Inside Baseball: Why Braves traded Kimbrel and more from around MLB – CBSSports.com

If the Braves were going to trade the game’s best closer, Craig Kimbrel, they decided they absolutely had to have two things: 1) they needed a top prospect back, and 2) they also needed to rid themselves of Melvin Upton, Jr.

In their endeavor, the Braves identified the two best partners as the rich Dodgers and the nouveau riche Padres. But since Los Angeles made it pretty clear earlier in the winter that while they loved Kimbrel, they understandably weren’t about to take Upton Jr., and thus add a third overpaid outfielder to their stable of Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier, for Atlanta it was probably the Padres or bust.

The Braves didn’t want to surrender Kimbrel and had in fact rebuffed several teams over the winter that came calling. But the Braves also understood a top closer is more valuable to a team all in for 2015, such as San Diego. And for the Braves, the trade with the Padres was a deal they simply couldn’t refuse, no matter how much they loved Kimbrel.

“It was a luxury for us to have Craig,” Braves GM John Hart said. “I love him. It was a painful trade. It was painful for me, and it was painful for the fans. Craig is everything that’s good about the game.”

Painful or not, the deal made perfect sense for the Braves, who set out this winter to restock a woeful farm system, clear bad contracts (really, mainly Upton Jr.) and set themselves up for a brighter future. Hart said he briefly considered “one more run for the roses” as he put it, with two star outfielders (Jason Heyward and Upton’s younger brother Justin) heading into their walk years. But ultimately, Hart made the hard call to push the re-set button for a team with a flawed roster, limited budget and barren system.

Hart, the veteran GM who built the powerhouse Indians World Series teams of the 1990s and is loving it in his third go-round as GM, made his first big deal in October, when he traded in what he has called a “perfect life” (an easier TV job and lots of family time and golf) for a three-year GM deal. Then came the real maneuvering.

The Braves are a frequent playoff entrant, and it couldn’t be easy for the new GM trading Heyward, Justin Upton and Evan Gattis before Kimbrel, practically guaranteeing no postseason for two of the three years on his new contract. But by 2017, when the Braves are scheduled to move into a new suburban stadium, they may be in a powerhouse position.

“We’ve created options, and we’ve created flexibility,” Hart said.

That’s a nice way of saying they finally found a taker of Upton Jr., which was the unspoken (at least publicly) No. 1 goal for a team whose payroll has been practically affixed at $100 million for years. It wasn’t going to be easy, as Upton Jr. is acknowledged to have one of the two or three worst contracts in the game, a $75.2-million, five-year deal for a player who’s been about the least productive in the game two years running (maybe tied with Dan Uggla, the Braves’ other big, bad deal).

The Braves tried first to attach Upton Jr. to his brother, and to Gattis, and eventually they realized they needed to attach him to a great player under a long and reasonable contract, the most valuable of all assets. They tried with the Cubs, whose new manager Joe Maddon had gotten the best out of Upton Jr. before he came to Atlanta and lost his way, and they tried with the outside-the-box thinking Astros. But nobody wanted Upton Jr.

In the end, the Braves’ only hope was to attach him to Kimbrel, one of the game’s most valued commodities. And their only real hope was in one place.

While the Dodgers weren’t going to surrender any of their three stud prospects — outfielder Joc Pederson, shortstop Corey Seager or pitcher Julio Urias — they had other great prospects to trade. The sticking point there was Upton Jr.

And he had to be part of the deal.

“We were not going to separate Kimbrel and trade him by himself,” Hart said.

The Braves endeavored to stockpile prospects and clear the books as they rebuild with an eye on 2017, the year they move to a new stadium. In short order, the Braves have restocked the farm system, transforming it from one of baseball’s worst to one of baseball’s best. Hart acquired four young starting pitchers (Shelby Miller came for Heyward, Max Fried for Justin Upton and Mike Foltynewicz for Gattis), as well as other top prospects, and put the Braves in position to draft five of the first 75 players in next June’s draft.

But moving Upton Jr. is the best thing Hart did, as the veteran with the sagging career, was a .198 hitter this two seasons in Atlanta and a blight on the books, with $46.35 million to go and a value much closer to zero.

“He’s a likeable young man. He’s still in the prime of his career. But we didn’t see it happening here in Atlanta,” Hart said, honestly.

So they did the wise thing, attaching Upton to Kimbrel, and getting in the deal pitching prospect Matt Wisler, outfield prospect Jordan Paroubeck, the 41st pick in the draft plus outfielders Cameron Maybin and Carlos Quentin, who helped offset $8 million of Upton’s largesse and who was immediately designated for assignment. Wisler is highly ranked, and Paroubeck has potential. Hart credited assistant GM John Coppolella for the legwork and his creativity to get the deal done.

The Padres, whose new GM A.J. Preller went for it this winter like few ever have, got the superstar that could possibly put them over the top as a playoff team after they earlier added Justin Upton, Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, James Shields and many more. The Kimbrel deal capped for them an amazing winter of signings and mostly trades for a team that not too long ago had baseball’s 30th highest payroll out of 30 teams.

While many around the game also see the Padres’ part of this as an “overpay,” the Padres got themselves a superstar and a lock-down closer, adding to an unrestrained buzz in the Gaslamp District and all over that lovely city.

The deal that rocked baseball went almost all the way down to the opener. Trade talks didn’t really heat up until the four days before the opener, and the deal wasn’t finalized until after the rosters had been sent in. The Braves’ plane took off from spring training in Orlando to Miami without Hart on board. He stayed back to finish things up.

When Hart finally did make it to Miami, he saw new closer Jason Grilli save the first game of a surprise three-game sweep over the hopeful Marlins. The Braves, however, don’t have any illusions.

“We’re not going to be the club to pick. We understand that,” Hart said.

Regardless, they had to do the right thing.

“We have a consistent plan,” Hart said. “And we’re sticking to it.”

More from Inside Baseball…

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	The Red Sox won’t ever surrender either of Mookie Betts (of course not) or even catching prospect Blake Swihart for Cole Hamels, I hear. While Swihart isn’t quite ready defensively, he is a switch hitter with some power. One rival exec, however, opined he’d give up Swihart for Hamels.
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	The Yankees insist Masahiro Tanaka’s issue isn’t velocity, though Tanaka’s obvious fear of throwing the four-seamer has to be. The velocity was only down half a mile an hour vs. the Blue Jays. Yankees people need to convince Tanaka to let loose, though he says he is; Yankees people also say Dellin Betances’ velocity wasn’t down from last spring to this spring (it’s actually up slightly) but a Yankees person admits he is in a funk mechanically, which caused him not to win the closing job outright to start the year.
	While Jays kid relievers Miguel Castro and Roberto Osuna are impressive, one scout said he believes they are making a mistake leaving veteran Steve Delabar in the minors. Using all the youngsters is “playing with fire,” the scout said.
	With Joe Nathan on the DL, the Tigers are thought to be at least monitoring Rafael Soriano’s Miami workouts at the Boras Sports Training Institute. It’s curious Soriano has had so much trouble getting a job, but a spotty past clubhouse rep may have hurt him (at least one team, which looked hard at late-inning relievers, eliminated him due to personality perception); Tigers people were said to be skeptical they could sign Rick Porcello, which is one reason they dealt him (though they always liked Yoenis Cespedes). So Boston’s long-term deal with Porcello surprised some folks. What wasn’t surprising was the term: higher salary than you’d expect ($20.6 million) for shorter length (four years).
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	The Indians, who have a history of team friendly deals, got an all-timer with Carlos Carrasco’s $22-million, four-year contract. Word was, Carrasco was desperate to sign, and Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com discovered the reason: Carrasco had offseason heart surgery, and with a wife and four kids wasn’t in a risk taking move; Corey Kluber’s deal $38.5-million, five-year deal might have seemed oddly low for a Cy Young winner, but the reality is, Kluber was in a tough spot, as a late bloomer who hadn’t even reached arbitration, and has pocketed only about $1 million to date and was tied to the team four years no matter what.
	The Reds were so convinced they had no chance to sign Johnny Cueto it isn’t even certain they made an offer before the Opening Day deadline. Cueto is believed to be seeking $200 million, or thereabouts, no surprise since Max Scherzer is a fair comp. And what can Cincinnati say? They gave Homer Bailey, who’s not half as good, $105 million on a long-term deal … David Price also would be selling short to take less than $200 million at this point..

Nice Note of the Week

Cody Ross, who was picked up quickly by the A’s after his surprise release by the Diamondbacks, continues to be an amazing success story. Ross has now made $52 million in the game, with all but $300,000 of that coming after a very fortuitous deal in which he was sold from the Reds to the Marlins for the grand total of $1.

The Reds’ part of the trade was only listed as “cash considerations.” But to be precise, in this case the cash considerations were a buck.

Ross had been DFA’ed early in 2006 by the Dodgers, and later that year Reds GM Wayne Krivsky, who took a liking to to Ross in his brief days with the Reds but didn’t quite have room for him in Cincinnati, set out to find him a big-league job elsewhere. Krivsky’s first call was to then Marlins GM Larry Beinfest. Krivsky first offered Ross for the $20,000 waiver price. But this being the old-school Marlins, Beinfest said he couldn’t go even that high. So Krivsky dropped the price to $1, and Beinfest agreed.

“It’s one of my favorite moves,” Krivsky said this week. “Cody deserves all the credit, but it’s very gratifying that that jump-started his career.”

Ross wasn’t an immediate hit in South Florida. But given a chance the following year he began putting up nice numbers. He became a 2010 NLCS MVP with the World Series champion Giants, and a couple years ago he signed a $26-million, three-year Diamondbacks deal.

Their paths cross every now and then, as Krivsky is a now a top scout for the Twins. Ross knows now he was sold for almost nothing nine years ago. Said Ross, “I thank Wayne every time I see him.”