This offseason, the Atlanta Braves made a huge transaction, and some fans are upset with one of the moves.
This winter, the Atlanta Braves made a number of transactions, and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos usually makes good decisions in that regard.
However, some admirers are inquiring as to whether he erred this winter.
Righty Michael Soroka was one of the players that went when the team sold a five-player package to the Chicago White Sox last November in order to acquire reliever Aaron Bummer. Soroka has shown some impressive results in spring training thus far.
In a recent mailbag segment, our very own Jake Mastroianni—host of the Locked on Braves podcast—was questioned if the Braves front management made a mistake in trading Soroka.
Jake basically said no, for a couple different reasons.
The first is that we still don’t know if Soroka is back to his best “Maple Maddux” form despite his outstanding spring performance, which included a 2.00 ERA in three spring outings and twelve strikeouts to four walks in nine innings. In the words of Jake, “we should put all spring training stats and numbers with a huge grain of salt.”
Jake is also correct: aside from a few anomalies, spring training statistics aren’t nearly as predictive as we’d like them to be. In the case of a pitcher, it’s more crucial to focus on his actual actions: pitch velocity, pitch movement, any new weapons he may be adding to his repertoire, etc.
Furthermore, even if Soroka’s anecdotal results appear promising (here is a fantastic video from Pitching Ninja showing two strikeouts from the other day), we don’t have any Statcast data available for Soroka to determine whether he is genuinely making any adjustments to his approach or how his pitchers are scoring in terms of Stuff+.
Jake also mentions this as the second factor, which is Soroka’s lack of roster flexibility at this stage of his career. Jake talks about how it’s difficult to keep the righthander on the major league roster during the season because Soroka is out of minor league options after spending nearly three full seasons on the disabled list following his 2020 Achilles injury and subsequent re-rupture:
“If he wasn’t going to be in the (Opening Day) rotation, and there was no guarantee of that, they would have to DFA him and could possibly lose him through waivers.”
This November, the Braves effectively had to choose between trading him and getting something in return, or tendering him a contract with the understanding that he would either make the Opening Day roster as the fifth starter or be claimed off waivers.
Jake contends that the Braves made the greatest decision for both Atlanta and Soroka when they decided to sell him in exchange for Bummer:
“As much as I wanted him to succeed with the Braves, it was the best thing for him. To be able to go somewhere, get a fresh start in a place where there’s not a lot of pressure to win now so you can roll him out there every fifth day. Let him work through some things, and hopefully he gets it back together.”
And if Soroka does transform back into the person we all desire him to be? Jake ends with the thought that has been on everyone’s mind:
“Hopefully, trade for him if he does. Since I would adore for him to return and play a significant role in our rotation once more.”
