Atlanta Braves Morning Chop – Schultz, Payroll, and Losing
Braves’ Hart: ‘It’s not like I’m breaking up the ’27 Yankees’
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If only fixing the Braves was that easy.
B.J. Upton and the remaining $46 million on his contract: still here. The starting rotation lacks a true No. 1 starter. The bullpen has holes. Second base is deep — with backups for a prospect (Jose Peraza) who’s not quite ready yet. Justin Upton, a lame duck in left because of impending free agency, still hasn’t been traded, either because Hart is asking for too much or teams are offering too little. Same for Evan Gattis, who won’t be the starting catcher and projects as an “adventure” in the outfield.
The Braves are hamstrung financially, forcing Hart to watch as other teams threw out their gold cards — the Chicago Cubs for Jon Lester, Arizona for Yasmany Tomas, Boston for Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez.
In theory, a lot of problems can be fixed with very few moves. Trading Justin Upton and Gattis for long-term, usable pieces would help. Getting someone to take on the lesser Upton’s contract would serve as a nice exorcism in the clubhouse.
But Hart has been trying all that since he got here. He had unproductive conversations with “six to eight” teams about Justin Upton. The other Upton: toxic, and it’s looking more and more like the Braves may at least bring him to spring training.
At this point, it’s only natural to wonder: What is the plan? Win now (2015 and 2016, in hopes of exciting a increasingly irritated fan base)? Or win later (2017, to coincide with the opening of a new ballpark, where parking will be at a premium, although at this rate that won’t be a problem)?
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[ Editor’s note: if the Braves were to trade for Mike Trout, Jeff Schultz would complain about what was given up to get him. If he found out that they had a chance to get him and failed to do so, he’d complain that Hart didn’t try hard enough to land him… so all of his columns on this team need to be read with his prevailing pessimistic viewpoint in mind. ]
Payroll Update
ALAN CARPENTER / TOMAHAWTAKE.COM
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Given the moves from this past week, it’s reasonable to revisit the payroll situation periodically (i.e., almost daily, it seems) to see where the team is with respect to the currently projected 25-man roster. I maintain a spreadsheet of the Braves’ payroll, updating it whenever there’s a change.
Methodology:
- Known contracts are added directly
- All signing bonus payments are included immediately. This differs from other sources, such at Baseball Prospectus’s Cot’s Contracts site, which pro-rates bonuses over the life of the contract. They do that for reasons of consistency with the MLB CBA; I use my method because that’s when the team actually spends the money.
- Incentive payments are added when the incentives are met
- For arbitration-eligible players, I use the MLBTR-published numbers until we learn otherwise
- All first-year major league players are expected to receive the major league minimum salary; other pre-arbs get an estimated modest boost.
- For roster slots with unknown, unfilled players at this point, I assume a major-league minimum salaried player – thus it matters little whether that slot is for a pitcher, a 4th or 5th outfielder, or whatever. It’s all the same for accounting purposes.
Given all of that, the changes for this week are the additions of Nick Markakis‘ salary details and Alberto Callaspo‘s signing (though the latter is still technically not official). Dian Toscano will not be on the major league roster for a while, and thus will not count – whatever his contract terms are.
That all brings us to a current estimated figure of $102,338,000. The Braves’ are targeting their payroll to be between $100 and $120 million this year.
2017: The Braves are Already Behind
Above you can see one of the spiffy new stadium renderings published on the AtlantaBraves.com website this week. You may have seen this elsewhere, but it’s worth repeating since they still haven’t changed it. Check out this blow-up of the scoreboard portion of the graphic:
We’re already losing to the Nationals in 2017!
Yes – that scoreboard shows that were already losing in 2017 – to the Nationals! It’s 6-3 against the good guys in the bottom of the seventh inning. Both team have 10 hits, but the Braves have an error and there’s already two outs in the frame. Thanks a lot, art department!
I do think it’s interesting that the development appears to be trying to create its own skyline views, as it were… effectively blocking out views toward downtown Atlanta. Regardless, it’s an impressive-looking set of pictures, though car traffic doesn’t seem to have a lot of flow to it. But they’ve still got 2+ years to get it all off the ground.