spruill.  Spruill is 8th ranked prospect in system and Ahmed ranked best defensive infielder by BA.  They are acculumating tone of talent in farm system especially pitching which (as all Royals fans know) is the currency of baseball.  Delgado has been highly considered in past, too.

Prado will pay off immediately for the DBacks.  I believe he was getting too expensive for the Braves - probably 7 million in arbitration and FA in next year's class, looking at $11-12 million.  If things don't work out for DBacks in NL West - they could move him in midsummer and do well with trade. 

From what I have read and heard, Upton had worn out his welcome in AZ even with his considerable talent.  Towers did same thing with Bauer.  When they got Ross, someone was moving.  I think the DBacks sold high on Chris Johnson, too. 

Braves have one stacked OF with Uptons and Heyward.  Another note - when was last time an all African American (not DR either) OF was seen in baseball?  Atlanta is a great place for this to happen. They have 3 OF in their 20s who have MVP top 10 possibility.  Nice change after Chipper retiring, too to take some of the pressure off Heyward.

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I think Towers is the kind of GM when he doesn't think a guy is going to fit the club or is a pain in the rear end to work with - they move him on.  In both the Bauer and Upton deal, AZ traded the most talented guy in the trade.  Bauer has ace potential but I don't think AZ wanted to fool with his stubbornness around training and approach, so they made the trade.  I don't know what it is about Upton that AZ got fed up with as I don't follow them closely.  But trading a guy who is that young and that talented, it must be something that Kevin Towers felt like they weren't going to deal with - attitude appears to be a nonnegotiable for the DBacks. 

DBacks have a ton of pitching in their system and just acquired two more.  I don't think these guys have the same ceiling as Bauer but they don't come with his behavior.  While I don't think Towers got the best of deal on return for talent (especially with Bauer for Didi G.) I admire the fact that he will trade a player who doesn't fit what Towers is trying to do with the organization.

Unless Upton was just unable to be controlled, this looks like a horrible deal...unless Prade gets extended. If Prado leaves, that means you traded 3 years of Upton and 4 years of Johnson for one of Prado and four question marks. Spruill is 23 and has never seen AAA. Delgado has not shown an ability in his MLB service time to be more than a 5th SP. The other two are not highly regarded either. All this goes along with the fact that they already had 6 SPs that were MLB-Ready (Kennedy, Cahill, McCarthy, Miley, Corbin & Skaggs) along with Hudson returning in July/August.

I would've insisted on Gilmartin and/or Teheran. If Upton goes back to his .900 OPS performance, Towers looks like an idiot. And Johnson is no slouch himself.

Atlanta won this trade but they are really, really going to miss the versatile Prado.

Chris Johnson is a considerable downgrade. He has little patience, only middling power, and horrible defensive metrics (BIS has him at -41 runs in 325 games at 3B).

DeepDixieBlue wrote: Atlanta won this trade but they are really, really going to miss the versatile Prado.

Chris Johnson is a considerable downgrade. He has little patience, only middling power, and horrible defensive metrics (BIS has him at -41 runs in 325 games at 3B).

Agree on Chris Johnson.  He's an ok stopgap type player at third, but I just don't think he's going to be an everyday solution going forward.

And even if the Braves do miss Prado, he's in the last year of his contract.  They can always go resign him this offseason and still have Justin Upton under control through 2015.

The whole relationship between the DBacks and Justin Upton was weird.  They've clearly wanted him to be "the guy" for the organization but have shopped him around sporadically over the past couple of seasons.  He's a pretty laid-back dude which some in the organization don't really care for.  Personally, I think that's a pretty stupid reason to sour on a player.  Not everybody is going to be a hair-on-fire guy on the field.  But I guess when Kirk Gibson is your manager and Towers is your GM it's inexcusable.