I Would Have Kept Jairo Asencio
March 29, 2012 at 7:14 pm by Ben Duronio under Atlanta Braves, Transaction Analysis
The Braves apparently liked having three lefties in the bullpen last year. For different stretches of the season, the Braves carried both a left-handed specialist in George Sherrill and a right-handed specialist in Peter Moylan or Cory Gearrin. Having specialists certainly has its benefits, but it also can cause issues as well. I cited many times last year, and the guys talked about it in the podcast last night, that the biggest problem the Braves bullpen had was the lack of a right-handed pitcher in middle relief that can succeed against hitters of any handedness.
Arodys Vizcaino was supposed to be that pitcher, but his elbow ligament did not allow him to fill this spot. Instead, the Braves are likely going with Yohan Flande and Gearrin — maybe Moylan at some point in the season as well — as the final two members of the bullpen. I would have kept Jairo Asencio.
His Major League stats in a short stint last year were awful, but Asencio was absolutely dominant in 54.2 triple-A innings. While his 2.56 FIP in Gwinnett will rise significantly in a full season in the Majors, Asencio was still likely the better option than at least one of those two pitchers.
The difference between them all is likely very small, and I have not heard the cash total that they are receiving back. I expect it is a small amount though. It is possible that the Braves figured they would have to send Asencio down at some point, so they got something of value for him when there was an offer still on the table. I would have rather seen them take the risk with Asencio though, as the potential for him to become a very solid middle reliever outweighs the risk of missing out on the likely small sum they received for his services, in my opinion.
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have they announced the money compensation for asencio?
also, why do i feel like having someone similar to linebrink would be beneficial to the bullpen? i understand that vizcaino was supposed to fill that role, but i wonder if there is any veteran on the market that the braves can sign for cheap to fill that role. Just having a vet in the bullpen might not be a bad asset in general
The money was between $25,000 and $30,000
http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/3/29/2912297/indians-braves-trade-jairo-asencio-2012-prius
thank you daniel for the link
I don’t mind losing Asencio. He has pretty good stuff but control has been a major issue for him especially in his short ML stints. I wish the Braves would have signed a veteran guy like Shawn Camp before the Cubs jumped on him.
I couldn’t agree more… this move did not make a lot of sense to me. The guy did a very good job in the minors and I feel like they really should have taken that risk.
I agree Ben. I do understand the Braves wanting to keep 3 LHP in the pen, but will Flande be a successful LOOG? He doesn’t have big time K numbers in the minors and seems to rely on ground balls. I realize he’s had a very good spring, but I think the Braves would have been better off to just use Medlen in these tough lefty situations. His changeup is just nasty against lefties.
This was shocking to me. Why trade him for cash? Isn’t the payroll less than it was last year? This seems tied into the TV contract stuff. The Braves are going to be very tight on the budget for forseable future!
The weirdest part for me is MLBTR is now reporting the Braves are looking for bullpen depth. Wasn’t Asencio bullpen depth? I could maybe understand trading him for a lower level minor league relief pitcher but for a trivial amount of cash just is odd. Hopefully the Braves knew something about him nobody else did that made them think it was a bad idea to hold onto him.
Ron,
Exactly what I was going to say. They basically decided it’s worth their time to part with prospects in order to find middle relief help. I have a hard time believing that whoever they get to replace Jairo will have a dramatically higher ceiling, or that the overall effect on the team’s W/L column will have made this worth it. Shoulda just stuck with Jairo.
I will say, at least in the Bobby Cox era, one thing this team did really well was build good bullpens from seemingly nothing. Cautiously optimistic they can still do that despite the Fredi Effect.
25K is a rounding error for a MLB budget. WTF?
I would have figured they’d at least get a low level pitcher in return.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the reason we kept 3 lefty relievers because of the Phillies strong lefty lineup? Howard and Utley seem to be out for the majority of the season and the rest of the East is very righty heavy.
“He’s always been a one-inning pitcher,” Braves general manager Frank Wren said, “and the [bullpen] role we envision needing to make a decision on is a multi-inning guy who can give you two or three innings at a time.”
Isn’t every bullpen pitcher essentially a “one-inning pitcher” with the exception of the long reliever? I rarely saw guys go more than an inning at a time in close games, nor do I see Flande EVER going more than one-inning.
Speculation alert: I could be totally off base with this, but I’m wondering if the FO (Scheurholz) holds grudges and plays favorites more than they should. I’m wondering if Asencio pissed them off with the debacle at customs in 2010. $25k isn’t squat in the MLB. See also: Matt Diaz still on the roster.
Addendum: “Isn’t every bullpen pitcher essentially a “one-inning pitcher” with the exception of the long reliever?”
They SHOULD pitch more than one inning if need be, but logic is not necessarily the rule of law in The Frediot’s bullpen system.
Grudges are definitely held. For reference, please see Marek, Stephen
Just throwing out a thought I’ve had for a while. Michael Wuertz is still available as I’ve been able to find and I wonder if it’d be worth it to give him a shot at a minor league deal. I know he’s had a rough couple seasons and some injuries, but he could def. be a low risk-high reward kinda of guy and could provide some good RH bullpen depth with ML experience.
@14
Marek was the other example I forgot to cite. Maybe the Braves are just intent on having shitty right handed middle relief.
@13
They should be able to go more than 1 inning but many can’t. I can’t count the number of times Bobby Cox would get 1 solid inning out of a guy and then run him out there for a 2nd inning and him get lit up. It happened more times than I care to remember.