Bourn, O’Flaherty, Jurrjens Avoid Arbitration
January 17, 2012 at 1:15 pm by Ben Duronio under Atlanta Braves
Michael Bourn, Jair Jurrjens, and Eric O’Flaherty have avoided arbitration with the Braves and come to terms on their contracts for this season. Bourn will get $6.845m, which is more-or-less what I projected two weeks ago. O’Flaherty and the Braves agreed to a $2.49m deal. Jurrjens and the Braves agreed to a $5.5m deal with incentives at 175, 180, 190, 200, 210, and 215 innings, according to MLB Trade Rumors.
Franklin will have more on the contracts later tonight.
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Jurrjens just avoided arbitration as well
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/01/braves-avoid-arbitration-with-jair-jurrjens.html
Ben – Do you still think Jair Jurrjens is getting traded? Doesn’t seem like it anymore now that they’ve built in performance incentives into his deal….
As I am writing this, you just said the same on twitter. Glad to hear you have FINALLY come around and acknowledge that Jair Jurrjens will be spending 2012 with the Atlanta Braves.
It’s good to know where Jurrjens will be next year, he was a major factor the first half of the year we can only hope for a full season repeat. O’Flaherty is another solid piece of our bullpen and a great setup man for Venters and Kimbrell.
While it’s nice to know we have the top of the lineup secure it still raises question for the fate of Bourn after this season. I’m not fully convenced he will be around after 2012, but hope that he will still play a major positive factor along with Jurrjens and O’Flaherty.
Another year of JJ? Ugh.
There was a lot of talk here about how O’Flaherty’s real value is of a left handed specialist, but I was pretty damned shocked when I read this on DOB’s site:
“O’Flaherty led the majors with a 0.98 ERA, the first pitcher in history with a sub-1.00 ERA in 70 or more relief appearances.”
That is very very impressive.
Do you guys still hold this belief? His strikeout numbers are way lower vs RHB, but his line against them is still .233/.305/.294. A regression is almost 99.99% inevitable, but I think he would be a solid setup man on any club, mainly due to just not giving up many walks or homers.
It’s not like he can’t be traded this season. This just avoids the mess that is litigating against your own player and explaining why he’s not worth what he thinks he is in open court.
The incentives in the deal make me think he’s staying. Really thought he’d get moved, and still think he should have been. We don’t know what was offered though, so maybe nothing fit Wren’s plan.
Glad to see JJ resigned. Hope he will convince all you neblulous stats guys that he is a Maddox type winner.
Yes, what a sound argument against “neblulous stats”…the term that is the very definition of nebulous…the “winner”.
Just because you can’t understand a statistic does not make it nebulous.
I think we got a steal on Bourn. I hope it’s a case of stay now, pay you next year when we have more money. I think he clearly took less money, and his acceptance of this deal says that maybe he’ll stay for a contract. I think looking for a backup for Bourn cost the braves trading JJ.
DEAC… you’re an idiot.
JJ would have been back regardless if he had come to terms on a deal or had a mediator do it for him.. unless he retired or was traded.
RE: a steal on Bourne, I think because his first arb year salary was so low (relatively) speaking, precedent and the scale used in arb. pretty much pegged him in the range where he signed. He’s worth about what he should be worth given his body of work historically (obviously the arb world worries more about the past and precedent than other metrics and future performance indicators).
It looks like the trade market for JJ simply hasn’t materialized.
JJ can be a very good part of the Braves rotation next year. He could give you stats anywhere from 2nd on the rotation to 4th/5th; we just don’t know given his injuries and his unique pitching profile. There is potential for him to significantly outperform his salary this year. Trading him in a salary dump (which were the only realistic trades we really saw for him in the offseason) makes little sense for $5 million in savings.
I never got the rush to trade JJ, especially after his trade value fell due to injury and due to him being viewed harshly by saber oriented sites/GMs. This year, either he outperform his peripherals or he doesn’t. If he does, the Braves can get some version of the pitcher who anchored one of the best rotations in baseball for the first half of last year, which will help our shot at the NL East title. If not, he can easily be benched or shipped off for peanuts later on in the year or after the season.
Just because we aren’t moving him yet doesn’t mean we can’t by July. If he comes out strong and proves he’s healthy, and flashes that shiny ERA we all know and love, all of a sudden his value is a lot closer to yielding what Wren deems a fair return.
I think the only thing we can really gather from all of this is that we realistically have very little if any money to spend from here on out. Assuming the payroll stays relatively the same as last season, which is not a big leap, we are at about that peak right now. It would seem we have our roster set for the spring. Go Braves!
Getting rid of Lowe early certainly helped to keep both JJ & Prado for 2012. JJ probably will be moved next off season before his Arb3 kicks in. FW will be hoping for JJ to have a year similar to 2009 to maximize his return.
Like most folks on this site I think Bourn will not be back after 2012
@14 /KWalleser
DOB tweeted this a few hours ago:
“#Braves are around $90M w/ current payroll, and Wren said they retain some payroll flexibility to make midseason moves as needed.”
Does anyone believe we can keep our top 3 relievers together very long/ O’Flaherty is going to make bank next year if he is even close to his ’11 numbers
MLBTR just listed Moylan coming back to the Braves for a 1 year $1m deal.
Unlikely we could keep EOF after next season if he repeat his stats from 2011 but we also don’t have too many LH options to replace him with.
Moylan’s deal is a Minor League contract with a ST invite, so he won’t get that million if he doesn’t make the team. PM seems like a nice guy, but I almost hope he doesn’t make the team….that million could be better spend elsewhere….
Someone is comparing Jair Jurrjens to Greg Maddux? Really?
Think we should have traded him last season when his value was higher. He’s been very injury prone, plus we have enough pitching that it will not hurt if he was to be traded.
I was wondering if they will trade Prado because the Rockies are looking for a second baseman and Prado would be a perfect fit its just with Smith gone who will the Braves ask for maybe Eric Young Jr or Tyler Colvin. I mean if it was me and it never is but should be I’d do this
Colorado gets
Hicks Prado and Lipka
Braves get
Eric Young JR Tyler Colvin Hector Gomez and Jamie Hoffman
If the Braves pull off that trade in the occurrence that Bourn walks after this year you can use either Young or Colvin in CF and use Gomez and a back up infielder.