With the title of this post, I have given myself an admittedly difficult task, given most comments about this trade since it went down. Arizona traded two top-100 prospects, including one player in the top 25 (at least), as well as a proven major league outfielder in exchange for a somewhat inconsistent pitcher, albeit one coming off a three-win season and with three more years of control. For the most part, everybody is beating up on the Diamondbacks — and for good reason: we don’t know the internal valuations the Diamondbacks possess on their own players and players outside their organization, but there is a general consensus that whatever those valuations are, they do not match up the rest of baseball. As a result, they have undersold their assets compared to the rest of the market. If we take out the external valuations of players like Dansby Swanson, Aaron Blair, and Ender Inciarte, can we make a case that, internally, the decision might have been sound?

What I am trying to get at is this: the trade value on the open market for Dansby Swanson, Aaron Blair, and Ender Inciarte is much greater than one Shelby Miller, but if you are the Diamondbacks and presented one choice and one choice only, how do we get to a spot where you choose Shelby Miller over Dansby Swanson, Aaron Blair, and Ender Inciarte?

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Just yesterday, we thought the Wade Miley trade might’ve been lopsided. And, you know, maybe. But now we’re on another level. Forget the Wade Miley trade. Now we have the Shelby Miller trade. Kudos to the Diamondbacks — they got Miller, who they wanted. They also got Gabe Speier, who is a player. But Miller didn’t come for free. In exchange, the Braves got Ender Inciarte. Also, the Braves got Dansby Swanson. Also, the Braves got Aaron Blair. Inciarte being a quality, cost-controlled outfielder. Swanson being last year’s first overall pick. Blair being possibly or probably a top-100 starter prospect who’s close to the majors. Don’t get me wrong, Miller is plenty interesting. He ought to help Arizona. Yet the trade looks like a clear, obvious mistake.

You always want to let the first impression settle. You always want to think these things through, to try to make sense from both sides if you can. Sometimes, though, you remain feeling how you initially felt. There’s a parallel you can draw here — the last time I felt like this about a trade, the Royals picked up James Shields. At this point, the Royals don’t regret what they did. There was a way for that to work out for them, just as there’s a way for this to work out for Arizona. But the Shields trade went almost as well for Kansas City as possible. And there’s no Wade Davis in this move. Inciarte might play the part of Wil Myers. Swanson might play the part of Wil Myers. There are two options, with Blair more or less playing the part of Jake Odorizzi. This could easily be a bigger haul, for very probably a lesser return. Occasionally there are bad trades. This is among the worst of them.

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After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs in recent years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Atlanta Braves. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
While it’s possible that Atlanta might extract two or more wins from other positions around the field this next year by means of platooning, the algorithm inside Dan Szymborski’s computer indicates that there’s only one player likely to surpass that threshold by his own self — namely, Freddie Freeman. The first baseman has recorded declining batting figures over the last three seasons (150 wRC+ in 2013, 141 wRC+ in 2014, 133 wC+ in 2015), but almost all that is a product of fluctuating BABIPs — and even the low end of that range is sufficient to render him a solidly above-average player.

Unfortunately for the 2016 edition of the club, Freeman is the only above-average — and perhaps even just average-average — player on the team. Newly acquired shortstop Erick Aybar is a candidate to provide adequacy — and, given sufficient playing time, young catcher Christian Bethancourt could possibly do that, as well — but the roster offers little else in the way of a reliable source of wins.

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As a part of whatever their plan is, the Braves have reportedly made Shelby Miller available, and they’re taking calls from almost everyone. Miller has three more years of team control, so it’s not like he’d be just a short-term addition, but the Braves would probably like to exchange that for four or five or six years of control of somebody else. It’s nice to have three years of a good player, but it’s less nice when at least the first one will do little to get the team away from the basement. The goal isn’t the year ahead. The goal is survival, so that better years may come.

Even just on the surface, it’s no mystery why Miller has more than a dozen suitors. He’s a cost-controlled, 25-year-old starting pitcher who just eclipsed 200 innings. He played for a miserable team, explaining how he paired a lousy record with a sub-3.5 ERA. Miller still throws plenty hard, and he gained back a few strikeouts, while limiting quality contact. Miller, as is, is appealing. But I think here we could be looking at a brighter future than usual. You typically want to project a player based on what he’s already done. I think there’s a chance Miller’s on the verge of a breakthrough, making him simultaneously a veteran and a sort of prospect. The teams most interested in Shelby Miller might be looking to buy his promise.

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*EDIT: After a strong showing from internet commenters, I added a couple changes to this piece. You’ll see that Austin Riley and Kolby Allard were both added to the list, as well as some notes under Ryan Weber’s report.

I’m going to leave the overall grades the same here, though AS WITH EVERYBODY overall grades may change by the time I get to the composite prospect list. I originally wanted to put three overall grades in these reports, then thought about leaving them out entirely because of their likelihood to change, before finally settling on putting a likely future value in for some comparisons. The innernets say no. I’m new here.

I’m reserving the right to change grades as I go along, this being the first time I’ve compiled reports on a volume this scale, though I have decided to put three values in for overall grades in the future lists. This should help clear up some of the questions people have about how I can agree that pitcher Mel Clark has a high ceiling, but only makes it on the list in the 45+ section. Enjoy!

The Braves have made some headlines this year with a number of trades to bring in young talent. While the short-term picture suffers with the loss of some popular, productive players, they are setting their future up with a lot of depth in their farm system. With a few players on the verge of contributing to the big league team, the next year or two may not be as bad as it could be trading away so much present value.

The big push of prospects could come from players at A-ball Rome and below. There are a lot of interesting talents who have entered the system in the last year or two that haven’t yet revealed how high their ceilings could be. The lower-level collection of players has a lot of risk involved, but the sheer volume of players with talent should ensure the Braves will reap the benefits of the work they’ve put into the farm.

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Last night, the Braves traded Andrelton Simmons to the Angels for Erick Aybar and a couple of pitching prospects. While it’s likely that Atlanta’s staff made this deal primarily to acquire Sean Newcomb, a big left-hander with high-end stuff and strikeout rates to match, I think it’s fair to categorize this return as surprisingly light. Newcomb is brimming with upside, but he’s still a pitching prospect who hasn’t yet figured out how to throw strikes on a regular basis, and has made all of seven starts above A-ball. He could figure things out and become an ace, or he could go the Archie Bradley path, where the stuff declines before the command gets better, and the Braves could end up with little to show for trading away the best defensive player on the planet.

But therein lies the rub. While everyone agrees that Simmons is a great defensive player, the Braves don’t appear particularly interested in betting on elite defenders aging particularly well. They balked at Jason Heyward’s salary requests in long-term negotiations, then traded him last winter, rather than keeping a 25 year old star outfielder around as a core building block. Now, for the second time in as many years, the Braves have traded elite defense in a young player for pitching potential, seemingly believing that it is easier to find a good defender with offensive question marks than a power arm who racks up strikeouts.

And as I noted yesterday, there might be some logic to that idea, given that there’s evidence that defensive skills peak earlier than offensive skills. The athleticism that allows a player to make plays that his peers can’t make is more vital for defensive value than hitting skills, and it’s possible (and probably even likely) that the Braves saw the potential for Simmons to lose value in the near future, if his defensive value dipped and his offense didn’t improve to offset the decline. So, it’s probably worth exploring how previous elite defenders have aged, and see if we can find support for the idea that the Braves were selling high before a coming decline.

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Editor’s note: Jeff wrote this as an InstaGraphs post when the trade was announced, but when I got around to looking at it, I noticed he wrote almost 900 words. That’s a normal-length FanGraphs post, so I’m moving it to the front page. I’m leaving the IG post up in its original place so that your comments will be retained, however.

UPDATE: Angels also getting catcher Jose Briceno. Briceno is 23, and he spent last year in high-A, but he also posted an OPS of .482, and, yes, that’s a 4, and no, that’s not a mistake. Of course, he’s hit better in the past. He’s been a decent prospect in the past. Right now, his career needs to be rescued.

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The day began with thoughts on a potential Andrelton Simmons blockbuster. As the day ends, half of what was discussed has come true — Simmons has been traded, and even to the general Los Angeles area. He just hasn’t been traded to the Dodgers, or for Yasiel Puig.

Rather, Simmons’ new teammates will be the rest of the Angels. And, headed to the Braves in exchange: Erick Aybar, Sean Newcomb, Chris Ellis, and a bit of money.

#Braves trade Simmons to #Angels for Newcomb, Ellis, Aybar and about $3M

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) November 12, 2015

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Last night, Jonah Keri got the baseball world buzzing with a series of tweets.

Source: #Braves deep in talks with NL West team about possible trade.

— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) November 12, 2015

Source: #Braves trade talks with NL West team revolve around Andrelton Simmons.

— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) November 12, 2015

While we’ve seen a few deals struck already, Andrelton Simmons going west would be qualify as a pretty significant move, and so immediately, other reporters started checking in to see who the unidentified NL West club could be.

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Ian Desmond is 0-for-14 with 10 strikeouts and zero walks against Craig Kimbrel.

I know, I know. Small samples, noise, predictive value and whathaveyou — I get it. Usually, it’s best not to read too much into batter-pitcher matchup stats. Sometimes, though, it’s clear that a certain batter just doesn’t stand a chance against a certain pitcher. Sometimes, it’s clear that a Craig Kimbrel can turn an Ian Desmond into a helpless puddle of mush in the batter’s box simply by standing on the mound.

What if I told you that, in rare cases, fielders could possess the same ability? What if I told you that, in early 2014, Andrelton Simmons learned he had such a power? That simply by taking the field, he could render Travis d’Arnaud completely and utterly powerless? Not only that, but that Simmons could actually control the game with his mind, so long as d’Arnaud was on the field with him?

* * *

The date was April 9, 2014. Spirits were high in the Mets’ clubhouse. The season was young. They’d shut out the host Braves in their home opener the night before. Young catcher Travis d’Arnaud had collected his first two hits of the season and scored a run. He hoped to build upon that success against Braves hurler Ervin Santana the next day. He strode to the plate, confident and unknowing.

This was young d’Arnaud’s first encounter with Simmons. The result was unexpected, yet also unsurprising. d’Arnaud had heard tell of Simmons’ skills. Now, he’d experienced them firsthand.

“What can you do?” d’Arnaud thought to himself. “Gotta tip your cap.”

In fact, as he lunged toward first base, d’Arnaud did tip his cap. It fell right off the back of his head and down to the Earth behind him. As the helmet hurtled toward the dirt, it eclipsed the print on the back of d’Arnaud’s jersey, momentarily displaying the word “dUD.”

This could be interpreted as foreshadowing.

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Two seasons ago, I ranked the job security of each general manager and listed GM prospects. I think I did a pretty good job with both lists given what we knew at the time, and may do it again as Opening Day 2016 closes in. We’ve had less executive movement in the last few off-seasons than usual and it looks like the regression is happening this year, with four GM jobs currently open and a likely fifth coming soon. This seemed like a good time to cover each of the situations in flux and target some possible changes in the near future, along with some names to keep in mind as candidates to fill these openings.

The Open GM Spots
We have two teams without a top baseball decision-making executive, in Seattle and Milwaukee:

Mariners
The Mariners moved on from (now former) GM Jack Zduriencik recently, a long-rumored move that club president Kevin Mather admitted he waited too long to execute. Mather has said they’re looking for a replacement sooner than later (likely eliminating execs from playoff teams), with GM experience (eliminating most of the GM prospects you’ll see below), and that the team doesn’t require a rebuild (meaning a shorter leash and higher expectations from day one). This should prove to narrow the pool of candidates a good bit, but this is still seen as the best of the currently open jobs.

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