Potential 2010 MLBers:
Jason Heyward (RF)
Craig Kimbrel (RP)

High-upside power arms:
Julio Teheran (RHP)
Arodys Vizcaino (RHP)
Randall Delgado (RHP)

Check out what some of my favorite publications have to say about the Braves’ minor league talent:

Baseball Prospectus
Fan Graphs
Baseball America

And for an in-depth look at prospecs from around the league, check out the Minor League Baseball Analyst.

The 31-year-old right-handed reliever had a career-best season in 2009, his first since he missed all of 2008 recovering from Tommy John surgery. Moylan is a side-armer who feeds batters a steady diet of fastballs with a slider thrown in about once every four pitches.

To be worth the $1.5 million he is owed in 2010, Moylan would need to provide value equal to 0.43 Wins Above Replacemnt (assuming a marginal win value of $3.5 million). Peter’s a good bet to be at least that good in 2010, even if some regression from a career-best season (1.5 WAR in 2009) is to be expected.

In keeping with what we’ve seen from post-TJers in th past, Moylan had some control issues in the first half of the season, walking batters at a rate of 5.4 batters every nine innings. But a ground ball rate of 65% over that same period was his salvation, while his control improved (3.6 BB/9) in the second half while still inducing a high rate of grounders on balls in play (61%).

Fan Graphs looked at Atlanta’s recent draft performance.

J.C. Bradbury weighed in on the Eric Hinske and Troy Glaus signings.

Aside from adding a pinch-hitter/fourth outfielder (Don’t we have plenty of those already?), the Braves don’t expect to make any more moves this off season. This would seem to kill speculation that the Braves might make a run at Johnny Damon should his asking price drop.

Adrian Beltre, a player I thought might be a good fit for the Braves, signed with the Boston Red Sox.

Matt Swartz of Baseball Prospectus looked at how MLB teams assemble their rosters (subscription required). The Braves seemed to be among the best at balancing young, cheap talent with free agents.

But then a curious thing happened. After struggling to hold his own in center as a Pittsburgh Pirate during 2007 and 2008, McLouth was a defensive asset in 2009. In fact, even though he experienced some regression from his career year at the plate in 2008 (.853 ‘08 OPS; .788 ‘09 OPS) McLouth was just as valuable in 2009 (3.5 ‘08 WAR, 3.6 ‘09 WAR) because he was a dramatically improved defender (-14.5 ‘08 UZR, 3.6 ‘09 UZR). And that’s including some DL time courtesy of a nagging hamstring injury.

Your initial reaction, like mine, may have been that McLouth probably benefitted from his mid-season change of venue from PNC Park to Turner Field. Maybe Turner Field was just easier to defend than PNC. But the numbers tell a different story. McLouth was markedly better while patrolling center at PNC Park than at Turner Field. According to RAA2, McLouth’s defense was worth +8 runs above average with Pittsburgh but fell to -7 with Atlanta.

Now, a limitation of this information is that it is not segregated by park (i.e., home and away). But that shortcoming doesn’t make Nate McLouth’s defensive 2009 any less enigmatic, nor does it give us any better of an idea of what to expect from McLouth in 2009. If the 2007/08 version shows up, Melky Cabrera might prove a rather useful player for the Braves. Putting Melky in center and McLouth and right would save the Braves at least 10 runs in the field.

But if Nate McLouth did have some sort of breakthrough in center field last season, Melky Cabrera becomes even more useless than he initially appeared when he came to Atlanta as part of the Javier Vazquez payroll dump trade.

While we can’t ignore McLouth’s 2009 in the field, it’s more likely that we’ll see the old Nate McLouth than the +4.7 UZR/150 Nate McLouth. Playing CF isn’t something that gets easier to do as you get older, and lingering hamstring issues are never good for a player whose value is so heavily driven by his speed.

McLouth’s bat is something more of a known quality - though the drop in power in 2009 makes you wonder if Nate has already passed his peak. A 5% uptick in his ground balls on balls in play drove the power dive while a slide in his contact rate (84% in ‘08, ‘80% in ‘09) drove a .020 BA decline.  Otherwise, McLouth’s base skills remain stable.

This is what two major publications have projected for Mr. McLouth’s 2010 season:

Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster: .260/.339/.429
Bill James Baseball Handbook: .263/.344/.449

This trade dramatically reduces the Braves’ chances of making the playoffs in 2010 - by approxmiately 15%. That’s what makes this deal painful. What makes the deal somewhat more bearable is that there’s a decent chance that it improves the Braves’ payroll structure and overall talent in the long-term. To appropriately assess the merits and demerits of the trade, it will be necessary to consider the cost of making the trade against the potential benefit.

Let’s begin our analysis by considering a counterfactual hypothesis. Javier Vazquez is a member of the Atlanta Braves for the entire 2010 season. When his contract expires at the conclusion of the 2010 season, Frank Wren has to decide whether or not to offer him salary arbitration. For simplicity, let’s assume the Vazquez is offered and declines salary arbitration. Since Vazquez will likely be a Type A free agent, this would net the Braves two compensatory draft picks.

By going down this counterfactual path, we’re able to get a clear picture of the full cost of making this trade. The Braves gave up one year of Javier Vazquez plus two compensatory draft picks and team control of Boone Logan for three more years.

Research shows that these draft picks are worth about $8 million.

The lost value of Vazquez’ contribution is best measured in relation to the player(s) that will replace him. This would either be Kenshin Kawakami or Derek Lowe.

Kenshin Kawakami
[4.7 WAR (Vazquez’ 8-yr average) – 1.7 WAR (Kawakami’s 2009)] X $4.5 million (approximate value of marginal wins) = $13.5 million.

$13.5 million - $11.5 million (Javier Vazquez’ 2010 salary) = $2 million.

Derek Lowe
(4.7 WAR – 2.6 WAR) X $4.5 million = $9.45 million. $9.45 million - $11.5 million = -$2.05 million.

Bumping Lowe out of the rotation instead of trading Vazquez would have actually resulted in a net economic loss for the Braves, which may come as a surprise to the bloodthirsty masses that wanted to completely cut ties with Lowe at whatever cost necessary.

We’ll assume optimal decision-making on the part of Frank Wren (I know, I know), and say that the cost of losing Vazquez is $10 million because he would have bumped Kawakami, not Lowe out of the rotation.

Let’s estimate that Melky Cabrera will cost a total of $9 million during his three years remaining under team control. Dunn is very similar to Logan in skills, age, and service time, so there can’t be much expectation for profit there. For simplicity, we’ll assume the following:

Boone Logan - Mike Dunn = 0

That gives us a final total of the cost of the Vazquez trade at $19 million.

Now, for the benefits.

The Braves got 6+ years of Arodys Vizcaino, 6+ years of Mike Dunn, 3 years of Melky Cabrera and $0.5 million.

Projecting Cabrera’s value in 2010 and beyond is difficult because of role uncertainty and limited (if NY-aggrandized) major league experience, but it’s hard to imagine that he’ll add much (if any) value to the line-up other than as a fourth outfielder and marginal contributor.

So whether this will be considered a good or bad trade may ultimately come down to whether Arodys Vizcaino reaches - or how nearly he reaches - his considerable ceiling.  Much of the burden of recovering this $18.5 million will be placed on his his ability to outperform his pay grade if/when he makes it to the big leagues.

The Braves could rid themselves of a potential albatross of Francoeurian proportions if they were able to flip Melky Cabrera. Talking Chop suggests that Frank Wren would be well-advised to act as quickly as possible while Cabrera still has that brilliant Yankee sheen. I agree. Otherwise, Cabrera may be a candidate to become non-tendered in the coming years, given how much his salary could grow in arbitration. If he’s traded or non-tendered, this trade goes from ‘outside shot long-term win’ to ‘probable long-term win’ for the Braves.

The decline in McCann’s rate statistics coincided with declines in his base skills (-1 BB%, -4 contact %, -2 flyball %). Still, the drop-off was marginal and to be expected following a season as mammoth as McCann’s 2008 - but even so, McCann was still one of the elite catchers in 2009.

Going into his age 26 season and with another offseason Lasik procedure (that will hopefully go much more smoothly), I’d put expectations for McCann somewhere between 2008 and 2009. That’s a conclusion with which the industry’s leading prognosticators seem agree:

Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster: .286/.350/.509
The Bill James Handbook: .291/.362/.511

Assuming he’s healthy, Brian McCann’s is one of the most stable skill sets in the game. And that has to give comfort to Frank Wren and fantasy owners alike.

The Braves haven’t contacted Adam LaRoche, who quips to Dave O’Brien via text message, “No talk from ATL that I know of. Guess I should have hit .400 while I was there.”

Elsewhere, six players who will likely never make a meaningful contribution to the major league team were signed to minor league contracts.