Arcia Traded to Atlanta for RHP Chad Sobotka and RHP Patrick Weigel

[wildcat83]

So, has Arcia been starting over Shaw just to showcase him for a trade, or has Counsell been using Arcia more than Stearns liked so he felt the need to get rid of him.

 

I think Stearns and Counsell communicate enough that something like this is impossible. How can communication be so bad the GM gets so bothered by a managers use of a player that he has to ship them out of town? I just can't fathom that.

 

The former could certainly be true though.

 

... because it happened in Moneyball. Not to say that it has never happened before in real life, but the movie shed light on it probably as an exaggeration of what really happened.

[Lathund]

More than I expected in return for Arcia. Sobotka will be another of those hard throwers who teams think/hope they can "fix". I think the Brewers are one of the most likely teams to do so, but chances are probably pretty slim regardless. Weigel looks a lot more intriguing, even if a mid-rotation ceiling seems likely. If either one is even an average middle reliever, 5-6 years of that is more valuable to the team than 2 years of Arcia.

 

Perfectly fine with the return. Neither over- or underwhelmed, just cromulently whelmed.

[PeaveyFury]

I think we have a long history as fans of trying to paint a rosier-than-accurate picture of trade return guys like Sobotka, but I'm legitimately intrigued by Weigel. Seems more than just your projectable fringe MLB arm as you'd expect.

 

Perhaps Sobotka could be a Corey Knebel type.

 

This basically proves the first part of my quoted sentence.....

[Outlander]

I guess it is a way to even the roster out between pitchers and position players. Sobotka probably doesn't even deserve a 40 man spot while Weigel is somewhat intriguing. It was previously mentioned that Weigel has all three options however it appears this will be his final option year.

[trwi7]

I think with Sobotka you're hoping for something like Todd Coffey. Get a year or two of quality pitching and then he probably starts to fall off to the point where he's not worth having on the roster with the likelihood that he never even becomes Todd Coffey.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I guess it is a way to even the roster out between pitchers and position players. Sobotka probably doesn't even deserve a 40 man spot while Weigel is somewhat intriguing. It was previously mentioned that Weigel has all three options however it appears this will be his final option year.

 

yeah, I read somewhere on Twitter that he had multiple options, but it appears he was optioned in 2019, and again last year, so he's down to his last one now.

[adambr2]

I'm not really dreaming on Sobotka or Weigel much. They're basically older, MLB ready lottery tickets. I guess there's a best case scenario that you unlock something in one of them and get a much better return than expected. More likely, they each get turns in the annual bullpen carousel this year and aren't remembered for anything more than that.

 

However, Arcia is a guy I would have been fine with non-tendering so adding some organizational pitching depth if that is what it turns out to be is better than nothing.

 

Sobotka is pretty much Ray Black-lite. He's a power arm that can run it up there at 98 mph, but doesn't always know where it's going. Maybe he ends up being useful ... maybe not.

 

Weigel is substantially more intriguing. He's a guy who has put up solid minor league numbers, but was sidetracked by losing basically two seasons (2017 and 2018) to Tommy John surgery. He came back to make 18 starts between AA and AAA in 2019, and put up some very nice numbers. He's obviously quite a bit older for a prospect (will be 27 in July), but he's got a solid chance. He also has an option remaining. He was definitely the "get" in this deal, although any Braves pitching prospect scares the heck out of me.

 

Any particular reasons why they scare you so much? I guess you can't give them total credit for Fried, but they did develop him for most of his professional career. Probably too early to anoint Soroka or Anderson, but they look like home runs so far.

 

For sure they've had some misses but those will happen just from the sheer volume of pitching prospects they've got.

[Austin Tatious]

I have to be honest. I heard Sobotka and immediately had Soroka on the brain.

[markedman5]

[patrickgpe]

If nothing else, it brought some life to the boards. Been boring around here for a bit now.

its a lot of action for 3 guys that just got sent to their respective ATS.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I'm not really dreaming on Sobotka or Weigel much. They're basically older, MLB ready lottery tickets. I guess there's a best case scenario that you unlock something in one of them and get a much better return than expected. More likely, they each get turns in the annual bullpen carousel this year and aren't remembered for anything more than that.

 

However, Arcia is a guy I would have been fine with non-tendering so adding some organizational pitching depth if that is what it turns out to be is better than nothing.

 

Sobotka is pretty much Ray Black-lite. He's a power arm that can run it up there at 98 mph, but doesn't always know where it's going. Maybe he ends up being useful ... maybe not.

 

Weigel is substantially more intriguing. He's a guy who has put up solid minor league numbers, but was sidetracked by losing basically two seasons (2017 and 2018) to Tommy John surgery. He came back to make 18 starts between AA and AAA in 2019, and put up some very nice numbers. He's obviously quite a bit older for a prospect (will be 27 in July), but he's got a solid chance. He also has an option remaining. He was definitely the "get" in this deal, although any Braves pitching prospect scares the heck out of me.

 

Any particular reasons why they scare you so much? I guess you can't give them total credit for Fried, but they did develop him for most of his professional career. Probably too early to anoint Soroka or Anderson, but they look like home runs so far.

 

For sure they've had some misses but those will happen just from the sheer volume of pitching prospects they've got.

 

Traditionally Braves pitching prospects are given a lot of hype, but despite the large number of hyped pitchers, very few it seems have actually worked out. That number gets pretty miniscule when you try to look for pitching prospects they have traded that ended up becoming major league contributors.

[djoctagone]

I guess it is a way to even the roster out between pitchers and position players. Sobotka probably doesn't even deserve a 40 man spot while Weigel is somewhat intriguing. It was previously mentioned that Weigel has all three options however it appears this will be his final option year.

yeah, I read somewhere on Twitter that he had multiple options, but it appears he was optioned in 2019, and again last year, so he's down to his last one now.

there were some muddy cases regarding last year's shortened season, but i think somehow, weigel's downtime after tommy john surgery is coming into play with the braves having petitioned for a fourth option year. but i thought clubs could only petition mlb for a fourth option year if the player had fewer than five years of active development and he had already burned all three options. weigel had yet to burn his third option, so a club couldn't petition for a fourth option until the upcoming offseason at the earliest.

 

not being a braves fan, i haven't followed his career, so i can't comment any further. nor have i closely followed how mlb resolved the options issue with the shortened 2020 season.

[djoctagone]

and there we have it. weigel has one option remaining, but the brewers might be able to petition for a fourth option if he burns his third in 2021.

[Thurston Fluff]

Maybe this helps Urias relax a little knowing he's the guy even if he has a bad stretch. This is the first time since he's been here where his role is well defined. I don't think Arcia was a very good fit for the role he had here so it's probably best to move on. All things considered I'd rather those two pitchers than a utility player who didn't really fit the role he was in.

[stalton]

It seems the (vocal) opinion on the Braves forum is that this was a slight overpay on their end.

[monty57]

I'm not really dreaming on Sobotka or Weigel much. They're basically older, MLB ready lottery tickets. I guess there's a best case scenario that you unlock something in one of them and get a much better return than expected. More likely, they each get turns in the annual bullpen carousel this year and aren't remembered for anything more than that.

 

However, Arcia is a guy I would have been fine with non-tendering so adding some organizational pitching depth if that is what it turns out to be is better than nothing.

 

Sobotka is pretty much Ray Black-lite. He's a power arm that can run it up there at 98 mph, but doesn't always know where it's going. Maybe he ends up being useful ... maybe not.

 

Weigel is substantially more intriguing. He's a guy who has put up solid minor league numbers, but was sidetracked by losing basically two seasons (2017 and 2018) to Tommy John surgery. He came back to make 18 starts between AA and AAA in 2019, and put up some very nice numbers. He's obviously quite a bit older for a prospect (will be 27 in July), but he's got a solid chance. He also has an option remaining. He was definitely the "get" in this deal, although any Braves pitching prospect scares the heck out of me.

 

Any particular reasons why they scare you so much? I guess you can't give them total credit for Fried, but they did develop him for most of his professional career. Probably too early to anoint Soroka or Anderson, but they look like home runs so far.

 

For sure they've had some misses but those will happen just from the sheer volume of pitching prospects they've got.

 

I think the "scare" is from pitchers the Braves trade away, not the ones they keep. They have a reputation for being pretty good at evaluating pitching, so if they trade a pitcher away, there's probably they didn't keep him. I don't know if this is as true as it was in the past, but reputations tend to stick.

[MrTPlush]

We traded Orlando Arcia, not Corbin Burnes. It is safe to say you should assume anyone we get probably has a 1% chance of being a useful player. Not sure I would be scared of any Braves prospects in a trade like this. The return is going to be "meh" no matter who you are dealing with.

[Thurston Fluff]

Stearns seems to know what he's doing when it comes to pitching so I'm not all that worried about what team he gets it from. I doubt he cares about the hype generated by another team or media outlets preferring instead of use the metrics he's relied on since he's been here.

[mtrebs]

Wasn’t Sobotka the name of the head union guy on the docks in The Wire? Hopefully this guy fares better...

[SeaBass]

Moneywise I'd think the Brewers probably saved around $1 million in salary, possibly more, due to this trade. Arcia had a $2 million contract and all I can find on Sobotka is in 2019 he had a $565k salary and Weigel's salary is unknown. Weigel has only appeared in 1 career MLB game where he pitched 2/3 of an inning.

[MrTPlush]

Stearns seems to know what he's doing when it comes to pitching so I'm not all that worried about what team he gets it from. I doubt he cares about the hype generated by another team or media outlets preferring instead of use the metrics he's relied on since he's been here.

 

Does he though? He has had a few nice signs (Gio and Miley), but outside of that it hasn't been overly successful. His prized guys from last offseason (Lindblom and Lauer) have been horrendous to date. Burnes was in his first draft so hard to know how much he should even be credited for that. Devin Williams, Adrian Houser, Brandon Woodruff, Brent Suter, and Josh Hader are all guys who were here before he became the GM.

 

I am not trying to hate on his ability to build a pitching staff, it just doesn't seem like he has not done an overly impressive job.

[PeaveyFury]

Wasn’t Sobotka the name of the head union guy on the docks in The Wire? Hopefully this guy fares better...

 

Yep! Frank Sobotka.

[xisxisxis]

Not having to pay any more of Arcia's salary was the win. Getting two relief pitchers with some upside is a steal...

 

Maybe the Braves owners are doing Attanasio a favor for his stance on moving the ASG game from Atlanta...

[Simba2020]

Traditionally Braves pitching prospects are given a lot of hype, but despite the large number of hyped pitchers, very few it seems have actually worked out. That number gets pretty miniscule when you try to look for pitching prospects they have traded that ended up becoming major league contributors.

Personally, I believe it all comes down to Jose Capellan. Brewers fans were expecting a long illustrious career and were disappointed. Therefore, Braves prospects that get traded are overhyped. Seems like Duane Ward, Jason Schmidt, Adam Wainwright, Matt Harrison, etc. did ok for their new teams.

[patrickgpe]

Weigel comes in at #17 on the brewers top 30, according to MLB.com. been a while since the brewers acquired a prospect was actually ranked lower than his former team.