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Atlanta Braves Free Agent Pursuit: Now? or … When?

By Alan Carpenter

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Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher David Price throws a pitch against the Kansas City Royals in the first inning in game six of the ALCS at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

Fangraphs has a couple of posts today with prominent/pointed Atlanta Braves’ mentions.  One of them is an awesome collection of GIFs about the mystical connection between Andrelton Simmons and the Mets’ Travis d’Arnaud.  Some pitchers “own” some hitters.  Simba owns d’Arnaud in a deeply personal way – this is fabulous.

More from Tomahawk Take

The other bit is a note about money, free agents, and free agents to come.  I’ll cut to the chase.

MLB has ‘extra’ money flowing down to all teams as a result of a successfully profitable venture known as BAM Tech.  You can read the details at Dave Cameron’s fangraphs piece, but the upshot is that if MLB spins this off to other investors, then there’s money to be made.  The question then becomes this:  what happens to that money?

The fangraphs speculation suggests that this extra coin probably won’t be available in the short term, but could materialize over the next 1-3 years, depending on how MLB wishes to handle this sell-high situation that they’ve found themselves in.

At the same time, they also raise the specter of negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (the current CBA expires next December).  If the owners were to pocket a bunch of cash without sharing, that could make for an interesting (in a bad way) negotiations process… never mind that salaries all around the majors continue to skyrocket.

The Braves Angle

The 2016-17 off-season crystal ball is employed here, and what it sees is not good.  In short, it’s a lousy free agent class… at least “lousy” in comparison to the depth of this one, with a record-setting list of Qualifying Offers delivered on Friday.  A list of potential FA’s for the next off-season can be seen here, via Cot’s Contracts and Baseball Prospecus.

So here’s the relevant quote from Cameron:

"So, a Major League team on the upswing that expects to contend in a couple of years might look at the next free agent crop and decide that they’re better off getting their money in now, buying some future wins before they’re faced with a market in which wins are harder to buy with their future revenues. For instance, the Atlanta Braves have been pretty clearly building towards the future, pointing to the 2017 opening of their new ballpark as the next time they expect to seriously compete for the NL East title, but it may very well be in their best interests to try and identify some free agents in this market that they think will still be productive in a few years, rather than holding off another 12 months to try and make a big splash right before the stadium opens."

Well, that’s one possibility.

I already opined that the Braves will be very reluctant to part with the cash, years, and draft pick (albeit their back-of-the-first-round Compensation Pick) to land one of the top free agents.  While the talent is there, it’s tough for a team like this to commit to tying their hands for such a period of time.

However, there are other strategies available:

  • Strategic trades in which cash is used as leverage/buying chip.  This has emerged as a trade tactic over the past year – we saw it employed on several occasions, in fact.
  • Go for a second tier free agent – one that doesn’t carry a draft-compensation pick with him
  • Grab someone else’s contracted player so that they can then have some flexibility… particularly one that might have only a year or two of control remaining so that Atlanta can buy a bit of performance and perhaps ‘bridge the gap’ between now and when a shiny new prospect might become available.

Whether this BAM  Tech money is truly available, I still don’t see Atlanta going nuts for a high-priced free agent.  Heck, much of the effort made over the past year has been to get away from some longer-term deals – 2 in particular.

Mark Bowman hints this morning about the kind of direction I do expect:

… and there’s the trick:  using money to assist moving players in a manner akin to the Indians trade (to move Chris Johnson) or the Diamondbacks deal (to get Touki Toussaint).  Deals of that nature should be expected.

Next: The Folty Fix is in... at least we hope the parts are on order

While I don’t dismiss Dave Cameron’s take on this – hardly – I also think that the braves’ interests/plans/patterns/etc. are not going to lead them to such a deep well to slake their thirst for an impact player.  Not now… not yet.

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